Duluth native Richard Moe, president of the National Historic Trust, is on several Washington insiders' lists of candidates being considered for Interior Secretary in the Obama administration.
Moe, who worked in the Carter administration and has worked closely with the Interior department in his current job of preserving America's most treasured places, joins up to a dozen other candidates said to be under consideration by the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama.
Obama is expected to name his choice for Interior secretary, as well as other members of his environmental team -- Environmental Protection Agency administrator and Energy Secretary -- as early as this week.
The Interior Department oversees several federal agencies and is considered a key post for national environmental and conservation policy.
The secretary is steward of millions of acres of public land. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Geological Service and other mining-related agencies all are part of the Interior Department.
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According to Washingtonpost.com, other top contenders for the Interior job include Rep, Mike Thompson of California, an avid hunter and angler; Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona; former Oregon Gov. John Kizhaber, and Walter Mondale, former vice president and U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
Governmentexecutive.com puts Grijalva, who chairs the House Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee, as the frontrunner because he is favored by environmental groups, although sportsmen's groups are said to favor Thompson.
Moe did not immediately return a reporter's phone call today.
Moe, 71, grew up in Endion near 21st Avenue East and Third Street. He attended an elementary school run by the Duluth State Teachers College, now the University of Minnesota Duluth. At 12, he was chosen by his Boy Scout troop to attend a church service with Duluth's Albert Woolson, the last surviving member of the Union Army in the Civil War.
"I have no idea why I was selected, but I'm glad I was,'' Moe told the News Tribune in 2004. "I just remember being in the presence of this great man. He said a few nice words to me. Whatever they were, they made a lasting impression.
"My real interest in history began in earnest much later than that," he said. "But my interest certainly has its roots in that church service and in Duluth.''
Moe has returned to Duluth in recent years to help city leaders decide what city properties should be preserved as the city plans for future growth.
After attending East Junior High School, Moe's family left Duluth. His father, an obstetrician, died. His mother landed a new job in the gift shop at a Minneapolis hospital.
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Moe went on to graduate from Williams College in Massachusetts and from the University of Minnesota Law School.
He became chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and, in 1972, moved to the nation's capital to be administrative assistant to Sen. Walter Mondale. Five years after that, he was named chief of staff to Vice President Mondale and was a member of President Jimmy Carter's White House senior staff.
Moe practiced law in Washington from 1981 until becoming president of the National Trust in 1993.
