Frances Mann

Fran has worked in a variety of roles for the BOEM’s Alaska Regional Office since 2014, implementing the rules, regulations and policies of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. She is currently a Program Analyst, providing policy guidance to the regional director on matters that involve environmental laws and regulations; serving as a liaison to governmental agencies and other entities; developing interagency agreements; and providing analysis and support to Department of Interior solicitors during legal challenges.

Prior to her current position she was chief of the Alaska Regin’s Environmental Analysis Section, where she supervised a team of analysts that developed environmental analysis documents for activities authorized by BOEM on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Prior to joining BOEM she worked at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Anchorage. There she held several positions, including: sea otter branch chief for marine mammals management; regional coordinator for conservation planning assistance; and branch chief for the Anchorage Field Office. Her collective responsibilities involved supervising teams of resource specialists; applying NEPA, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and other federal laws in managing endangered and other marine mammal species; preparing a variety of environmental documents; and incorporating mitigation strategies into development projects of all types.

Before that, Fran worked as the field office supervisor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Fairbanks Alaska Field Office, where she led an office responsible for conducting NEPA analyses and issuing federal permits under the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act.  She also worked for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department as a wetland habitat conservation biologist on many different types of development projects requiring federal and state permits in marine and freshwater environments.

Fran has a bachelor’s degree in ecology, behavior and evolution and a minor in economics from the University of California, San Diego. She has a master’s degree in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Her field and research experience is varied, having worked on many species of birds, terrestrial mammals, fish and marine mammals in a variety of habitats, including interior and Arctic Alaska; coastal California, Oregon, Washington and Virginia; the Sierra Nevada Mountains; and the fresh, brackish and marine wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico. While she enjoyed primary research, her professional interests include working with multiple stakeholders to find effective and practical solutions to current problems.

Fran lives with her husband Eric and daughter Madeleine in Eagle River. They have two cats, a rescue aquatic turtle, and like to spend their free time enjoying the beauty of Alaska.