President Obama picks REI CEO Sally Jewell to serve as the next Secretary of the Interior

Great news from our nation’s cap­i­tal this morn­ing: At an event in the White House­’s State Din­ing Room, Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma announced that he has cho­sen Wash­ing­ton’s Sal­ly Jew­ell to serve as the Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or. Jew­ell, fifty-sev­en, is cur­rent­ly the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Recre­ation­al Equip­ment Incor­po­rat­ed, bet­ter known as REI.

REI, as many of our read­ers know, is one of the Pacif­ic North­west­’s many fine coop­er­a­tives. It was found­ed in Seat­tle in 1938 by Lloyd and Mary Ander­son, and today, it has over eleven mil­lion mem­bers. REI is where adven­tur­ous Pacif­ic North­west­ern­ers go when they need to get out­fit­ted for a trip into the back­coun­try. Dur­ing my life­time, and espe­cial­ly since REI opened a store in NPI’s home­town of Red­mond, my fam­i­ly has bought plen­ty of qual­i­ty gear there: A‑frame tents, sleep­ing bags and pads, my Whis­per­Lite stove, hats, gloves, scarves, and rain flies.

We’ve also rent­ed snow­shoe­ing gear from REI.

As the years have gone by, we have come to depend on REI when we need­ed sport­ing and camp­ing gear. There’s real­ly no rea­son to go any­place else. REI stores are clean, wel­com­ing, and staffed with friend­ly employ­ees. No won­der, then, that the co-op’s sales have prac­ti­cal­ly dou­bled under CEO Sal­ly Jewell.

Sal­ly is an inspired choice for Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or. We at NPI applaud this nom­i­na­tion, and thank Pres­i­dent Oba­ma for choos­ing one of our state’s best and bright­est to run the Depart­ment of the Interior.

REI and Wash­ing­ton’s loss is our nation’s gain.

“Sally’s broad exper­tise and set of val­ues I know are going to serve her well as she takes on these new chal­lenges,” Pres­i­dent Oba­ma told reporters.

“She’s got a won­der­ful and sup­port­ive fam­i­ly who I under­stand enjoy the great out­doors just like she does. So they’ve got a vest­ed inter­est in mak­ing sure that the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or is doing the right thing. And when Sal­ly is con­firmed, I’m will­ing to bet that she will be the first Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or who fre­quent­ly hikes Mail­box Peak in her native Wash­ing­ton State and who once spent a month climb­ing moun­tains in Antarc­ti­ca, which is just not some­thing I’d think of doing — because it seems like it would be cold, and I was born in Hawaii.”

Out­go­ing Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Ken Salazar, who is return­ing to Col­orado after four years in the job, was equal­ly effu­sive in his praise of the nominee.

“Sal­ly Jew­ell knows first­hand the inex­tri­ca­ble link between con­ser­va­tion and the econ­o­my. Sal­ly was a key con­trib­u­tor to you and to your entire team in the cre­ation of the Amer­i­ca’s Great Out­doors agen­da. She’s been a cham­pi­on of the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund and so many oth­er con­ser­va­tion issues of our time. And I also know that her suc­cess­ful busi­ness record and expe­ri­ence as an oil and gas engi­neer will serve her well as she imple­ments your all-of-the-above ener­gy agen­da, which has been such a key­stone to you over the last four years.”

Wash­ing­ton’s two U.S. Sen­a­tors respond­ed enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to the nomination.

“Today marks a new day, with a leader who unique­ly under­stands the tremen­dous eco­nom­ic val­ue of our out­door econ­o­my,” said Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell in a state­ment. “With her busi­ness back­ground, Sal­ly Jew­ell is well-qual­i­fied to fol­low in the tremen­dous foot­steps of Sec­re­tary Ken Salazar.”

“Com­ing from the out­door indus­try, Sal­ly under­stands that pre­serv­ing out­door recre­ation oppor­tu­ni­ties is often the high­est and best use of our irre­place­able pub­lic lands. As CEO at REI in Seat­tle, Sal­ly tru­ly knows the con­nec­tion between America’s pub­lic lands and the bur­geon­ing out­door econ­o­my that sup­ports six mil­lion jobs across the Unit­ed States. I’ve appre­ci­at­ed work­ing with her  – from expand­ing Mt. Rainier Nation­al Park to sup­port­ing Wash­ing­ton State job growth.”

“Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has cho­sen an accom­plished leader as the next Sec­re­tary of Inte­ri­or,” agreed Wash­ing­ton’s senior sen­a­tor, Pat­ty Mur­ray. “I have enjoyed a strong work­ing rela­tion­ship with Sal­ly Jew­ell, who has proven to be an effec­tive CEO in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and will bring that skill set to the Cabinet.”

“She under­stands the tremen­dous asset that our pub­lic lands are, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar out­door recre­ation based econ­o­my. Addi­tion­al­ly, Amer­i­can fam­i­lies could have no greater advo­cate for their con­tin­ued use, enjoy­ment and pro­tec­tion of our Nation­al Parks and nat­ur­al treasures.”

“I look for­ward to work­ing with Sal­ly and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma as they shape and imple­ment poli­cies at the Depart­ment of Interior.”

“Pres­i­dent Oba­ma has made a wise deci­sion in look­ing to our deep pool of tal­ent in the Pacif­ic North­west, and nom­i­nat­ing Sal­ly Jew­ell as our next Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine.

“As the leader of an icon­ic out­door recre­ation busi­ness, Sal­ly has worked to pre­serve our nat­ur­al lands as a board mem­ber for the Moun­tains to Sound Green­way Trust and the Nation­al Parks Con­ser­va­tion Association.

“Her proven busi­ness suc­cess, and respect for the nat­ur­al world, give her the back­ground to suc­cess­ful­ly meet the many chal­lenges of man­ag­ing our pub­lic lands. My con­grat­u­la­tions to Sally.”

REI offered warm con­grat­u­la­tions to its CEO in a news release.

REI applauds Pres­i­dent Obama’s nom­i­na­tion of Sal­ly Jew­ell, REI’s CEO and pres­i­dent, to be the nation’s Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or. Sal­ly is a remark­able leader, an excel­lent busi­ness per­son and a thought­ful stew­ard of our pub­lic lands and resources. We believe that she will do a superb job in this very impor­tant role.

Sal­ly has led REI as CEO since 2005 and dur­ing that time has pro­vid­ed steady lead­er­ship for the co-op and its thought­ful growth. Dur­ing her tenure REI has increased sales from $1 bil­lion to near­ly $2 bil­lion, added 71 stores, and great­ly expand­ed its online busi­ness. Under Sally’s lead­er­ship, the com­pa­ny has been named annu­al­ly to For­tune Magazine’s list of the Best Com­pa­nies to Work For.

Dur­ing her tenure, Sal­ly cham­pi­oned the co-op’s engage­ment in sup­port­ing vol­un­teer stew­ard­ship of pub­lic lands, as well as the efforts to man­age REI’s envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. And, because of Sally’s com­mit­ment to lead­er­ship devel­op­ment, REI will be in good hands as the co-op’s Board, upon her con­fir­ma­tion, con­sid­ers a successor.

Sally’s broad busi­ness back­ground, com­mu­ni­ty lead­er­ship, and her depth of knowl­edge of the range of issues man­aged by the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or will be of sig­nif­i­cant val­ue to the depart­ment and great ser­vice to the nation.

REI encour­ages Sally’s con­fir­ma­tion so that she can begin her impor­tant work on behalf of the coun­try and its nat­ur­al spaces.

The Nation­al Resources Defense Coun­cil, one of the nation’s lead­ing envi­ron­men­tal groups, cheered the nom­i­na­tion.

“Sal­ly Jew­ell has the mind of an engi­neer, the heart of an envi­ron­men­tal­ist and the know-how of a busi­ness­woman,” said NRDC Pres­i­dent Frances Beinecke.

“It’s not sur­pris­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma would turn to such a tal­ent­ed woman to bal­ance the respon­si­ble use of America’s pub­lic lands, the pro­tec­tion of these resources and the wildlife that depend on them… Jewell’s unique expe­ri­ence and her love of America’s out­doors will be invalu­able to the stew­ard­ship of the waters, lands and wildlife we’ve been entrust­ed to pro­tect for our children.”

Wash­ing­ton’s envi­ron­men­tal move­ment is (nat­u­ral­ly!) thrilled.

“Sal­ly has been a com­mit­ted leader on con­ser­va­tion, con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ing a deep under­stand­ing of how the preser­va­tion of pub­lic lands fuels our econ­o­my by cre­at­ing jobs through recre­ation and tourism, as well as what it means to pro­tect nat­ur­al resources for future gen­er­a­tions to enjoy,” said Joan­na Grist, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Wash­ing­ton Wildlife and Recre­ation Coalition.

“We are for­tu­nate to have a Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or who can con­tin­ue to lead as our coun­try focus­es on pulling itself out of reces­sion and strength­en­ing our econ­o­my. No one is more pre­pared or more deserv­ing of this role than Sally.”

Jew­ell is the sec­ond Wash­ing­ton native to be nom­i­nat­ed for a posi­tion in the Oba­ma Cab­i­net; the first was Gary Locke, who served as Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s first Sec­re­tary of Com­merce and is now U.S. Ambas­sador to China.

We hope that once Sal­ly is con­firmed, she will ensure that the pro­posed San Juan Nation­al Mon­u­ment becomes a real­i­ty this year.

Pres­i­dents of the Unit­ed States have the abil­i­ty to des­ig­nate new nation­al mon­u­ments under the Antiq­ui­ties Act; but Pres­i­dent Oba­ma only used this pow­er on a hand­ful of occa­sions dur­ing his first term.

We’d like to see the Pres­i­dent act to pro­tect more of our pub­lic lands. The cre­ation of a wilder­ness or a nation­al mon­u­ment is one of the great­est lega­cies that a pres­i­dent can leave. As Sec­re­tary of the Inte­ri­or, Sal­ly will be in the best pos­si­ble posi­tion to make con­ser­va­tion a pri­or­i­ty of the Oba­ma administration.

We extend our best wish­es to her as she takes on this new posi­tion, and to REI, as they look for a suc­ces­sor to fill the big shoes she’ll be leaving.