A lawyer, scientist and former manager at the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services will become the new director of the Department of State Lands.

Kaitlin Lovell of Colton, Oregon, begins her four-year term as the agency’s leader in early August. She’ll be in charge of managing more than 130 staff in Bend and Salem, a budget of more than $116 million, and roughly 680,000 acres of state-owned land. The Oregon State Land Board, which includes Gov. Tina Kotek, Secretary of State Tobias Read and State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, unanimously appointed Lovell on July 9.

“Kaitlin is a proven leader who understands how much healthy lands and waters contribute to a thriving Oregon,” Kotek said in a news release following the appointment. “Her long commitment to public service makes her well prepared to lead DSL at a time when stewardship and long-term sustainability must guide our work.”

She replaces former director Vicki Walker, who served from 2018 until her June 30 retirement. The agency’s deputy director, Bill Ryan, is the current interim director. The agency is in charge of managing the state’s agricultural, industrial and residential lands for conservation, development and revenue generation for the benefit of Oregon’s public schools. The agency also administers mineral and energy rights on more than 768,500 acres statewide.

Lovell spent most of the last 18 years working for Portland’s environmental services and regulatory agency, and was most recently its Regulatory Strategy Manager, in charge of financial planning for its wastewater and stormwater management services.

In February, she was also appointed to the board of the Elliott State Research Forest, which is in the process of becoming the only state forest in the West, and only the second nationwide, to be enrolled entirely in the voluntary carbon crediting market. The 83,000-acre forest will be managed for some logging, research and to store harmful greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for revenue-generating carbon credits.

Lovell holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, and a law degree from Cornell University in New York, and is considered an expert in the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act laws. Before working for the city of Portland, she spent seven years as a lawyer and salmon policy manager at the nonprofit fish conservation organization Trout Unlimited.

Lovell raises livestock on her farm and forestland in Colton, where her investment in preserving beaver habitat on the land likely helped it survive the 2020 Riverside Fire, she testified to the Legislature in 2023.

In her application for the job, Lovell said these experiences make her particularly well equipped to manage the state’s lands.

“As a working farmer and steward of historic water rights, old growth stands, and beaver-created wetlands, I understand firsthand the challenges of balancing land use, conservation, and economic sustainability,” she wrote. “Having personally experienced wildfires and floods that threaten our communities and my farm, I am committed to developing climate-resilient strategies that protect Oregon’s lands and waters for future generations.”