The troubled Nebraska Environmental Trust turned Thursday to someone with extensive experience in economic development and grants to bring calm to an agency that awards $20 million in grants annually for environmental and conservation projects.
The trust board voted 12-0 to hire Karl Elmshaeuser, the former head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program in Nebraska, as the new executive director. He will be paid $111,900 a year and was selected from a field of 61 applicants.
Elmshaeuser, 60, is a former Ogallala City Council member who ran unsuccessfully for the Nebraska Legislature in 2016. His current job is legislative liaison with the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.
In accepting the job, Elmshaeuser said he "liked a good challenge" and was committed to "taking (the Environmental Trust) from where you're at now to a better place."
Two performance audits this fall detailed several recommendations to improve the agency, and he said he has experience in "process improvement."
The trust, which awards grants using state lottery proceeds, has been in turmoil since February 2020, when the board voted to defund a handful of conservation, habitat and wetland projects and instead award more than $1 million to install ethanol blender pumps at service stations.
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The move spawned a lawsuit against the trust board, as well as the formation of a watchdog group, the Friends of the Environmental Trust, who felt that the trust was straying from its original mission.
The Department of Environment and Energy later withdrew the request for the ethanol pump grant, which had drawn the support of Gov. Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of the corn-based fuel.
The trust's longtime executive director, Mark Brohman, resigned amid the controversy involving the board's actions, opening up the position.
Trust board Chairman Josh Anderson of Edgar called Elmshaeuser a "team builder" who would bring energy to the agency and improve its operations.
Former Sen. Sandy Scofield, who leads the Friends of the Environmental Trust, said that the new director brings a lot of skills to the job and that her group wants him to succeed and hopes that he will follow the original mission of the trust.