Bob Abbey Named Director of Minerals Management Service

Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey, left, has been named acting director of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Abbey will be put in charge of managing the announced division of MMS into three bureaus overseeing offshore energy development, safety and environmental enforcement and revenue collection from oil and natural gas development.

Abbey served for more than 32 years in public service working with state and federal land management agencies before retiring from the federal government in July 2005. He served eight years as the Nevada State Director for the U. S. Bureau of Land Management, providing direction and oversight for 48 million acres of public land managed by the bureau in the state.

From 1999 through 2005, Abbey was the chairman of the Executive Committee for the implementation of the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act and oversaw the allocation of more than $1.5 billion in funds for resource management and environmental projects within the state.

number of other federal positions, including as a natural resource researcher for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Miss., Assistant District Manager in Yuma, Ariz.; Program Analyst in the BLM’s national budget office in Washington, D.C., District Manager for the BLM’s Jackson, Miss., office, which oversees natural resource and minerals management in 11 states in the Southeast; and as BLM’s Colorado Associate State Director.Most recently, Abbey was a partner in a private consultant firm called Abbey, Stubbs, & Ford, LLC with offices in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada.

Abbey, a native of Clarksdale, Miss., is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. He and his wife Linda have been married for 32 years and have one daughter, Leigh. (GovExec, 5/28/10, DOI)