Longtime face of IDFG retiring after 34 year career
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The following from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
IDAHO FALLS — After 34 and a half years with the State of Idaho, long-time Regional Conservation Educator and spokesman Gregg Losinski is signing off.
Losinski began his career with Idaho State University in 1983 where he served as Director of Student Activities and earned a Master’s Degree in Education. He melded his higher education experience with his earlier natural resources degree and training as a natural resource patrol officer in Wisconsin to assume the position as Regional Conservation Educator with the Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG).
He began his IDFG career in Lewiston as part of a Bonneville Power Authority funded salmon enforcement project. While in Lewiston he became a Level 1 enforcement personnel, a position with similar training and expectations as a Conservation Officer.
Over the years, he was one of the last general department staff to hold this classification because of the increased training required of enforcement personnel. This training allowed him to serve as the only IDFG person on the Olympic Police Force for the 2002 Winter Games in Utah.
In 1995 he transferred to the Upper Snake Region in Idaho Falls and continued to expand his experience as a conservation educator. He was part of the team that created a nationwide conservation education strategy and helped to expand the international Project Wild curriculum. He helped create expanded college courses for teachers about, turkeys, bears, Winter Ecology, and the Yellowstone Ecosystem.
In addition to teaching and media work, he was very active in grizzly bear recovery and working to reduce human/bear conflicts both domestically and internationally. He served as the chair of the Information & Education Subcommittee of the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee for eighteen years and as chair of the Information & Education Subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee for seven years. In both capacities, he not only spoke to thousands of people in presentations but also served as spokesman appearing in media across America, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
In 2015 and 2016 he was a presenter at international environmental film festivals in Slovakia and also received a Fulbright Grant to Slovakia as an Environmental Science Educator. In 2017 he was brought to Japan by the Japan Parks Foundation to speak on grizzly bear recovery and teach Wild About Bears workshops for teachers.
In 2016 he was selected by FEMA/Homeland Security to be part of the first Master Public Information Officer cadre, one of only twenty-four such professionals in the nation, and the only one with a natural resource background. In Idaho, he taught Public Information Officer courses on behave of the Idaho Office of Emergency Management.
In retirement, he plans to continue to be involved in the community through work on the board of the Tautphaus Park Zoological Society, as a regular contributor to Idaho Falls Magazine, and as adjunct faculty for the University of Idaho. At the international level, he remains on the Fulbright Specialist Roster and plans to continue help to reduce conflicts between humans and bears in the Carpathian Mountains of Europe.