Dr. William Uihlein Named New Assistant Regional Director for Science Applications
Dr. William B. Uihlein III. Photo by USFWS.
September 17, 2010
Contact:
Tom MacKenzie, Tom_MacKenzie@fws.gov, 404/679-7291
Dr. William B. Uihlein III will be the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Assistant Regional Director for Science Applications in the agency’s Southeast Region, Regional Director Cynthia Dohner announced today.
“Bill comes to this position with a contagious passion for our nation’s natural resources and a deep commitment to strengthening the application of science and technology in the interest of conserving those fish and wildlife resources,” Dohner said. “As an agency, the Service is committed to using sound science as the foundation for the resource decisions we make. This new position will ensure we continue to apply sound, scientific thinking.”
”I look forward to contributing in a significant way to help position the Service and the broader conservation community to respond to large-scale stressors such as climate change,” Uihlein said. “I’m very excited to help define this new position and I will strive to align it so the Service can utilize science to inform and reinforce our resource management decisions.”
In this role, he will play an even broader role helping the Service expand its work with partners to advance shared conservation goals through the growth and development of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. He was instrumental in the Service’s early work to establish LCCs and played a key role in the implementation of Strategic Habitat Conservation framework. His leadership will help the Service and its partners use these tools to address environmental stressors such as the impacts of accelerating climate change.
Uihlein brings significant experience to this post. Most recently, his work as the Lower Mississippi Valley Joint Venture partnership’s coordinator stands out. The LMVJV partnership has earned national and international recognition for its collaborative efforts to develop innovative approaches in the application of science and technology to increase the biological efficiency and effectiveness of conservation actions. In the past two years for example, Uihlein and his team were instrumental in the establishment of “conservation delivery networks” to support the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. This work recently attracted the Walton Family Foundation’s attention with a $1 million grant.
He has provided key leadership in collaborating and directing science-based assessments at landscape and eco-regional scales, and putting in place decision-based monitoring and evaluation projects aimed at measuring the predicted biological response and conservation effectiveness. He has served on numerous regional and national teams for the Service responsible for advancing the science and technical theory, concepts, and practices of landscape conservation.
Uihlein was raised the son of a preacher and ranch foreman. It was while working and slogging around in the fields, hills, and rivers on the ranch and on our nation’s public lands that his parents instilled in him the values of conservation. He took his experiences in ranching and his interests in fishing, hiking, hunting, camping and birding to the classroom, earning a B.S. and M.S. in Wildlife and Ecology at Eastern New Mexico University, followed by a PhD in ecology from the College of Forest Resources at Mississippi State University.
Uihlein and his wife Grace, a special education teacher, are the parents of three boys.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. Visit the Service’s website at http://www.fws.gov or http://www.fws.gov/southeast/
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. For more information, visit http://www.fws.gov or http://www.fws.gov/southeast.
