Jeff Rupert

Jeff Rupert is the Director of the Office of Wildland Fire (OWF) as of February 4, 2018. He has been with the Department of the Interior for over twenty years, beginning as a refuge biologist at the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, along the U.S-Mexico border. Most recently, Jeff served as the Chief of the Division of Natural Resources and Conservation Planning for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), where he led a diverse program of work, which included FWS Fire Management located at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, and the Natural Resource Program Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, which supports planning and management of environmental quality, resources, and health of the National Refuge System. Before transferring to FWS Headquarters, Washington D.C., in 2010, Jeff was the Refuge Manager of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, and he managed the 90,000 acre Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge on the US-Mexico border in Texas from 2000-2006. He began his career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991 as a Biological Technician at the National Ecology Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he conducted avian research. Jeff earned a B.S. in Biology from Baker University in Kansas and an M.S. in Biology from the University of Texas-Pan American. Jeff and his wife Corinna are both outdoor enthusiasts, as are their two kids.