Federal Players

Profiles of little known federal workers who have left a big impact.

November 30, 2009

Federal Player of the Week: Leslie Holland-Bartels

NAME

Leslie Holland-Bartels

POSITION

Regional Executive, Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey

AGE

56

RESIDENCE

Anchorage, Alaska

EDUCATION

B.S. in marine fisheries at the University of Massachusetts; M.S. in fisheries and statistics, Louisiana State University; Ph.D. in aquatic ecology, Purdue University

AWARDS

Department of the Interior: Unit Award for Excellence of Service, 2007; USGS Excellence in Leadership Award, 2002; Distinguished Service Award -- American Fisheries Society 1999; Department of the Interior Meritorious Service Award 1996, Service to America Medal finalist, 2009

HOBBIES

Photography and fly fishing

Leslie Holland-Bartels

Pioneering new climate-change policies

For Leslie Holland-Bartels of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the inclusion of Alaska's polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act was a great accomplishment.

But the 2008 federal designation also signaled much more -- the broader scientific linkage between global warming and significant changes to wildlife, critical ecosystems and biodiversity.

Working seven days a week over six months, Holland-Bartels and her 20-member international team of scientists connected projected temperature and sea ice changes in the Arctic to the loss of the polar bear habitat and food supply. Based on research, they predicted the likely disappearance of two-thirds -- or roughly 16,000 -- of the world's polar bears in the next 45 to 75 years.

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