Retirees leave DFG with new feel for '09

Published online on Wednesday, Jan. 07, 2009

Significant change is under way at the Department of Fish and Game following the retirement of three senior managers with more than a century of combined experience of ecological policy making and protecting natural resources.

Staff at the DFG's Region 4 office in Fresno have bid farewell to regional manager Bill Loudermilk, aquatics program manager Dale Mitchell and executive-level biologist Randy Kelly. Their last day was Dec. 31.

All fish biologists by training, Loudermilk, Mitchell and Kelly leave a trail of policies and programs throughout the 12-county region that stretches from the Central Coast to the Sierra Nevada crest.

"It's a huge transition, one that's going to take a while to sink in," DFG personnel specialist Krista Lowenthal said.

Steve Haugen, who worked with all three men as watermaster of the Kings River Water Association, added, "That's an awful lot of experience to walk out the door hand in hand."

The DFG's Region 4 includes 160 permanent employees, four fish hatcheries, four wildlife areas and several ecological reserves, and has an average annual budget of $15 million.

Although headquartered in the same building on Shaw Avenue, these resource managers and biologists are a separate branch of the DFG from the law-enforcement division.

Loudermilk's replacement is Jeffrey Single, the region's terrestrial program manager since 2000. Mitchell's position is vacant, as is the one Single just vacated. Kelly has spent the past few years away from the regional office while supervising one of the department's highest-profile fisheries projects.

Single said all three men spread not only their vast knowledge but also a sense of commitment and motivation to help protect the state's natural resources.

"It's daunting, but they've left a legacy," Single said. "They've also left their phone numbers, which I'm sure I'll be calling.

"We'll do the best we can."

Loudermilk, 59, said he was looking forward to working in the private sector and lending time to the DFG as a volunteer as well as devoting more time to hunting, fishing and traveling.

As regional manager since 1999, Loudermilk played a key role in helping shape statewide DFG policies and procedures in areas ranging from budgets and litigation to endangered species, land usage and food safety.

"This job goes far beyond hunting and fishing," he said.

During his 34 years with the DFG, Loudermilk supervised salmon restoration projects on the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers, co-founded the Salmonoids in the Classroom education program that has spread to 100 area classrooms and helped steer the Kings River Fisheries Management Program that ensures year-round flows in the tailwater fishery east of Fresno.

For the past two years, Loudermilk said he and Mitchell sought ways to mitigate the impact of their retirements by ensuring remaining staff received the training they would need to succeed in supervisory roles.

"One of the jobs of a manager is to build a bench for the future," Loudermilk said. "I feel very good about the transition. The region is in good hands."

Mitchell, also 59, has been around fish his entire life. He practically grew up at the San Joaquin Hatchery in Friant, which at the time was managed by his father, Earle.

At 19, Mitchell began his 40-year DFG career as a seasonal aide whose duties included fish tagging, taking fish censuses and surveying backcountry lakes. As aquatics program manager since 1999, he served as lead negotiator for the Kings River Management Program and worked with Southern California Edison to establish a $2.5 million trust fund whose proceeds pay for fisheries and management programs on the Upper Kern River.

Mitchell founded the popular jumbo trout program on the Lower Kings and other rivers that in recent years has sparked angler interest and boosted fish license sales. He also found time to negotiate flow agreements for more than two dozen area creeks.

"Every time I drive by one of those streams and see enough water flowing to keep the fish in good condition, I feel a sense of pride," he said.

While planning to assist his former colleagues on a volunteer basis, Mitchell is looking forward to spending more time hiking and backpacking with the llamas he and his wife, Julie, raise at their home in Clovis. "I'm planning to spend a lot of time in the backcountry," Mitchell said. "That's my first love."

Kelly, a 62-year-old Fresno native, is also anxious to enjoy his favorite outdoors pursuits -- hunting, fishing and hiking -- after devoting the last 31/2 years of his 38-year tenure to eradicating invasive pike from Lake Davis in Plumas County.

Since the lake was last treated with the pesticide rotenone in September, there have been no signs of the predatory northern pike that once threatened to destroy what was an excellent trout fishery. The lake has since been stocked with nearly 1 million pounds of trout.

While Kelly was on assignment at Lake Davis, fish biologists Brian Beal and Julie Means were elevated to senior positions within the region.