Montana State Office
| Contacts: | Greg Albright 406-896-5260 |
New BLM State Director to be Installed
Jamie Connell will be installed as State Director for the Bureau of Land Management in Montana and the Dakotas on November 8 by the agency’s national director, Robert Abbey.
A short installation ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. at BLM’s Montana State Office, 5001 Southgate Dr. in Billings.
Connell is a Montana native and a 1985 Montana Tech graduate. She began her BLM career in 1985 as a petroleum engineer in Miles City. For the past 18 years, she has been a public land manager for the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service in locations across the West, including Great Falls and Malta; Boise, Idaho; and Montrose, Silverthorne, Glenwood Springs, and Grand Junction, all in Colorado. Since February 2009, Connell has served as the BLM’s Northwest Colorado District Manager. She and her husband John enjoy hiking, skiing, canoeing, upland bird hunting, and fly fishing.
Connell replaces Gene Terland, who retired earlier this year.
In Montana and the Dakotas, BLM has responsibility for 8.3 million acres of public land and 47 million acres of subsurface mineral estate.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, recreational and other activities on BLM-managed land contributed more than $130 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 600,000 American jobs. The Bureau is also one of a handful of agencies that collects more revenue than it spends. In FY 2012, nearly $5.7 billion will be generated on lands managed by the BLM, which operates on a $1.1 billion budget. The BLM's multiple-use mission is to sustain the health and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau accomplishes this by managing such activities as outdoor recreation, livestock grazing, mineral development, and energy production, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on public lands.
Montana State Office 5001 Southgate Drive Billings, MT 59101