Curt Fransen named new DEQ director
Curt Fransen, deputy director of the Idaho DEQ since 2007, has been named the agency’s director by Gov. Butch Otter. Current Director Toni Hardesty is leaving this week to become the Idaho director of the Nature Conservancy; Otter praised Hardesty as he named Fransen to the post.
“One of the best measures of Toni’s effectiveness as director is the quality of the team she’s built at DEQ, and Curt is ‘Exhibit A,’ ” the governor said in a statement. “Along with Director Hardesty, he’s helped establish a high level of respect for the agency with industry, the environmental community and federal regulators.”
Fransen is an attorney who started with the state as a deputy attorney general in 1983, and moved to Coeur d’Alene in 1997 to represent a number of state agencies on mining cleanup and other North Idaho natural resources issues; he became DEQ’s deputy director in 2007. Fransen said, “I appreciate the support of Gov. Otter and look forward to maintaining and advancing the high standards established at the Department of Environmental Quality by Director Toni Hardesty.” Click below for Otter’s full announcement.
C.L. “Butch” Otter
GOVERNOR
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :
CURT FRANSEN APPOINTED ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY DIRECTOR
(BOISE) – Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter today announced the appointment of Curt Fransen , deputy director of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality since 2007, as the agency’s new director effective with the departure of Director Toni Hardesty.
Hardesty has been DEQ director since 2004, when she was appointed by then-Governor Dirk Kempthorne. She recently resigned, effective Friday, February 24, to become Idaho director of The Nature Conservancy.
“One of the best measures of Toni’s effectiveness as director is the quality of the team she’s built at DEQ. And Curt is ‘Exhibit A.’ Along with Director Hardesty, he’s helped establish a high level of respect for the agency with industry, the environmental community and federal regulators,” Governor Otter said. “I’m grateful for Toni’s leadership and that she enabled and encouraged development of a great bench that now is ready to continue the customer-focused, data-driven, collaborative work for which DEQ has become known.”
Curt Fransen is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of California’s Hastings College of Law. He joined the Attorney General’s Office in 1983 and represented the Department of Health and Welfare’s Division of Health until 1986. From 1986 to 1997, he was chief of the Environmental Quality Section with the Attorney General’s Natural Resources Division, overseeing legal services to DEQ. He moved to Coeur d’Alene in 1997, representing a number of State agencies on mining cleanup and other northern Idaho natural resources issues until becoming DEQ’s deputy director in 2007.
Fransen has served as chair of the Western States Hazardous Waste Project, chair of the Environment and Natural Resources Section of the Idaho State Bar, and on the Steering Committee of the Idaho Environmental Forum. He also has been involved with the Coeur d’Alene Basin Environmental Improvement Commission and the Lake Pend Oreille Commission.
“I appreciate the support of Governor Otter and look forward to maintaining and advancing the high standards established at the Department of Environmental Quality by Director Toni Hardesty,” Fransen said.
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* This story was originally published as a post from the blog "Eye On Boise." Read all stories from this blog