For immediate release Dec. 16, 2008

Contact: Steven Hall, 303-239-3672

BLM announces new Northwest Colorado District Manager

Lakewood, Colo.--Jamie Connell has been selected as the District Manager for the Bureau of Land Management’s newly created Northwest Colorado District. She will move into the position within a few months.

Jamie is currently the Glenwood Springs Field Manager, and has been on assignment as the Acting Associate State Director for BLM in Wyoming. Jamie is the first of three district managers who will be hired in Colorado.

“Jamie has been successful in bringing together different points of view to find innovative solutions to managing the public’s lands,” BLM Colorado State Director Sally Wisely said. “I’m pleased that the BLM and the people of Western Colorado will be able to continue to benefit from her innovative, creative approach to the challenges facing all of us.”

The Northwest Colorado District will be based in Grand Junction and includes the BLM Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs, White River (Meeker), Little Snake (Craig) and Kremmling field offices. Managers for the two other new BLM districts in Colorado, the Southwest and Front Range districts, will be selected in the next few months.

“I am looking forward to my new position and the challenges facing the BLM in northwest Colorado,” Jamie said. “Adding a district level to BLM Colorado will help bring management decisions closer to the areas most affected by those decisions.”

Jamie became the Glenwood Springs Field Manager in January 2003. Prior to 2003 she served as the District Ranger for the White River National Forest in Dillon, Colorado.

Jamie began her career with the BLM in 1985 as a petroleum engineer in Miles City, Mont. For the past 18 years, Jamie has been a public lands manager for the US Forest Service and the BLM in Great Falls, Mont.; Malta, Mont.; Montrose, Colo.; Boise, Idaho; and Summit County, Colo.  Her experience ranges from overseeing significant levels of energy development on BLM public lands to managing the largest alpine skiing permits on America’s National Forests. 

Jamie received a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering from Montana Tech in 1985.

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