New director for TU’s Idaho Water Program

Kira’s water background will be incredibly helpful for TU on the Big Wood River and throughout Idaho. She has more than 20 years of experience creating and executing collaborative solutions to natural resources challenges. Prior to her current position at TU, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the Bureau of Reclamation's Deputy Commissioner for External and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of the Interior.

 

She also has 12 years of experience as a staff person in the United States Senate. While working as Counsel to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, among other accomplishments, she drafted bills related to forest restoration, reducing Ogallala Aquifer depletion, and land exchanges.

 

In between congressional and administration stints, Kira spent four years as Senior Policy Advisor and Government Affairs Director for Trout Unlimited (2003-2007).  During this time, she was the federal fundraising team leader for the Penobscot River Restoration Project and secured $10 million in the President's FY 2008 budget. While at TU, she also served on the board of Sustainable Northwest, an organization dedicated to collaborative and sustainable development in rural communities.

 

Finkler received her law degree from American University's Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. She also has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Arizona.

 

Hiring Kira will help us on a number of fronts on complex water issues facing the state.  Three of TU’s biggest priorities – all involving positive relationships and partnerships with the agricultural community – are developing and implementing the Wood River Water Exchange, securing long-term flow and fish passage gains on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, and creating innovative ways to restore surface flows in priority steelhead basins like the Upper Salmon. Working with great existing staff like habitat and restoration specialist Chad Chorney and attorney Peter Anderson, Kira’s legislative and federal agency chops will be an ideal complement to long-term program goals in places like the Big Wood.