A legacy to hang your hat on
Myles Rademan has made a name for himself throughout the West
Summer 2022
Written By: Meredith Kluever | Images: Deborah DeKoff
Mention the name Myles Rademan around town and you’ll hear a handful of different memories, achievements, and stories. A resident of Park City for over three decades, Myles founded Leadership Park City, a program that has fostered many movers and shakers in the community that is now in its 28th year.
From 1989 to 2002, he worked tirelessly to make the 2002 Winter Olympics happen, and led the charge on land preservations and trusts for the city after noticing the town was surrounded by privately owned land.
Myles grew up in Philadelphia and attended college at Temple University where he studied history and political science. He went on to earn both a law and urban planning degree from New York University in 1969.
In 1970, he was recruited west by Jonathan “Skip” Chase, a law professor who made a name for himself by using the law for social justice. When the program fell through, Myles worked as a neighborhood planner in Denver before following friends to the Colorado mountain town of Crested Butte. Myles lived there with his wife, Joy, from 1972 to 1986 and welcomed a son, Bryce.
In addition to starting a family, Myles played a critical role in a face-off between Crested Butte and a big mining company with plans to set up shop on open land and national forest. Myles, alongside other concerned community members, pushed the company to abandon its project in a controversy that was covered by The New York Times and chronicled in many documentaries.
In the mid ’80s, Myles was recruited by Arlene Loble, the first woman to hold the title of city manager in Utah, to be Park City’s planning director. He and his family arrived to a boarded-up Main Street that was weathering a recession. But Myles had big plans, one of which led to one of his most successful ventures to date.
As a fellow under the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance — a network of leaders, innovators, and activists — Myles started looking for a way to instill and cultivate those leadership opportunities in his new hometown. The result was Leadership Park City.
“I just tried to take some of the principles and ethos from what I learned with Kellogg and put it into the context of Park City. We provide a safe space and an interesting space for people to learn about the community. To learn about some of the issues, learn empathy and perspective,” he says.
The self-proclaimed bureaucrat still contracts with the city, runs Leadership Park City, and serves on local boards. “I’ve been amazed that after 20-plus years, we still get 80 to 100 people applying for the leadership program. There’s still passion here for people who want to make Park City home and make it better.”
Now “mostly retired,” Myles and his wife like to travel, e-bike, and watch their son’s successes. (Bryce studied diplomacy and world affairs before launching Spitz, a healthy Mediterranean restaurant chain he dreamed up while traveling in Spain.)
These days, Myles is often asked, “Where to next?” His response, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying put. I’ve been very lucky here. My passion still is to create community. I don’t think towns are ever too big to create community.”
