July 2001 issue

 NWCouncil.org NeWs    July 2001 index

New Idaho members appointed to the Council

Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne appointed two new members to the Council earlier this year.

Jim Kempton, of Albion, replaces retiring Council member Todd Maddock. Kempton was a member of the Idaho House of Representatives where he served on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee and chaired the Transportation and Defense Committee.

Earlier, he served for two years on the Environmental Affairs Committee.

After working in the Pentagon as Department of Defense liaison to the Secretary of Commerce on international co-production programs, he returned to Idaho in 1981 and was engaged in ranching until 1990, when he was elected to the Legislature. Today, he is co-manager of a family farm operation and remains a state Board of Education-appointed member of Idaho EPSCoR, a National Science Foundation "Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research."

Also new to the Council is Judi Danielson, who replaces Council member Mike Field. Danielson has served three full terms in the Idaho Senate, most recently as Senate Majority Caucus Chair and vice-chair of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee. She also served in the Idaho House of Representatives from 1988 to 1994.

Danielson has a background in natural resource issues, having served as chair of the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force and as a member of the Public Lands Subcommittee of the Council of State Governments-West. She also played a key role in the development of Idaho’s proposal for state management of federal forest lands.