LITTLE ROCK — Scott Henderson, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission since 2003, will leave the post to become a special liaison between the agency and its commissioners on Sept. 1.
On Thursday, the commission voted 6-0 to accept Henderson’s resignation. Deputy Director Loren Hitchcock will serve as interim director while the commission conducts a national search to find a successor.
While Henderson attributed the decision to resign to health issues, one former Game and Fish commissioner said it resulted from an effort by three commissioners to exert greater control over agency operations.
Henderson, who has worked at the commission since 1972, said he resigned because of an autoimmune disorder that has taxed his energy and compromised his ability to function effectively as director. After Sept. 1, he will serve until he retires in 2013 as the commission’s special liaison, performing tasks assigned by Hitchcock and the commission.
“I am very pleased to be able to slow down and still contribute,” Henderson said. “I look forward to another year or two to taking on assignments as directed by the commission and others. I have to say it’s a little bittersweet. I’ve been director for a while. It’s a job that takes a lot of effort and energy, and I’m looking forward to slowing down.”
Henderson added that his illness did not directly cause his decision, but that it forced him to evaluate his priorities.
“I don’t think it’s because of my health,” he said, “but the illness made me see what I thought I wanted to do with the rest of my life and make some changes. But I wouldn’t characterize this as being done because of my health.”
Commissioner Rick Watkins of Little Rock said that Henderson embodies all the qualities a governing board member values in a chief executive officer.
“He’s got an institutional grasp of every aspect of the agency’s business beyond compare,” Watkins said. “Nobody can possibly know what he knows and possibly apply it. He’s got every skill you hope for in a CEO and a senior executive officer. He appreciates the biology part of it, the administrative part of it, and he appreciates the conservation part of our mission better than most people. And, he appreciates the political intricacies of governance and government.”
The Game and Fish Commission will be in a transitional period during the search for a new director, Watkins added, but Henderson’s continued presence will make the transition smoother.
“Either in the role of assistant director or director, Scott has been the institutional backbone of this agency for 30 years,” Watkins said, “and we know with his retirement date looming, we’re going to have to make a transition from his 30 years to a new director. With his assistance in the role he’s chosen for himself, we expect that transition to be smoother with Scott’s full cooperation than without it.”
On Thursday, Matt De-Cample, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, said the governor wouldn’t “weigh in” on the operations of an independent state commission. He said Beebe, who as governor has appointed three commissioners,has no control over personnel decisions made by the commission.
Beebe’s appointments consist of Watkins, Emon Mahony of El Dorado and Ron Duncan of Springdale. The other commissioners were appointed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee. They are Chairman Craig Campbell of Little Rock, George Dunklin of Stuttgart and Ron Pierce of Mountain Home. The commission’s seventh member, Brett Morgan of Little Rock, is also a Huckabee appointee and attended his last meeting June 17. Beebe has not named a replacement.
However, DeCample said, Beebe met with Henderson within the past week or two at Henderson’s request. De-Cample declined to disclose the subject of that conversation absent more details from what happened at the commission meeting.
Before Thursday’s announcement, Game and Fish commissioners had held several discussions about Henderson’s future with the agency, including during executive sessions when the commission met on June 16 and 17.
Before Thursday’s meeting, Pierce expressed reservations about those meetings being conducted privately.
“You couldn’t do that kind of stuff in executive session when I was mayor, but this bunch tends to take things a little farther,” Pierce said. “He [Henderson] will have to learn to button his lip when he disagrees with something.”
A past commissioner, Sheffield Nelson, who served from 2000 to 2007, said Henderson’s resignation is the result of a new committee structure adopted by the commission June 17 that places most of the commission’s decision-making power with a series of committees, most of which are composed of three commissioners. Four of the committees are staffed by at least two of these three commissioners - Campbell, Mahony and Watkins.
Under the new system, which uses seven committees, the commission can vote only on items that receive a “do pass” recommendation from its respective committee. A do pass recommendation requires a majority vote. The new personnel committee, with Watkins as chairman and which includes Campbell and Mahony as members, has authority to hire and terminate employees, including the director.
Other committees include budget, communications and information technology, education, governance, property management - which has an oil and gas subcommittee- and regulations, which will have subcommittees for enforcement, fisheries, waterfowl and wildlife.
Nelson was instrumental in promoting Henderson to replace former Director Hugh Durham, who resigned in 2003.
“Scott had no choice,” Nelson said Thursday after the commission meeting. “He could see the handwriting on the wall. I think that through pressure, they were able to put the best face on it they could. It’s unfair to Scott, and it’s unfair to the sportsmen of Arkansas. Scott has been an excellent director, and if you look at the makeup of that committee, you can see that Scott had no choice.”
However, Watkins defended the committee system, saying it restored past procedures used by the commission.
“We’ve always done business by committee, and the chairman has always appointed the chair and every member of the committees,” Watkins said. He added that he reviewed commission procedures from minutes and other documents going back more than a decade.
Information for this report was contributed by Seth Blomeley of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/25/2010