MOBILE, Ala. — Chris Blankenship is going back to the coast where his career began. Days after stepping down as commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Blankenship has been named executive director of the Coastal Alabama Partnership and its advocacy arm, Coastal 150. He will be the voice of two organizations that try to rally Mobile and Baldwin county leaders around one regional agenda.
The appointment takes effect Oct. 19. It was announced Wednesday by the boards of both organizations and follows Blankenship’s retirement from the state agency at the end of September, after more than three decades with the department and nine years as its top official.
“Coastal Alabama is my home, and I couldn’t be more excited to get back to work for this region,” Blankenship said.
At a glance
- Who: Chris Blankenship, ADCNR commissioner from 2017 until his retirement at the end of September 2026
- New role: Executive director of the Coastal Alabama Partnership (CAP) and Coastal 150
- Start date: Oct. 19, 2026
- Headquarters: Mobile-based nonprofit focused on public policy priorities for Mobile and Baldwin counties
- State career: More than 30 years with ADCNR, from conservation officer in 1994 to commissioner
- Agency he led: More than 1,250 employees and a $470 million annual budget
- Successor at ADCNR: Ben Stimpson Jr.
‘Uniquely qualified,’ board chair says
Leaders of both organizations pointed to Blankenship’s reputation and his statewide relationships, built over a career that put him in regular contact with the Legislature, the governor’s office and local governments across Alabama.
“Chris is a leader of exceptional character and integrity, and he has earned the respect and trust of people throughout Alabama,” said Sted McCollough, chairman of the CAP board. “He has led with honesty and demonstrated a genuine commitment to serving the people and communities of our state. Chris’ strong reputation, professional relationships and steady leadership make him uniquely qualified to lead CAP into its next chapter.”
George Talbot, president of the Coastal 150 board, described the hire as a homecoming that would bring a sharper focus to the organizations’ mission.
“Chris is coming home to lead CAP and Coastal 150 with a renewed focus on the priorities these organizations were built to serve — uniting our business, government and community leaders around one voice for this region,” Talbot said. “His relationships across the state and his track record of building consensus make him the right leader to sharpen that focus and deliver results for Coastal Alabama.”
What the Coastal Alabama Partnership and Coastal 150 do
The Coastal Alabama Partnership is a Mobile-based nonprofit that works to advance public policy priorities for the two-county region and to provide leadership and guidance on major initiatives affecting Mobile and Baldwin counties. Its goal is to get the region’s business, government and civic leaders to speak with one voice rather than compete with one another in Montgomery and Washington.
Coastal 150 is CAP’s pro-business advocacy arm. Formed in 2017, it works to advance Coastal Alabama’s priorities and to influence state policy on issues that affect the region.
Blankenship said that unifying role is what drew him to the job.
“I’ve spent my career building relationships across this state — with legislators, agency leaders, mayors, business owners and community leaders — and I will work with all of them for the betterment of Baldwin and Mobile counties,” he said. “This region has tremendous momentum, and I look forward to helping unify our leadership around a shared voice and shared set of priorities. Working together, we can accomplish so much more than we can alone.”
Filling a long vacancy
The appointment comes more than 18 months after the organizations’ previous leader left. Wiley Blankenship, who served about 12 years as president and CEO of the Coastal Alabama Partnership and was also executive director of Coastal 150, resigned in March 2025 to manage Connie Hudson’s campaign for Mobile mayor. He later joined the engineering and construction firm Woodward as its Gulf Coast market leader.
From a patrol boat to the commissioner’s office
Blankenship grew up on Dauphin Island and joined the department in 1994 as a conservation enforcement officer in the Marine Resources Division. In a reflection on his career released as he left the agency, he recalled the job fondly.
“When I got hired in 1994 as a conservation officer that was a fantastic job. They gave me a boat, a gas card and a vehicle to drive. They told me to go out on the water and talk to people. That was right up my alley,” he said. “I really enjoyed it, and I felt like we really made a difference in protecting the resource.”
He said he wrote a lot of tickets in his first couple of years, to commercial and recreational fishermen alike, to get people’s attention. “Word got around,” he said. “I think it changed the mindset on some people. They really straightened up.”
He moved up through the management side of Marine Resources and eventually became the division’s director. He was the first person from the enforcement side to hold the job, since every previous director had been a biologist. He said he made a point of learning the science and leaned on division staff and on University of South Alabama researchers led by Dr. Sean Powers for the biological information behind management decisions.
“Those relationships are a key part of our success,” he said.
A sudden rise to commissioner
Then-Commissioner Gunter Guy, an appointee of Gov. Robert Bentley, asked Blankenship to become deputy commissioner in 2017. Three weeks later, Bentley resigned.
“It was a tumultuous time. I didn’t know if I was going to be retained by the new governor at all,” Blankenship said. “I’m just very thankful that when Governor Ivey came in, she made me Acting Commissioner. A couple of months later, she made it permanent.”
He served as commissioner for all of Gov. Kay Ivey’s administration, from 2017 until September. He credited his faith for the path that took him from enforcement officer to the agency’s top job.
“I never anticipated becoming Commissioner. I never had that as a goal and really didn’t consider that a possibility,” he said. “To start off as a conservation officer and end up Commissioner, sometimes I just sit there and think ‘Wow.'”
A record built on outdoor recreation and coastal restoration
The department Blankenship led oversees Alabama’s fisheries, wildlife, state parks, coastal lands and Deepwater Horizon oil spill restoration programs. Several of the accomplishments he cited on his way out connect directly to the coastal economy he will now advocate for.
Red snapper
Blankenship called state management of red snapper one of the defining fights of his career. Working with other Gulf states on allocations, with Alabama’s congressional delegation and with President Donald Trump’s administration, Alabama won state management as a pilot program in 2017. A few years later, the Gulf Council made the arrangement more permanent.
“We went from a three-day season to a 200-day season,” Blankenship said. “That was great for our coastal economy.”
State parks and recreation
The 350-room Lodge at Gulf State Park was finished in 2018, giving Baldwin County’s beaches a major new draw and producing revenue that helps pay for work at other state parks. Voters approved an $85 million State Parks bond amendment by a wide margin in 2022, which has paid for improvements and expansion across the park system. A new lodge at Cheaha State Park, at the highest elevation in Alabama, is set to open in mid-October. Blankenship said he will attend as a visitor.
He said that when Ed Poolos became deputy commissioner, the two set a goal in 2018 of spending $35 million on outdoor recreation improvements. By Blankenship’s count, the department has now done $525 million in such work. The money came from partnerships with cities, towns and counties, from Innovate Alabama, from State Parks revenue, from $18 million the Legislature provided over three years, and from Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act and Deepwater Horizon funds spent on coastal projects.
“When you add it up, it’s more than a half a billion dollars in positive recreation work,” he said.
Land for the public
The department also acquired more than 110,000 acres for public use through Forever Wild, the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, Deepwater Horizon settlement funds, GOMESA and other partnerships.
Poolos, who served as deputy commissioner for eight of Blankenship’s nine years and was named director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management last year, praised his former boss.
“Chris’s ability to maneuver through the bureaucracy of government to accomplish the lofty goals he set for the agency is what makes him special,” Poolos said. “His dedication to ensuring that future generations of Alabamians have access to the outdoors will be his lasting legacy.”
“In my opinion, he will go down as the greatest Commissioner in the history of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,” Poolos added.
A name on the coast already
Blankenship’s name already appears on several places and programs, many of them along the coast:
- Gov. Ivey named a large artificial reef zone in Gulf waters after him.
- The Town of Dauphin Island created the Christopher Blankenship Eco-Tourism Park.
- The Forever Wild Field Trial Blankenship Events Center was dedicated last year in Hale County.
- The University of South Alabama is creating the Blankenship Scholars Program to help students pursue careers in law enforcement, from ADCNR to the U.S. Coast Guard. As previously reported, the university is raising $1 million to endow the program.
Boards and credentials
Blankenship holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of South Alabama and completed the Regulatory Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He currently chairs:
- The Forever Wild Land Trust Board
- The Mobile Bay National Estuary Program Executive Committee
- The Innovate Alabama Council on Outdoor Recreation
- The Gulf of America Alliance
He also serves on numerous other state and regional boards. Several of those roles, especially the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program and the Gulf alliance, overlap with the coastal issues CAP and Coastal 150 follow.
Leadership change at ADCNR
Ivey’s office announced in September that Blankenship would retire at the end of the month. Mobile businessman Ben Stimpson Jr. succeeds him as commissioner and will serve through the rest of Ivey’s term, as previously reported. Stimpson is a former chairman of the state’s Conservation Advisory Board and a former chairman of the Alabama State Port Authority.
On his way out, Blankenship credited the department’s staff.
“We have a group of great, passionate people in the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and I am thankful we have been able to facilitate whatever was needed for them to do good work,” he said. “I think we have built a team and a culture that will continue this work for generations to come. To me, that is what I call true success.”
What comes next
Blankenship begins at CAP and Coastal 150 on Oct. 19. The timing puts him in the job ahead of the next legislative session and during a change in leadership in Montgomery, as Ivey’s term nears its end. He will be expected to carry the region’s priorities to lawmakers and agencies he has worked with for years.
For Mobile and Baldwin counties, the hire gives the region’s main advocacy coalition a leader who knows how state money for parks, coastal restoration and public access gets spent. Board leaders said they expect him to use those relationships, and his reputation for building consensus, to get the region’s leaders behind a shared set of goals.