At its spring meeting, the board of directors of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership elected Jim Martin, a longtime TRCP board member and biologist who currently is conservation director of the Berkley Conservation Institute, to chair the organization's board. Howard Vincent, president and CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, was elected secretary of the TRCP board.
“I am delighted and humbled to be offered the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of my personal hero Jim Range as board chair of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership,” said Martin. “I look forward to the TRCP working with the rest of the conservation community on conserving and enhancing the fish and wildlife resources and the habitat that is the foundation of hunting and fishing in America.
“Climate change and rapid development in America underscore the urgency of developing a new framework of conservation policy,” Martin continued, “a policy that must be forged while there still is time to secure the outdoors legacy we want to pass on to our kids, as our predecessors like Theodore Roosevelt passed on to us.”
Martin has served on the TRCP board of directors since the organization's inception in 2002. A native Oregonian, Martin spent 30 years working for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, including six years as its fisheries chief. Martin currently serves as conservation director of Pure Fishing's Berkley Conservation Institute, which supports conservation and angler recruitment efforts. Throughout his career, Martin has championed a range of conservation efforts in the name of sportsmen, including salmon restoration projects, addressing the effects of climate change on fish and wildlife populations, clean water protections and increasing youth participation in outdoor activities.
Martin fills the chairman position left vacant since the passing of TRCP co-founder and visionary Jim Range in January. Dr. Rollin Sparrowe served as interim chair of the TRCP board following Range's death.
