Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) has hired former U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) staffer Jessica Wahl as its Washington D.C.-based recreation policy manager. Wahl will promote OIAs recreation policy goals, focusing on securing increased funding and access for the national outdoor recreation system and federal public land policies that support outdoor recreation.



Wahl will work from OIAs Washington, D.C., offices, which the organization established in 2012 to advance the outdoor industrys recreation, trade and business policy agendas on Capitol Hill. She will play a key role in policy development and analysis, political engagement and grassroots organizing.


Wahl comes to OIA from DOI, where she worked in the office of the secretary and the directors office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She began her career in DOIs external affairs office, working on stakeholder engagement and outreach for the secretarys office and the DOIs bureaus. In 2010, she joined DOIs newly established Office of Youth in the Great Outdoors, where she coordinated national listening sessions, strategy and implementation of the Americas Great Outdoors Youth Report to the president. In this role, Wahl also managed the first ladys Lets Move Outside! and Lets Move! In Indian Country initiatives on behalf of the DOI and other agencies.


A native of Rochester, N.Y., Wahl received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in American government and politics from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.