The Bureau of Land Management recently announced Public Land Manager Steven Cohn's appointment as the new director of the bureau's Alaska state office in Anchorage.
Cohn, who has been state director of The Nature Conservancy in Alaska since March 2018, will replace Acting Director Tom Heinlein, who is expected to return to his role as BLM Anchorage district manager, according to a BLM news release issued May 6.
"Steve brings 27 years of professional and academic natural resource management experience to his new role," BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning said in the news release. "He is a highly skilled and respected policy expert on Alaska public land and resources issues and his expertise will benefit the BLM and Alaska constituencies we serve."
As Alaska BLM state director, Cohn is expected to oversee approximately 70 million surface acres of public lands and about 220 million acres of subsurface mineral estate, according to the news release. He will oversee a permanent staff of 650, in addition to about 200 seasonal employees, who help manage public land use and resources, including Federal Subsistence Management and Alaska Land Transfer programs and the National Petroleum Reserve. Staff also oversee the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System.
Cohn's previous career in federal service, spanning more than two decades, included stints as a presidential management fellow, BLM Alaska’s Deputy State Director for Resources and "many other important assignments throughout the west," the news release said. His other positions at BLM included acting Utah associate state director, division chief for the National Landscape Conservation System and acting branch chief.
