Governor-elect Terry Branstad has chosen a fellow native of Lake Mills, Iowa, to lead the Department of Natural Resources.
The D.N.R.’s previous director left this fall for a federal post in Minnesota and an acting director has been managing the agency since September. Branstad has asked Roger Lande to take over in January.
Lande is an attorney from Muscatine. He’s a former chairman of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. That group has been pushing for reform of state regulations and has been critical of some of the rules proposed by the department.
Branstad’s staff pointed out in a news release that Lande’s wife is a board member of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, saying the Lande family “have long been champions of conservation of Iowa’s rivers, woodlands, greenways, prairies and trails.”
In a prepared statement, Lande said he is “honored to have been chosen…to head a department whose causes are near and dear to (his) heart.”