Gary Montoya

Regional Representative, Southwest Region
gmontoya@refugeassociation.org

Gary is the Regional Representative for the Southwest.  He attained a Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Science from New Mexico State University in 1978 after serving 4 years in the U.S. Air Force.  He has 27 years of experience with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a manager of national wildlife refuges.  He began his career at the Bosque del Apache NWR, New Mexico as a Refuge Manager Trainee and eventually worked in Texas, California, Utah, and Alaska. 

As a refuge manager, he had experience in not only managing the land within the national wildlife refuge, which included the wildlife, public, working with other agencies and interested partners, trying to attract additional funding, but also trying to work outside the box relative to projects off-refuge that would benefit wildlife and their habitat.  Generally, this resulted in benefits to the refuge as well, relative to wildlife and wildlands management.  He gained a lot of experience in dealing with people around the refuge of which some were supporters and some weren’t.  Gary ended his career in the Southwest Regional Office as a Geographic Manager for Arizona and New Mexico.  From this position, he gained a lot of national experience as well as regional and inter-regional.