Reflections of a USPS board member at Ansel Adams event

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

In the heart of Yosemite National Park, in Yosemite Valley, the United States Postal Service dedicated the 16 new Ansel Adams forever stamps that showcase his photography.

Before the event, Linn’s Stamp News was able to interview USPS board of governors member Daniel Tangherlini about the new stamp issue.

Tangherlini has been a member of the USPS board since May 2022, and his term expires in December 2027. On the board, he chairs the Audit and Finance Committee.

Related to Ansel Adams, what specifically drew you to wanting to be here today to dedicate this postage stamp?

You are here with me today on what is perhaps the most brilliant kind of beautiful bluebird day surrounded by just some of our most significant national treasures. I think it kind of answers itself.

I mean, there’s just nothing more kind of iconic and just beautiful than some of those images that Mr. Adams produced for us and aligned for us in our busy kind of workaday world. We should stop and recognize what’s all around us in terms of beauty and wonder and all.

On the drive into the park this morning you stated you came in from the El Portal area. What did you note on the drive?

So it turns out that was the direction that Ansel Adams came on his first trip to Yosemite Valley when he was 14 in a train. The Yosemite Valley Railroad stopped in El Portal, and we were just up from there.

He took a bus up and came past the first falls, Cascade Falls. We stopped there this morning to marvel.

And you just come in, and then it just opens up in front of you with Bridal Veil.

And we had to stop and salute El Capitan.

So on that drive up here or whatever, it obviously just keeps going in this landscape. It’s beautiful and everything. There’s nothing around.

Is there an extra appreciation that you had on that drive for what the Postal Service has to do to get mail here and to the outside?

The first stop was actually in the post office when I met Patrick.

Just an absolutely wonderful postal worker who feels like he won the postal lottery to be assigned here.

It just reinforces, you know, this complex, this beautiful magic machine that we’ve built that touches 116 million individual addresses, that creates this kind of magical physical bond between people by, you know, hand
delivering.

I think it reminds us that while we need to preserve and respect and admire places like this, we need to preserve and respect and admire some of these things that we’ve built as a society to support, you know, to support that society.

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