Mark brings over 32 years of public land and National Forest management experience to the MSI Board. Mark’s career included working in Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, D.C., and Colorado. While working in Washington, D.C., Mark was temporarily assigned to the Immediate Office of the Secretary of the Interior, working for Secretary Bruce Babbitt as a Congressional Liaison dealing with grazing management reform and military base realignment and closing. In 2013, Mark retired as the Supervisor of the San Juan National Forest, a position he had held for nearly 11 years.
Mark’s career involved an extremely wide range of management issues and uses including such things as public land grazing, wild horse management, coal leasing and development, oil and gas leasing and development, wilderness management, lands and realty, abandoned mined land cleanup, timber management, recreation management, fire and fuels management, Native American grave protection and repatriation, and special area designation.
While working in Colorado, Mark was involved in the designation of the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area and Wilderness, McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area and Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Hermosa Creek Special Management Area and Wilderness, and Chimney Rock National Monument. As the San Juan National Forest Supervisor, Mark served as the Agency Administrator for numerous large wildfires including Missionary Ridge Complex, Little Sand Fire, and the West Fork Complex.
These combined experiences led to Mark serving as a national instructor for land use planning, coal leasing, wilderness management, grazing management, Native American tribal consultation, and fire management. Mark holds a B.S. in Wildlife Biology and M.S. in Economics, both from Colorado State University.
