Bryan Rice, who recently led the Interior Department’s Office of Wildland Fires, was named on Oct. 18 as the new director of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
According to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Rice, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, has the management expertise and experiences to serve Indian Country well in promoting quality of life and economic opportunity.
Rice was slated to begin his new job on Oct. 16.
Rice earned a bachelor’s degree of science in forestry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Alaska Southeast, the latter with a focus on rural development and transportation systems.
Rice served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, working in community forestry and rural development, and supervised numerous timber operations as a timber sale officer on the Yakima Reservation and as a forester on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
He held leadership positions in Tanzania, Mexico, Brazil and Australia for both the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service
He is also a licensed pilot, and enjoys hunting and fishing, Interior officials said.
