When Administrations changed in January 2001, Jones led the 8,000-employee Fish and Wildlife Service for more than a year while Steve Williams of Kansas was awaiting confirmation as the agencys new director.
As Acting Director, Jones moved quickly to promote a new relationship between the states and the Service, instituting biweekly meetings throughout the year with State leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern and challenging all the agencys senior executives to do likewise in their own regions and program areas. The push to build bridges to the states was not new for Jones, he had done the same thing when he managed the Services International Affairs program.
Jones also worked tirelessly to improve the Services relationship with its employees. In one of his most ambitious efforts, he managed to meet personally with nearly 15 percent of the agencys total workforce to gather information and answer questions during the transition period.
At the same time, Jones pushed to actively recruit and mentor minority employees and helped the Service become a leader within the Department of the Interior in that area, selecting the Services first female African-American for a Senior Executive Service (SES) slot. Jones has also pushed hard for management reform, implementing changes that link senior managers performance evaluations to accomplishment of strategic goals. He also moved vigorously to revitalize the agencys struggling fisheries program, asking the Sport Fishing and Boating Partnership Council to help develop a new fisheries strategic vision.
"Marshall Jones set the standard for civil servants who are thrust into the political arena as acting directors, knowing that the job is temporary and that they would return to their old jobs in a matter of time," said Service Director Williams. "His diligence, foresight and extremely conscientious management went a long way to making my transition relatively easy. He is an enormous credit to this agency."
In 1998, Jones initiated a long-term, Service-wide effort to streamline wildlife permit programs. He pioneered the use of risk assessments to adjust the information required from applicants, balancing the need for protection of endangered species with the benefits of commercial trade in species that are not at risk.
As Assistant Director for International Affairs prior to moving to the directors immediate staff, Jones administered the Services involvement in bilateral and multilateral conservation efforts, including the U.S. Management and Scientific Authorities for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Ramsar Wetlands Convention and the listing of foreign species and administration of international wildlife permits under U.S. conservation laws. He also administered programs that assist conservation efforts for elephants, tigers, rhinos, migratory birds and other species around the world.
Jones has also served in Washington as chief of the CITES Management Authority from 1999-1994; as Acting Chief of the division of Ecological Services in 1987; in the Services Southeast Region as Chief of the Regional Endangered Species Division from 1984-1987 and before that, as a comprehensive planning specialist in the Regional Division of Federal Aid; and as Acting Chief of the Endangered Species Division in the Services Regional Office in Denver in 1978. He began his career as a biologist and technical writer in the Office of Endangered Species in Washington, D.C., in 1975.
Jones 29 years of federal service includes stints with the U.S. Army and with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Jones majored in zoology and English at the University of Michigan, received an MS degree in vertebrate ecology from Murray State University in Kentucky and did additional graduate work at Cornell University. He served with the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1971. He lives in Washington, Virginia, with his wife, Cornelia Clay Fulghum, a writer from Augusta, Georgia, and has a daughter, Erin Jones, of Nashville.
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. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge system which encompasses 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 70 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the ndangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant isheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
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For more information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, visit the agencys home page at http://www.fws.gov
