PROVIDENCE – W. Michael Sullivan is resigning from his position as director of the R.I. Department of Environmental Management as of Jan. 1, Sullivan said Tuesday.
Janet L. Coit, head of The Nature Conservancy in Rhode Island, has been named as Gov.-elect Lincoln Chafee’s choice to replace Sullivan.
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“It was clear that the Chafee team wanted to make a change,” said Sullivan to Providence Business News while noting that he has offered his assistance in finding a replacement.
“I will remain excited about a lot of things. Part of me would have loved to stay … but it’s now somebody else’s turn,” he added.
Sullivan, who was appointed by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri in April 2005, plans to go back to the University of Rhode Island, where he had been a professor of plant sciences since 1981 before taking the helm of the DEM.
At the agency, Sullivan oversaw environmental programs including open space preservation and management of the state’s parks and beaches.
Sullivan, who earned a Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Nebraska in 1981, served as a Rhode Island state senator from 1993 to 1997 and on the Richmond Town Council from 1988 to 1992 and as president of the council from 1998 to 2006.
