Candidate Turns Down Wildlife Post

Tue., Nov. 10, 1998

From Staff

A citizens board will try again to find somebody to lead the troubled Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, after its first choice turned down the job.

Rodney Sando, Minnesota’s natural resources chief, on Monday turned down an offer to head the agency “for family reasons,” Washington officials said.

Sando was chosen from four finalists, who reportedly included Rolland Schmitten, assistant administrator for fisheries in the U.S. Commerce Department; Steve Meyer, director of the state Conservation Commission, and Jim Kramer, head of a nonprofit group called Puget Sound Waterways and former director of the King County Surface Water Management Division.

Kramer confirmed he was a candidate, Meyer would not comment and Schmitten could not be reached for comment, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

Commission member Will Roehl said the panel would meet late this afternoon in executive session to decide whether to offer the $96,000-a-year job to one of the other three candidates. The Fish and Wildlife Commission’s action came months after it forced Bern Shanks to resign. Pushed by an angry Legislature, the commission blamed Shanks for a budget debacle that left the department millions of dollars in the red.

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