User:Marcinus PhD/sandbox/Mamie Parker

Mamie Parker is an American biologist, executive coach, facilitator, and inspirational speaker from Arkansas. She holds a PhD in limnology from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She was the first Black woman to serve as the Assistant Director of Fisheries and Habitat Conservation and the first Black woman to serve as the Northeast Service Regional Director for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). She also served as USFWS Chief of Staff and Chief of Fisheries.

Early life and education
Parker was born and raised in Arkansas. Her interest in the outdoors started in childhood, inspired by her mother, and her interest in biology began in high school when a biology teacher introduced her to issues of environmental degradation. Parker holds a BS in biology from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), and an MS in fish and wildlife management and PhD in limnology, both from the University of Wisconsin-GreenBay (UW). Her work at UW included researching ways to clean contaminants and pollutants from the Great Lakes and its tributaries. She has also completed executive leadership training at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Career
Parker was inspired to join the USFWS when Hannibal Bolton, a 1971 alumnus of the UAPB, visited the university to recruit students for a USFWS internship. She completed two internships with the USFWS, one in Wisconsin and one in Minnesota. She then moved to work for USFWS in the Columbia, Missouri Ecological Services Office, where she worked on providing ecological recommendations for federal permits and projects. She later was reassigned to work in the Missouri Boothel region, the Minneapolis regional office, and the Southeastern Regional Office in Atlanta, where she was appointed Deputy Chief of Fisheries.

In 2003, she was appointed USFWS Assistant Director of Fisheries and Habitat Conservation. In this position, she provided leadership on national projects, including projects to conserve national coastal resources, and served as the facilitator at the White House Conference on the Environment. She was awarded the Presidential Rank Award, the highest award given to government employees, for her leadership in the creation of the National Fish Habitat Action Partnership.

Parker also served as special assistant to the director (now known as Chief of Staff) in the USFWS headquarters in Washington D.C. where she worked with programs in all 50 states.

Awards and honors

 * Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame
 * UAPB Hall of Fame
 * The Council of World Women Leaders awarded her with an Aspen Institute Fellowship where she worked in the Kingdom of Lesotho and in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa.
 * Department of Interior’s Silver Award, presented by the Secretary of the USFWS
 * Presidential Rank Award
 * Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
 * 2015: Champion of the Chesapeake from Chesapeake Conservancy
 * 2018: William K. Reilly Award from American University School of Public Affairs’ Center for Environmental Policy