Public Lands Veteran Named Bureau of Land Management Alaska Director

The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) named public land manager Steven Cohn as the new Director of the Alaska State Office in Anchorage.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning says, “Steve brings twenty-seven years of professional and academic natural resource management experience to his new role. He is a highly skilled and respected policy expert on Alaska public land and resources issues, and his expertise will benefit the BLM and Alaska constituencies we serve.”

As BLM’s state director, Cohn is responsible for overseeing the management of 70 million surface acres and 220 million acres of federal sub-surface mineral estate. He also oversees 650 permanent staff and approximately 200 seasonal employees who help manage public land uses and resources, including the Federal Subsistence Management Program, the Alaska Land Transfer Program, the National Petroleum Reserve, and the Trans Alaskan Pipeline System.

Cohn is returning to BLM from The Nature Conservancy, where he was the Alaska state director since 2018. His career in federal service began with BLM more than two decades ago as a presidential management fellow. Before he left in 2018, he was BLM Alaska’s deputy state director for resources. He held many other assignments throughout his service in the bureau, including Utah associate state director (acting), division chief for the National Landscape Conservation System, and the branch chief (acting) for Planning and NEPA. Cohn was also a field manager at BLM’s Hassayampa Field Office in Phoenix, Arizona and an assistant field manager in Prineville, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona.