Sara Parker Pauley is the director of the Missouri Department of Conservation and former president of the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. In each of those roles she was the first woman to serve.

Education

Pauley grew up in

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth ...

and was interested in conservation from a young age. She received her secondary education at Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. Pauley attended the University of Missouri earning both a bachelor's degree in journalism and a law degree.

Career

After her education, Pauley worked for the conservation engagement company D.J. Case & Associates and as a policy analyst for the Missouri Department of Conservation. In 2010, Pauley was appointed to serve as director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, a position she held for six years. In 2016, Pauley was appointed as director of the Missouri

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

, a position she retains as of 2022. She is the first woman to hold the position of director. She has led the effort to establish the Boone County Nature School at Three Creeks Conservation Area. and views this as one of her favorite projects. In 2020 she was elected to a one-year term as president of the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. Pauley has also served as an executive-in-residence at the University of Missouri. She has spoken about water quality issues and natural areas while in that role. Pauley has talked about her work in multiple venues. In 2021, she elaborated about the collaborative effort needed for conservation efforts in an article in a Nature Conservancy publication, and shared changes in how people think about conservation. She spoke before the United States Senate in support of the 2021 Recovering America's Wildlife Act, and has worked with Senator Roy Blunt to share the bill with people from Missouri. Parker is included in a 2021 book by

Francis Nenik Francis Nenik works as a farmer and writes in his free time. He has published several novels. Current works include ''XO'' (a novel in the form of a loose-leaf collection) as well as a collection of short stories with strict alliteration (2013). H ...

that details the administration of Donald Trump.

Awards and honors

In 2012 Pauley was named one of two "Conservation Partners of the Year" by Bass Pro Shops. In 2016, she received the President's Award from the Environmental Council of States. In 2017, the Columbia Public Schools Foundation named Pauley as an outstanding alumni. In 2019 she accepted the Governor's Award for Innovation on behalf of the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Discover Nature Schools program.

References

External links

Como Magazine interview with Pauley
February 25, 2021
HER Magazine profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pauley, Sara University of Missouri alumni Living people 21st-century American women Women conservationists Year of birth missing (living people) University of Missouri School of Law alumni Hickman High School alumni American conservationists People from Columbia, Missouri