Chris Lewis took over as the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ (ADCNR) new Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (WFF) director this week.
Lewis will supervise the division’s 315 employees.
“I am glad to have Director Lewis on board,” ADCNR commissioner Chris Blankenship said. “I am sure he will do a great job building on the changes and initiatives that previous Director Chuck Sykes led during his tenure. WFF is a large and diverse division. It is important to a strong and progressive leader to work with our passionate and dedicated staff. I look forward to the new ideas and positive demeanor that Chris will bring to ADCNR.”
Lewis is very familiar with the Alabama hunting, fishing and conservation landscape, having joined the WFF in 1998 as a conservation enforcement officer, then moving up the ranks to assistant chief of enforcement before heading to Connecticut, where he served as the director of the environmental conservation police division.
“There are only so many opportunities to lead a state conservation law enforcement division because there’s only 50 states,” said Lewis, who rejoined WFF on Monday. “That opportunity came up, and I applied. Much to my surprise, I was offered the job.”
Lewis said the reasons for his move back to Alabama were “relatively simple.”
“There was a big appeal to get back to Alabama,” Lewis said. “I spent most of my career in Alabama, and I’ve got family in Tennessee and Florida. That’s important to be closer to family. I spent almost 22 years at ADCNR. I had a lot of fun working in different areas of the state and enjoyed everybody I worked with. I’m looking forward to being back. I’ll be able to reconnect with a lot of people. I know there will be new faces, but it will be good to reconnect with the familiar faces as well as meet new ones.”
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