http://www.roanoke.com/sports/breaking/wb/141713
VDGIF terminates director
J. Carlton Courter III joined the department last November.
By Mark Taylor / The Roanoke Times
The man hired last year to help the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries recover from a painful scandal didn’t last as long as the search to find him took.
The department’s board of directors fired J. Carlton Courter III on Friday, 13 months after Courter was hired — following a 16-month search.
Board member Sherry Crumley of Buchanan said Courter’s dismissal was not related to any wrongdoing.
“There were absolutely no improprieties,” said Crumley, one of eight board members who attended the specially convened meeting Friday to discuss Courter’s performance. “Carlton is a very fine person.
“We just felt that the agency needed to have some new direction.”
The board’s vote to dismiss Courter was unanimous. The firing took effect immediately, and Courter will receive 30 days of severance pay.
Col. Mike Bise, head of the agency’s Law Enforcement Division, will serve as the acting director during the search for a permanent director.
Bise was set to retire effective Jan. 1, but will extend his employment during the search.
The board hopes to have a permanent director in place by Feb. 1, said board chairman Jimmy Hazel, who called Bise the “obvious” choice to head the agency in the interim.
Crumley said she’s confident that the search will be much briefer than the previous one because the department is in better shape now, and therefore more attractive to potential candidates.
“We feel like the department is on very stable ground right now,” she said.
The previous director, Bill Woodfin, was forced to resign in May 2005 after a state auditor’s investigation uncovered among some senior agency leaders patterns of cronyism, retaliation and fiscal improprieties, including spending agency money on gear for a personal safari to Africa.
Woodfin, along with former senior game wardens Terry Bradbery and Michael Caison, were recently indicted on charges of misuse or misappropriation of state funds.
After Woodfin left, retired Virginia State Police superintendant Gerald Massengill served as the interim director.
Massengill’s strong leadership during the turbulent time was considered one reason the board was able to take its time finding a permanent replacement.
The search drew 78 applicants from around the country.
“The pool was rich and deep,” said board member Billy Greer of Norfolk the day Courter was introduced. “This has been the most elaborate, deep, thorough search I’ve ever been involved in.”
Courter, an Amelia County native who graduated from Virginia Tech in 1979 with a degree in dairy science, was the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture from 1994 until he took over the DGIF, which manages Virginia’s boating, hunting and freshwater fishing resources.
Staff writer Michael Sluss contributed to this report.
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