Mike Connor
Two key sportsmen’s groups on Tuesday praised President Barack Obama’s nomination of Mike Connor to be Interior deputy secretary.

Connor is the commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, and was counsel on the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 2001 to 2009. He served in the Interior secretary’s Indian Water Rights Office as director from 1999 to 2001 and deputy director from 1998 to 1999.

He worked as an attorney in a number of offices at Interior from 1993 to 1997, including the Southwestern Regional Solicitor’s Office, the Division of Indian Affairs, and the Solicitor’s Honors Program.

He was a research assistant in the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado from 1991 to 1993, and from 1984 to 1990, worked as a professional engineer in a variety of roles.

He received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from New Mexico State University and a law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law.

“He has demonstrated a rare set of skills,” Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, said in a news release. “He possesses superior policy savvy, and he’s balanced and fair in his approach to all stakeholders. He has a positive, can-do attitude that inspires all who work with him. The sportsmen and women of Trout Unlimited welcome the opportunity to work with Mike in his new job.”

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership noted that the Interior deputy secretary works closely with the Interior secretary and directs management decisions governing many federal public lands, energy development on those lands, fish and wildlife populations, water reserves and other public resources.

Jimmy Hague, director of the TRCP Center for Water Resources, said in a news release, “I commend the president’s excellent decision in advancing this nomination. As deputy secretary, Mr. Connor would have the ability to further improve Interior’s management of water resources for the benefit of hunting and fishing, both of which are important economic drivers for communities all across the American West.”