Grand Junction to get 40 BLM jobs

The Bureau of Land Management is now definitively saying it plans to locate about 40 jobs at its new national headquarters in Grand Junction next year, up from the 27 initially announced. The agency’s acting director, William Perry Pendley, had suggested the higher number in an interview in Grand Junction with the Daily Sentinel in early November. He said then that he thought as many as 40 positions might be located at the new headquarters, although 27 remained “the most solid number.” A subsequent BLM news release updating the status of the relocation of agency headquarters jobs to Grand Junction and other western locations said that Pendley had confirmed that 40 BLM jobs are going to Grand Junction. Responding by email to an inquiry from the Daily Sentinel last week, the BLM’s Washington office said that “approximately 40” positions will be based in the city. Altogether, the agency is moving some 300 jobs from its Washington, D.C., headquarters to Western states, with top-level positions including the BLM director, deputy director for operations and all assistant directors being based in Grand Junction at its new national headquarters. The agency plans to keep 61 jobs in Washington. The BLM plans to begin working out of its new headquarters office on Horizon Drive at the start of the year. “There will be people working in the Grand Junction headquarters on Jan. 2, but that is not the official grand opening,” the BLM said in its email to the Sentinel. Robin Brown, executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership, said that based on communications with the Department of Interior, she believes about 10 of the employees are expected to begin working in the new office on Jan. 2, with the number continuing to grow through June...MORE