Right Place - Right Time?

To say the least, the path which Jamie Clark took to the Service's directorship was unusual. In fact, in the prefatory remarks to Senator Chafee's supplemental written question to nominee Clark, the Senator hit the nail on the head when he stated, "It is rare indeed when a career civil servant rises through the ranks to become the director of an agency, particularly in the span of time you have been with the Fish and Wildlife Service."

How, then, did Director Clark, a career civil servant with only 8 years experience with the Service, achieve this remarkable feat? Well, for one thing, it appears that Director Clark was in the proverbial right place at the right time. In order to fully appreciate how this unprecedented event occurred, one has to briefly look back at Clark's credentials.

As mentioned, Jamie Clark's formative years were those of a military daughter. This fact evidently served her well, as she was able to obtain post-graduate employment for two years as a wildlife biologist for the National Institute for Urban Wildlife. Subsequent to this, Clark worked as a research biologist for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for a year and a half. Between 1984 and 1988, she was the Natural/Cultural Resources Program Manager for the National Guard Bureau. In 1988, Clark served briefly as the Fish and Wildlife Administrator for the Department of the Army, where she was the lead technical authority for fish and wildlife management on Army installations worldwide.

In 1989, Clark started her career with the Service as a senior staff biologist in the Service's Endangered Species Division in Washington, D.C., with primary responsibilities for the Pacific Northwest Region. Within two years (in 1991), Clark accepted the position of Deputy Assistant Regional Director for the Service's Southwest Regional headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Southwest Region encompassed the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In this position she was the principal advisor on all aspects of the Endangered Species Act, including policy development and implementation, budget execution, public outreach, and coordination. Coincidentally, John Rogers, the Service's most recent Acting Director, and the Service's current Deputy Director, became the Southwest region's Deputy Regional Director a year later, in 1992. For almost 2 years Clark and Rogers worked closely with one another in Albuquerque.

In 1994, a fortuitous break came her way - Clark was named to the Washington, D.C.-based position of Assistant Director for Ecological Services. In her capacity as Assistant Director for Ecological Services, Clark had a number of duties, including responsibility for the Endangered Species Act; wetland and upland habitat restoration activities as well as federal permit coordination and reviews. Thus, within just five years of coming to work for the Service, Clark was taking the Service lead in both developing and implementing national policy in the areas of wetlands, environmental contaminants, and endangered species.

At this same time, Vice President Gore's National Performance Review was under way. In this regard, the White House and its Office of Environmental Policy (OEP) was formulating a new approach to environmental conservation, one which would supposedly ensure a sustainable economy while, at the same time, achieve a sustainable environment through ecosystem management. In fact, the OEP convened an Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force for the express purpose of exploring how various Federal agencies could best contribute to the emerging ecosystem management program. Among her other duties as Assistant Director for Ecological Services, Clark represented both the Service as well as the entire Department of Interior in these White House-sponsored inter-agency working groups.

Of equal significance, was the fact that, in her capacity as Assistant Director for Ecological Services, Clark was responsible for personally assisting the Service Director in delivering the Service's endangered species program nationwide. It was here that Clark first began working directly with the Service's late Director, Mollie Beattie. The timing was also propitious for Clark, as in her position as Assistant Director of Ecological Services, she was required to work closely with Director Beattie on important issues such as the pending revisions to the Nation's Endangered Species Act (ESA). Apparently, Clark and Mollie Beattie bonded quite closely. Among other matters, the two of them made regular sojourns to Congress as the ambassadors designate for the White House and the Department of Interior. Their intent was to broker a backroom deal on the fate of the revisions and amendments to the Endangered Species Act, an act which both President Clinton, Vice President Gore and Secretary Bruce Babbitt felt certain the Republican-controlled Congress was attempting to eviscerate. It seems that over time, Clark and Mollie Beattie became virtual holy crusaders in their joint battle to save what they perceived to be the ultimate threat of undoing the Nation's Endangered Species Act. In what also appeared to be, at first blush anyway, a replay of an episode of Two Fat Ladies doing battle with Britain's penchant for pomp and circumstance, these two women were tackling the Republican and male-dominated Congress with unmitigated vengeance.

Furthermore, in what can only be described as a classic case of déja vu all over again, and as a direct result of the announced retirement of Richard Smith, in March, 1995, the position of the Service's Deputy Directorship opened up. Although it is uncertain who actually put in the good word for John Rogers, the fact remains that in May, 1995, John Rogers, Clark's former boss in Albuquerque, NM, was named by the late Mollie Beattie as the Service's new Deputy Director.

With the environmental battles between the Republican-controlled Congress and the Democratic President raging at full tilt, Mollie Beattie first learned that she had been diagnosed as having an incurable form of brain cancer. At the point she was unable to carry on with her arduous Congressional battles, sometime in late 1995, Mollie Beattie handed over the reins of the Service to the Deputy Director, John Rogers. Although Rogers accepted the position as the Service's Acting Director, he let it be known to all that he wasn't truly interested in the position on a permanent basis. At last, Clark's fate was cast, as the President and Interior Secretary Babbitt were now compelled to search for a permanent replacement for Mollie Beattie.

Again, as fate would have it, the unsinkable Mollie Beattie was down, but she was definitely not out. In what appeared to be a veritable deathbed request from this undeniably admirable woman, the dying Director asked Secretary Babbitt to promise her that he would look within the ranks of the Service for her, Beattie's, replacement. With Clark continuing on essentially all alone with the Congressional environmental battles, and presumably as a result of their close relationship, and no doubt as a consequence of Beattie's fierce concerns for the vitality of the Endangered Species Act, Beattie clearly put in a good word for Clark. On June 28, 1996, Mollie Beattie died after a valiant one-year struggle against brain cancer.

Speaking of déja vu all over again, at her formal swearing-in ceremony, a ceremony which shared an eerie resemblance to her earlier wedding at Matagorda Island NWR, Director Clark once again found herself giving an oath of allegiance at a NWR, this time, though, the NWR was the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland. The Patuxent Research Refuge, by the way, is the home of a flock of captive-bred Whooping cranes. Evidently, it turns out that the endangered Whooping cranes of Matagorda Island NWR aren't the most cooperative birds known to the Service. It seems that a Whooping crane lays two eggs, but elects to raise only one offspring at a time. The second egg usually suffers a fate of death by abandonment. Of course, this doesn't sit too well with the Service, especially since the Whooping crane is on the ESA's endangered species list. Hence, not too long ago the Service began the practice of collecting the second Whooping crane egg and has since established a separate captive-bred colony of the endangered birds at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland.

As he expressly confirmed in his remarks at the Director's swearing-in ceremony on September 16, 1997, and after acknowledging the presence of Beattie's husband, Rick Schwolsky, Babbitt verified for all the attending audience to hear that he, Secretary Babbitt, was indeed keeping his promise to his former friend and confidante Beattie, inasmuch as he had selected the Service's new Director not only from within the ranks of the Service, but he had also hand-picked Beattie's good friend and faithful protégéé, Jamie Clark, as heir to Beattie's cherished wilderness throne.