Charles F. “Chuck” Sams III, the former director of the National Park Service, has been named by the University of Oregon School of Law as the first Oregon Tribes Scholar-in-Residence and Senior Fellow with the Native Environmental Sovereignty Project. The position is part of Oregon Law’s top-ranked Environmental and Natural Resources Law (ENR) Center.
A native of Pendleton, Oregon, Sams is Cayuse and Walla Walla and is an enrolled tribal citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. He brings more than 30 years of leadership in natural resource management, conservation, and sustainable stewardship. Currently, he serves on the Pacific Northwest Power and Conservation Council as Governor Tina Kotek’s appointee and Co-Chairs the Oregon Environmental Restoration Fund.
Sams made history under the Biden Administration as the first Indigenous Director of the National Park Service. In that role, he advanced agency-wide priorities focused on climate resilience, Tribal sovereignty, and the future of public lands nationwide…