Seth Blitch leaves top post at ANERR
January 05, 2011 12:25 PM
By Lois Swoboda
A beloved neighbor, environmental advocate and faithful public servant is leaving Franklin County and Florida.
Seth Blitch, who has served as the director of the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (ANERR) since March 2003 has resigned his post to become director of Coastal and Marine Programs for the Nature Conservancy.
The director’s post is a new position at The Nature Conservancy, the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters.
Blitch, who will be based in Baton Rouge, La., said he expects to be heavily involved in restoration work in the Louisiana marshlands and oyster reefs. He said much of his work will focus on hydrology and restoring flow in the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest swampland in the US.
“I’m going to miss working at the preserve and the great people I worked with here, but this was just too good an opportunity to pass up,” he said,
Blitch, his wife Kori and their children are all native Floridians.
“We have never lived anywhere else,” he said, “We are all a little bit excited because this will be a new experience for us. New geography, new culture and new food.”
He said he is proud of ANERR’s new headquarters in Eastpoint. “I believe it will be a big draw for the county and the county will embrace it,” he said. “I will miss it here because you have such a sense of place. When you are in Franklin County, you know where you are. It is not a community that has become homogenized and grown together with everything else along the coast. I think that is very important.”
Blitch said he promised his children the family will return to the county for at least a week of vacation every year.
Lee Edmiston, director of Coastal and Aquatic Managed Areas for Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, and former research director for ANERR, will head the search to fill Blitch’s old job. No interim director has been appointed.
“We have every intention of filling the position but the Department of Environmental Protection is currently under a hiring freeze,” Edmiston said. “We hope to know within the month when we will be able to advertise the position.”
Blitch’s last day at ANERR was Dec. 31. He will begin his new job with the Nature Conservancy on Jan. 17.
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