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Governor Gregoire Announces Executive Director of the Puget Sound Partnership

For Immediate Release: August 14, 2007

The recently established Partnership will develop aggressive agenda to protect and restore the Puget Sound by 2020

OLYMPIA - Governor Chris Gregoire today announced the appointment of David Dicks of Seattle as the first executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership.

�David Dicks is an accomplished lawyer in the area of environmental law and has a strong connection to the Puget Sound,� said Governor Gregoire. �Spending his childhood summers on Hood Canal has made David passionate about the protection of one of our state�s most precious resources and he will bring energy to the Partnership that will match that of the many grassroots groups working with the state to restore the Sound.�

One of Governor Gregoire�s first initiatives after being sworn in as governor was to restore the environmental health of the Puget Sound. The Puget Sound Partnership will lead efforts to protect and restore the Puget Sound for future generations. By September 2008, the Partnership will have created a long-term plan called the �2020 Action Agenda,� which will identify and prioritize actions, assign responsibilities, identify funding, track progress and remain accountable to the public by reporting results.

�I am honored to be appointed by the Governor and am excited by the challenge facing us. The creation of the Puget Sound Partnership has provided the foundation for delivering a clean and healthy Puget Sound to future generations - now we must make it happen,� said Dicks.

Dicks is a partner with Cascadia Law Group, a firm specializing in environmental law, where he focuses on endangered species, water quality and natural resource law and policy. He has assisted with the development of a number of habitat conservation plans under the Endangered Species Act, including the Forest and Fish Law, the Tacoma Public Utility Green River plan, the Murray Pacific plan and the Portland Water Bureau plan.

Dicks has worked on behalf of the Shared Strategy for Puget Sound to implement the nationally acclaimed Puget Sound Chinook Salmon Recovery Plan and continues to work on behalf of the Family Forest Foundation to negotiate its multi-landowner habitat conservation plan in Lewis County. He also played a significant role in the creation and deliberations of the original Puget Sound Partnership commission and worked extensively with the Legislature and Governor to pass the new Partnership�s enabling legislation.

He is a member of the King County Parks Futures task force and is on the board of the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, the Western Environmental Law Center, the Washington Environmental Council and the Geneva Foundation.

Dicks was recognized in the Best Lawyers in America for environmental law in 2007, one of the best lawyers in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine 2007 and, since 2005, has been named a �Rising Star� by the readers of Washington Law and Politics magazine.

He received his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Stanford University, did master�s work at the College of Environmental Science Policy and Management at the University of California Berkeley and received his Juris Doctorate from UC Berkeley�s Boalt Hall School of Law. He was a Y. K Kee academic merit fellow, articles editor for the Ecology Law Quarterly, a founding member of the Boalt Hall Environmental Law Society and received a certificate in environmental law.

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