January 13, 2005

On February 20, Barrett (Barry) Christenson will officially assume his new role as the Refuge Manager for Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. After spending several days in Honolulu at the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands NWR Complex office, Barry will arrive on Midway on March 3.

He joins us from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has been the Refuge Supervisor for refuges and wetland management districts in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana for the past 2 years. Barry says his “overdeveloped sense of adventure” is what attracts him from America’s heartland to the midst of the Pacific. “I look forward to the challenge of learning and enjoying a new environment,” he says. “I haven’t had the opportunity to work with the marine and bird resources of the Pacific in the past, and of course Midway’s historical significance adds another level of interest.”

Prior to his Refuge Supervisor position, Barry served as the Project Leader for the Litchfield Wetland Management District in Minnesota from 2000-2003. He managed an active land acquisition and management office working with wetlands on the Minnesota prairie. He and his staff worked with a variety of partners such as Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever to restore both uplands and wetlands in the area.

From 1992-2000, Barry was the Project Leader for Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge and the Iowa Wetland Management District in northern Iowa. From 1984 to 1992, he served as the Assistant Refuge Manager at Montezuma NWR in New York, Seedskadee NWR in Wyoming, and Great Meadows NWR in Massachusetts.

He started his career in the Service as a cooperative education student while working on his masters degree at the University of Maine (MS, Wildlife Management), and his first full time position was at the Annapolis Field Office working on Chesapeake Bay. He spent two years as a wildlife biologist at Po National Park in Burkina Faso in west Africa with the Peace Corps after earning his Bachelor of Science in Wildlife from Humboldt State University in 1974.

While anxiously awaiting Barry’s arrival, we send our best wishes and appreciation for a job well done to previous Refuge Manager Tim Bodeen and his family, who are now happily ensconced in Washington State. Tim is the Refuge Manager at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, and has traded his albatross and coral reefs for dusky Canada geese and lesser sandhill cranes, and his Battle of Midway history for a historic Cathlapotle townsite visited by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806.