Sam Brenkman, MSc

Sam Brenkman is a fisheries scientist with 30 years of professional experience in fisheries management, conservation biology, and large-scale dam removal. Sam’s career has focused on applied, collaborative field studies to guide decision making. He has led projects on population monitoring of Pacific salmonids, harvest management and fishing regulations, habitat restoration, ecology of dam removal, fish migrations and passage, threatened and invasive species, and hatchery and wild salmonid interactions. He has extensive experience with the Boldt Decision, regulatory compliance, and species status reviews and recovery planning under the Endangered Species Act. A highlight and passion of his work is building well-connected, strong partnerships to meet project objectives and policy directives. He is experienced working with federal and state agencies, Treaty Tribes, non-governmental organizations, private entities, and universities including two decades on a multidisciplinary team in the nation’s second largest dam removal on the Elwha River. Sam values public outreach and dissemination of scientific information and has published peer-reviewed articles and provided briefings to secretaries of the Department of Interior, agency directors, and members of U.S. Congress and Senate.

Sam has a M.S. and B.S. in Fisheries Sciences from Oregon State University. He lives in Port Angeles with his family and enjoys traveling, coaching youth sports, fishing, gardening, and recreating in the Olympic Mountains.