Loranger named to head Kenai refuge

Andy Loranger has been selected as the new refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, headquartered in Soldotna. Loranger assumed his duties at the refuge March 14.

Geoffrey Haskett, Fish and Wildlife’s Alaska regional director, said in a statement that Loranger has been with Fish and Wildlife for more than 30 years, including stints at the Nowitna and Kenai refuges in the 1980s and 1990s.

“We’re fortunate to have someone with his experience and dedication taking the reins at Alaska’s busiest refuge, and I’m happy to be able to welcome him back to our state.”

Loranger most recently was chief of the Division of Natural Resources and Conservation Planning in the National Wildlife Refuge System’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, a position he was appointed to in 2008.

He began his career with Fish and Wildlife as a seasonal biological technician on the Benson Wetland Management District in west-central Minnesota, and has worked for the agency in Texas and Arizona as well as Alaska. He has an M.S. in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of Connecticut.

“I left Alaska in 1992,” Loranger said in a statement, “and I’ve been hoping to come back ever since. Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is a wonderful place and valued by the hundreds of thousands of people who visit it every year to fish, hunt, hike, canoe, and otherwise take advantage of its abundant beauty and natural resources. I look forward to learning how the area has changed since I was last here, and to doing my part to make sure the Refuge maintains its place as one of the special jewels of the National Wildlife Refuge System.”

—Petroleum News