DNR Commissioner Myers retiring

Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Mark Myers is retiring effective March 1.

In a Feb. 16 message to DNR Myers said he is retiring for personal reasons, and looks forward to more time with his family, including aging parents, kids in college and his wife of 33 years.

“Due to the nature of the jobs I have held over the last decade, I have deferred or delayed much on a personal level, including my own retirement,” Myers said.

“I hate to lose Mark from the team,” Gov. Bill Walker said in a statement. “He had told me back in October that he wanted to retire, but I wanted to give him time to reconsider. I’m grateful the administration and the state were able to benefit from his experience, knowledge and expertise for as long as we’ve been able.”

Deputy Commissioner Marty Rutherford will step in as acting commissioner.

Myers noted that he had spent 18 years at DNR “in various positions including student intern, petroleum geologist, director of the divisions of Oil and Gas and Geological Surveys, AGIA Coordinator and now Commissioner.”

“Retiring is not difficult, but leaving DNR is,” he said, citing “the professionalism, dedication to the mission and public service ethic of DNR employees.”

Myers was appointed DNR commissioner last April.

Immediately prior to that, from 2011 to 2015, he was chancellor of research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In the 1980s and 1990s Myers worked as a geologist with ARCO, Phillips Petroleum and the state.

In 2001 he was appointed to lead DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas and in 2005 he also became state geologist and director of the Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

Myers is one of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” who departed the administration of Gov. Frank Murkowski in disagreement with the governor over negotiations for a gas pipeline project under the Alaska Stranded Gas Development Act. Six officials resigned from DNR in October 2005, following the departure of DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin in a dispute with Murkowski over gas pipeline negotiations then underway. Following Irwin’s departure six senior department officials resigned. They included both deputy commissioners, Rutherford and Dick LeFebvre, Nancy Welch, one of three special assistants in the commissioner’s office, and three directors - Oil and Gas Division Director Myers, Director Bob Loeffler of the Division of Mining, Land and Water and Office of Project Management and Permitting Director Bill Jeffress.

Myers was named director of the U.S. Geological Survey and served in that federal post from 2006-2009.

He returned to the state in 2009 and led state efforts under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act until 2011.

- KRISTEN NELSON