Heather Bauscher is the Fisheries Community Engagement Specialist for the Sitka Conservation Society and SalmonState. She has fifteen years of experience in state and federal environmental resource management: working in the spaces between policy, public engagement, and management of fisheries and forest resources. She is an adjunct professor at University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus teaching an experiential course focused on the Federal Subsistence Board Process. For six years she served on the Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In her final three years she served as the chair, representing the Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee at the 2022 Board of Fisheries Southeast Meeting, and received the Excellence in Service Award from Alaska Board of Fish and Board of Game. Through her leadership on the advisory committee she supported efforts to work across inter-jurisdictional fisheries issues by also engaging with the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the Southeast Regional Advisory Council to the Federal Subsistence Board.
In 2022 she moved from Sitka to Petersburg and now serves on the Petersburg Advisory Committee. She is passionate about sharing knowledge of these democratic processes to support the future generation of resource management leaders in Alaska. Heather enjoys observational drawing, birding, hunting, fishing, and crewing on small commercial boats in various fisheries in Southeast Alaska.