The Observer, December 2004

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State DEC chief leaves for job in timber company

Ernesta Ballard, commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation, resigned her post in October to work for Weyerhaeuser Co., one of the world’s largest forest products companies.

Ballard relocated to Federal Way, Wash., to take the position of senior vice president of corporate affairs with the company.

Ballard had served as environmental commissioner since soon after Gov. Frank Murkowski’s election in 2002. Her job included some oversight of the state’s timber industry, but not of any Weyerhaeuser operations. The company says it does not have any timber holdings in Alaska.

Ballard told reporters at the time of her resignation that being a top executive at a big company was something she had dreamed of since her girlhood.

Murkowski named Deputy Commissioner Kurt Fredriksson as acting commissioner of environmental conservation. Fredriksson was formerly director of the Division of Spill Prevention and Response, a component of the Department of Environmental Conservation with which the citizens’ council interacts regularly.