I really liked him on a personal level.....

Translation:
Our service, and the public will soon learn our partners (The tribes) will benefit from Jim's proven lack of leadership skills and his undying desire to collaborate with the Treaty Tribes in secret to undermine the rest of us.

This USFWS position looks like a better fit for Unsworth than Director at WDFW.

As it us USFWS he will not be directly dealing with salmon, etc. It will be resident fish and (primarily, I would suspect) terrestrial animals like wolves, grizzly, caribou, birds, and such. Which, if memory serves, is where his background and schooling was. Agree with Salmo that it should be a better fit.

If only he would take the real two vipers of WDFW with him:

Ron Warren and Mike Grossmann

Those two have done more harm to the fisheries than ANY head of WDFW. After all, it's these two who "advise" the director and work in the shadows. And yet, are NEVER held accountable.

One would think that after all these years that folks would figure out that the Director can make some what of a difference but not real change. WDF&W is simply a agency which means a management system driven by history, with union contracts, and self preservation. That last Director that went for change was Mr. Shanks and a huge portion of the permanent staff put most of their energies into undermining him in any manner possible. The saying at the time was job description in one hand, union contract the other. The best you can hope for from a Director is that he is a good administrator anymore than that with the word change in the sentence and all hell breaks loose. It is what it is.

Management of natural resources is political. Anyone who thinks that management is driven purely by the best science with nothing else considered has gotten into some really fine mind-altering drugs.

The real short list that the Director and WDFW Commission have to deal with right now are Treaties and ESA. Nobody seems willing to change those two.

Next is money. You need money to run an agency. Not at all saying that the spending they do is perfect, but there are more demands than available funds.

Dividing up the NI salmon pie? Who gets what? There isn't enough to go around. While it is important to you, why is the fishery in Neah Bay deserving of "more" fish than my fishery in the Nisqually? Why should I be prevented from C&R'ing cutthroat in the Stillaguamish so that somebody can fish the Sound?

Just how would you want to see at WDFW changed? More responsive to A at the expense of B? If so, why?