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Washington State University
Washington State University Office of the Provost

Washington wildfires address available online

Peter Goldmark, Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands, discussed the devastating 2015 wildfires, and the resources needed to prevent, and fight fires in the years ahead, at the inaugural Provost’s Invited Address on Jan. 26 in the CUB Junior Ballroom. A standing-room only crowd heard Goldmark reflect on the historic 2015 fire season and unveil his plan for the future.

View Dr. Goldmark’s address here.

 

Peter Goldmark is the 13th Commissioner of Public Lands since statehood in 1889, and the fifth Commissioner to manage the Department of Natural Resources, an agency which assumed its current form in 1957. He was elected by the people of Washington in 2008 and began his first four-year term in January 2009. In November 2012, voters reelected him to serve a second four-year term as Commissioner of Public Lands.

A scientist by training and a Washington native, Goldmark was raised on his family’s ranch in the Okanogan Highlands.  After receiving his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971, he traveled to Harvard University for a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology. In 1972 he returned to Washington to raise his family, run his own business and make a life as a rancher.