Welcome! After 8 years with the Department of the Interior, where I served as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer and several other positions, I am now Co-Director of the Center for Management of Ecological Wealth and a Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. and an environmental analyst. My work focuses on landscape-scale conservation; climate change adaptation; greening of business and infrastructure; wildlife, energy and water issues; and science and decision making. In 2009, I served as a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer on climate change at the University of California Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. I co-chair the Large Landscape Conservation Practitioners' Network. I am a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
My childhood experiences hiking, birding and canoeing; my insatiable curiosity about natural systems and community problem-solving; my belief in the importance of individual accountability and opportunity; and my remarkable experiences at the Department of the Interior working with landowners, organizations, and agencies across the Nation who are striving to care for lands, waters, and wildlife shape my intense commitment to cooperative conservation.
The Interior Department manages over 500 million acres of public lands and offshore waters. I became Deputy Secretary at the Department after serving for 4 years as the Department's Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget. I was Acting Secretary of the Department for two months in 2006. During my tenure at the Interior Department, I spearheaded creation of a Cooperative Conservation Task Force, which I chaired, and established a partnership and collaboration office in the department to strengthen interagency cooperation and conservation partnerships with other agencies, states, tribes, local governments and landowners. I also chaired the Department's Climate Change Task Force and served as chair of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council in 2004. I also co-chaired First Lady Laura Bush’s Preserve America initiative to encourage linkages between historic preservation and economic opportunity in communities.
Since leaving the Interior Department, I have written numerous reports and articles on environmental issues and policies, including “Green, Clean, and Dollar Smart,” on urban greening, published in February 2010 by the Environmental Defense Fund; “Landscape-scale Conservation,” co-authored with Matt McKinney and Dan Kemmis and published by the Lincoln Institute, Cambridge, Mass.; “Climate change effects: the intersection of science, policy, and resource management in the USA,” published in the Journal of the North American Benthological Society; an issue brief on endangered species published by Resources for the Future; and reports on such topics as the Farm Bill Conservation program and risk assessment and management of offshore energy production.
I chair the board of the American Hiking Society, and serve on other boards for the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, RESOLVE, and the Consensus-Building Institute. I serve on the advisory board of Marstel-Day (a Virginia-based environmental consulting firm) and also am a strategic advisor to the Washington, D.C.-based Bracy, Tucker, Brown and Valenzano on resource management issues. I am trustee emeritus of the Udall Foundation.
My childhood experiences hiking, birding and canoeing; my insatiable curiosity about natural systems and community problem-solving; my belief in the importance of individual accountability and opportunity; and my remarkable experiences at the Department of the Interior working with landowners, organizations, and agencies across the Nation who are striving to care for lands, waters, and wildlife shape my intense commitment to cooperative conservation.
The Interior Department manages over 500 million acres of public lands and offshore waters. I became Deputy Secretary at the Department after serving for 4 years as the Department's Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget. I was Acting Secretary of the Department for two months in 2006. During my tenure at the Interior Department, I spearheaded creation of a Cooperative Conservation Task Force, which I chaired, and established a partnership and collaboration office in the department to strengthen interagency cooperation and conservation partnerships with other agencies, states, tribes, local governments and landowners. I also chaired the Department's Climate Change Task Force and served as chair of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council in 2004. I also co-chaired First Lady Laura Bush’s Preserve America initiative to encourage linkages between historic preservation and economic opportunity in communities.
Since leaving the Interior Department, I have written numerous reports and articles on environmental issues and policies, including “Green, Clean, and Dollar Smart,” on urban greening, published in February 2010 by the Environmental Defense Fund; “Landscape-scale Conservation,” co-authored with Matt McKinney and Dan Kemmis and published by the Lincoln Institute, Cambridge, Mass.; “Climate change effects: the intersection of science, policy, and resource management in the USA,” published in the Journal of the North American Benthological Society; an issue brief on endangered species published by Resources for the Future; and reports on such topics as the Farm Bill Conservation program and risk assessment and management of offshore energy production.
I chair the board of the American Hiking Society, and serve on other boards for the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, RESOLVE, and the Consensus-Building Institute. I serve on the advisory board of Marstel-Day (a Virginia-based environmental consulting firm) and also am a strategic advisor to the Washington, D.C.-based Bracy, Tucker, Brown and Valenzano on resource management issues. I am trustee emeritus of the Udall Foundation.