— Editor's Roundup —
USDA people in the news

Mark Rey was sworn in as the under secretary for natural resources and environment.

Before joining USDA, from 1995 until his swearing-in Rey served as a staff member with the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, where he was the lead staff person for the committee’s work on national forest policy and Forest Service administration. He was directly involved in virtually all of the forestry and conservation legislation considered during the past several sessions of Congress, with principal responsibility for a number of public lands bills during this period.

From 1992-94 Rey served as vice president for forest resources with the American Forest and Paper Association, headquartered in Washington, DC. He served as executive director of the American Forest Resource Alliance in Washington, DC from 1989-92. From 1984-89 he was vice president for public forestry programs with the National Forest Products Association. He served in several positions for the American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association, a consortium of national trade associations representing the forest products industry, from 1976-84. From 1974-75 he worked as a staff assistant for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in Billings, Mont., and Washington, DC.

A native of Canton, Ohio, Rey holds a B.S. degree in wildlife management, a B.S. degree in forestry, and an M.S. degree in natural resources policy and administration, all from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Jim Lyons, the previous under secretary for natural resources and environment, held that position from May 1993 until January 2001 and is now a professor in the practice of natural resource management at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.