Waynesboro native graduates from National Convservation Leadership Institute

Emily Jo Williams, Assistant Regional Director for Migratory Birds and State Programs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, Colorado recently graduated from the National Conservation Leadership Institute, a sevenmonth course to address one of the nation's most significant conservation challenges - preparing and retaining leaders. Williams is one of 35 chosen for the inaugural class.

In the next 10 years, nearly onethird of today's natural resource leaders will retire. According to research conducted in 2004, about 77 percent of state fish and wildlife agency senior leadership will retire by 2015, and more than half of federal conservation leaders will retire by the end of 2007.

"To be chosen among a nation of conservation professionals to take part in the inaugural class of the National Conservation Leadership Institute is a great honor," says Williams. "NCLI was a career altering experience - not a class, not a workshop, not a training opportunity - a complete experience that allowed me to learn so much about myself as a professional and to grow as a wildlife professional through interactions with incredible instructors and the other Fellows. The institute is tackling a very important topic head on - the fact that many of conservation's current leaders are about to retire, and the legacy they leave behind will need to continue."

The National Conservation Leadership Institute was created to better equip tomorrow's conservation leaders in the latest leadership thinking and practice, and each Fellow learns from the nation's most influential conservation leaders and leadership experts including Harvard's Kennedy School of Leadership professor Marty Linsky, co-author of the book, Leadership on the Line. Through the Institute, 22 state fish and wildlife employees, six federal conservation agency employees, one tribal member, three industry employees and three nongovernmental agency employees worked together over the past seven months on priority leadership challenges and solutions.

"This year, more than sixty natural resource organizations nominated employees to participate in this groundbreaking leadership experience," says Steve Williams, chairman of the institute board and president of the Wildlife Management Institute. "Out of the sixty, the leadership institute selected thirty-five Fellows for this year's cohort. Those selected represented a diverse mix of people and perspectives from across the country and across organizational boundaries. We believe that the institute will have powerful results."

In fall 2006, the 35 Fellows conquered the institute's intense 10- day residency at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. In early May, the Fellows re-convened at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Mo., to present the results of their five-month leadership challenge projects where they had individually experimented with their learning from the fall and carried out real, in-the-trenches applications.

Williams is the daughter of Wilkes B. Williams and the late Joty Williams of Sylvania, formerly of Waynesboro. After growing up in Waynesboro and graduating from Edmund Burke Academy, she went on to earn B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forest Resources, majoring in wildlife biology.

She worked for 14 years for the Wildlife Resources Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, as a regional biologist in mountainous northeast Georgia and then as the statewide Partners in Flight Neotropical Bird Conservation Coordinator. In January of 2004, she joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Assistant Regional Director for Migratory Birds and State Programs in the southeast and in March of 2007 moved to that position in the Rocky Mountains and western prairies, stationed in Denver. She has been particularly active in strategically addressing the service's responsibility to provide leadership in conservation and management of migratory birds including waterfowl, land birds, shorebirds and waterbirds. She also works in development and guidance for Joint Venture partnerships that bring together various public and private partners and their resources to accomplish the landscape level planning, conservation design, and implementation needed to ensure healthy and sustainable populations of migratory birds.

Williams supervises the Federal Assistance program in the Service's eight-state Mountain-Prairie Region that administers and supports over 14 grant programs to State Wildlife Agencies. She is a nationally recognized leader in neotropical bird conservation and received the award for Outstanding Contributions in Leadership from Partners in Flight. While working with the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division, she was recognized as Biologist of the Year.

She is married to John Murphy, a former Conservation Law Enforcement Officer with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who will continue to work in law enforcement in Colorado.