Dr. Mamie Parker

 

By Craig Springer

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

October 2004

 

 

     The terrain that is a life is a topography shaped by epochs of events, a landscape of mountains and valleys, highs and lows.  Our lives as we move on are constantly being shaped by people and places, the situations where we find ourselves.  Dr. Mamie Parker knows well the landscape over which she's traveled, both personal and professional.  In fact, she'd probably agree that there was no dichotomy in the two in her becoming the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Assistant Director for Fisheries and Habitat Conservation.

    Dr. Mamie Parker "casting" at a Congressional reception. 

                    Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

     Mamie leads a part of the USFWS that descends from the oldest conservation agency in the country.  What started as the U.S. Fish Commission in 1871, the Service's Fisheries program now comprises 70 National Fish Hatcheries, 64 Fishery Resource Offices, nine Fish Health Centers, seven Fish Technology Centers, and one genetics laboratory and one historic hatchery.  She oversees 750 employees that strive to conserve America's fisheries.  In addition, she sets policy and guides the Service's 82 Ecological Service's offices in all 50 States.
      If any one person influenced Mamie to be all she can be, it was another woman and avid angler, her mother, Cora. Mamie was Cora's last chance for a boy to add to her five sons and five daughters—and she hoped to name the new son 'Ike' in honor of President Eisenhower and his efforts to advance civil rights.  Mamie was even born on Ike's birthday, and was named after the First Lady.  Mamie and Cora were close, but being the last of 11 children, it was hard for her mother to spend lots of time with any one child.  But the outdoors was their common bond, fishing in particular, in rural Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Cora taught Mamie to fish for catfish, carp and bowfin. But they didn't practice the 'release' part of catch-and-release fishing.
     "I had no idea what a rough fish was," said Mamie with a chuckle. "We fished for food, we needed protein - - there was no catch and release." Mamie speaks fondly of her mother, nick-named "Miss Piggy."      

     "I call her my 'heavenly ham' because I know that she's up there watching out for me," said Mamie. "The last experience I had with mom in the outdoors, we talked about what to do with a pecan tree in the backyard that wasn't bearing fruit.  I wanted to cut it down, but instead got a lesson in patience, that the fruit is often borne later; it's a lesson I've applied throughout my career."
      Mamie's career started in college, majoring in biology, and academically culminated in advanced degrees in fish and wildlife management and a PhD in limnology.  She started with the USFWS as a fish health biologist at Genoa National Fish Hatchery in Wisconsin, but took the job with hesitance. "I was from the south and wanted to stay there; I didn't want to go to Wisconsin, too cold."  But go she did, and her next career move took her even farther north to New London National Fish Hatchery, Minnesota.  "I was a southerner, and was headed a direction different than I intended," said Mamie.  But like that pecan tree, the fruit began to bear itself later.  "I encourage women and minorities to think outside their comfort zone—sometimes you've got to deviate from your desires—to get to where you want to go."
      Mamie eventually migrated south, to Columbia, Missouri, where she worked in the USFWS's Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, working with farmers on improving their lands for fish and game.  It was there she was introduced to hunting turkey, quail, and pheasant. On turkey hunting, she said laughing, "I never thought I'd make it out that early in the morning. I had an enthusiastic guide my first time, but he had a problem with me talking so much."
      True to Cora's last words of wisdom to Mamie, she kept "going and growing." And she made it back to the deep South, to Atlanta and a position of substantial responsibility, supervising all of the Fisheries facilities, Ecological Services, and national wildlife refuges in a three-state area.
She also created the first-ever USFWS office in her home state of Arkansas, an experience that gave her a sense of coming full-circle.
     In the late 1990's Mamie considered leaving the USFWS to become a college professor, then a call came from Washington.  She went on to eventually become the first African-American female to serve as Assistant Director of the USFWS.  It was full immersion into politics and budget processes, a working environment very much unlike spawning fish or assessing contaminate levels in fatty tissues, or consulting a farmer on how to have a better wetlands for fish and birds.  But the significance of her achievement hit home recently, meeting with Canadian wildlife officials.  The Canadians asked who was in charge of addressing the problems in fisheries and aquatic nuisance species control in the United States.  "When every one looked at me I was overcome with a sense of duty. It made me want to do more and be more, realizing I was an international leader now," said Mamie.
      Mamie draws a hunting analogy to succeeding in a profession: "Women need to see it's possible, it's like turkey hunting—it's a challenge, you have to get up early, work hard, the road is rough at first, but with perseverance you can succeed."  She also offers that you need not give up being your own self: "You don't have to be one of the boys to be an outdoorswoman, wear your lipstick; you don't have to fit a model to fit in. You get respect being the person you are—be yourself and be it well."
      The limestone halls of Washington are a great deal removed from the cork bobbers and nightcrawlers of Mamie's youth. But she carries the lessons of the past with her as she carries the USFWS's Fisheries and Habitat Conservation Program into the future.  She's embarked on strategically placing her charges to contribute to healthy fish and habitats for healthy economies and people. She'll do that by engaging in new and non-traditional partnerships.


     
Dr. Parker represented the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at an event during National Fishing and Boating Week.

                Photo by LaVonda Walton, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

     On a personal level, this woman who was awarded one of the Good Housekeeping Awards for Women in Government (in 2002) competing with two U.S. Senators, says she wants to give a child what her mother gave her.  Toward that end, she and husband Artist Holmes, plan to travel to Kenya to adopt children.
      Looking over the topography of a landscape already traveled, Mamie has no regrets.  She charges on—going and growing—and living by a maxim of one of her favorite people, Ben Franklin, asking herself each evening, "What good have I done this day?"