Please join WAPPP and ENRP for a conversation with Gale Norton, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (2001-2006). Ms. Norton will discuss natural resources management and her experience in government.
Gale Norton is General Counsel for Shell's Unconventional Oil Directorate, which is engaged in technological development and research projects on oil shale and heavy oil reseources.
Norton served as the 48th Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2001 until 2006 -- the first woman to hold the position. Norton made what she calls the Four C's the cornerstone of her tenure: Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation. At the heart of the Four C's is the belief that for conservation to be successful, the government must involve the people who live and work on the land.
From 1991 to 1999, she served as Attorney General of Colorado. In that capacity, she represented virtually every agency of the Colorado state government. She argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts and testified numerous times before congressional committees. As a negotiator of the $206 billion national tobacco settlement, Norton represented Colorado and 45 other states as part of the largest lawsuit settlement in history.
Prior to her election as Attorney General, Norton served in Washington, D.C. as Associate Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior, overseeing endangered species and public lands legal issues for the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. She also worked as Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and, from 1979 to 1983, as a Senior Attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
Norton graduated magna cum laude from the University of Denver in 1975 and earned her law degree with honors from the same university in 1978.
