Martha Williams

Director Martha Williams stands outdoors, smiling, with arms folded, wearing a blue shirt with FWS logo. Behind her is a wooded area.
Director
Address

U.S Fish and Wildlife Service
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
United States

(800) 344-9453

About Martha Williams

Growing up on a farm in Maryland, Martha Williams gained an appreciation for open lands, waters, wildlife, and people. This passion led her to the wild places of the West and a career spent fostering a love of the outdoors and stewarding the protection of natural resources.

On March 8, 2022, Williams was sworn in as the 23rd Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Williams was appointed to the Service as Principal Deputy Director in January 2021. Preceding her appointment, she served as the Director of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks from 2017 to 2020. As State Director, Williams delivered leadership that embraced the diversity of Montana’s natural resources and outdoor recreational values that also incorporated public expectations and values into the agency’s direction. Representing Montana and the state perspective, Williams chaired the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee and was a member of Joint Federal/State Task Force on Federal Assistance Policy. She also served a term as the Vice President of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Previously, Williams was an Assistant Professor of Law at the Blewett School of Law at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. In addition to teaching fundamental environmental law courses related to public lands and resources, property, climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.

Learn more about climate change , and wildlife, Williams co-directed the university’s Land Use and Natural Resources Clinic and co-supervised the Public Land and Resources Law Review and the Environmental Law Group.

During the Obama Administration, Williams served as Deputy Solicitor Parks and Wildlife at the Department of the Interior for two years, providing counsel to the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service on issues arising in parks and recreation, fish and wildlife, environmental protection, natural resources assessment and restoration, and land and water conservation law.

From 1988-2011, Williams was agency legal counsel for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, where she advised and represented the department on real estate transactions, Endangered Species Act policy and litigation, and on state and national environmental policy acts. During her tenure, she also taught continuing legal education classes on real property law and on public participation in government.

Williams earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Montana School of Law. Williams is a hunter and an angler.

In The News

A smiling group stands in a frozen salt marsh
Climate Change
Salt marsh is the keystone to coastal conservation
On a cold January morning, snow blanketing the ground and stuck to tree trunks and branches, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Martha Williams, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, met with partners and collaborators in New Hampshire.
One person hands a large tortoise to another person, with desert grasslands in the background.
Endangered Species Act
How Gertie the Bolson Tortoise Led Her Species to Recovery Part Two
In the 1950s in Mexico, scientists first described a new species of North American tortoise. In the 1970s Several of these Bolson tortoises we brought to the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch including the first, a large female tortoise named Gertie, whose age is unknow, but experts estimate she’s...
A group of people hold a large fish over a tank of water
Endangered Species Act
Marking 50 years of conservation successes in Michigan
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams toured two national wildlife refuges in Michigan this week as she celebrated National Wildlife Refuge Week and highlighted the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.
A person in a black shirt and gray pants, standing on a wooden platform looks away from the camera through binoculars, at green vegetation, the ocean, and blue sky.
Recreation
A View for All
Service Director Martha Williams visited a Rhode Island national wildlife refuge to mark the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act by taking in the view from a new, ADA-accessible platform built with act funds.
5 spread-out people in lush area
Habitat Restoration
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: 2022 Annual Report
At its core, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a significant investment in the nation’s infrastructure and economic competitiveness. For the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the funding will build on proven projects, programs and partnerships that protect our cherished wildlife and natural...
Sage underneath a blue sky
Land Management
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Provides $10 Million to Sagebrush Projects in the West
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced $10 million in fiscal year 2023 funds from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support over 50 projects in western states to restore and conserve strategic areas within the sagebrush ecosystem.