Ron Sims Joins Board of The Trust For Public Land
San Francisco - 11/29/2012
Ron Sims, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has joined the national board of directors of The Trust for Public Land, the organization announced today.
Prior to his 2009-2011 appointment at HUD, Sims was for 12 years the elected County Executive of King County, Washington, which includes Seattle and is the nation's 13th largest county.
"In King County, I saw how important it is to provide parks and open spaces close to where people can use them and it makes such a huge difference in the lives of people," said Sims. "The Trust for Public Land does that better than anyone, and I'm looking forward to helping them across the country."
Page Knudsen Cowles, Chair of the National Board of The Trust for Public Land, said, "King County has one of the nation's best park systems and that is due in large part to Ron Sims' leadership. We're looking forward to drawing on Ron's experience and vision as we work to provide parks for people in cities across the nation."
Sims, a native of Spokane, Washington, was the second-ranking official at HUD, where he managed the day-to-day operations of an agency with 8,500 employees and an operating budget of almost $40 billion.
Before that, he ran King County, with 1.8 million residents and 39 cities, including Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond. He received a number of national honors for his work, including from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Sierra Club, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
He is also a member of Board of Regents of Washington State University, the system's governing body.
Founded in 1972, The Trust for Public Land is the leading nonprofit working to conserve land for people. Operating from more than 30 offices nationwide, The Trust for Public Land has protected more than three million acres from the inner city to the wilderness and helped generate more than $34 billion in public funds for conservation. Nearly ten million people live within a ten-minute walk of a Trust for Public Land park, garden, or natural area, and millions more visit these sites every year.
