The influential federal panel that helps shape ocean fishing policies across more than a million square miles of the U.S.-controlled Pacific waters is seeking its first new executive director in more than 40 years.

That search, announced in a job posting last week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, signals the end of Kitty Simonds’ reign there. The controversial Wespac executive director will step down after wielding considerable influence across the Pacific region in that role since 1983.

Simonds did not respond to requests for comment. It’s unclear whether she’s retiring or will stay on in some capacity. The Nov. 2 job solicitation on Wespac’s website says the group hopes to have its new director in place no later than March 1. 

Her departure marks the end of an era in which Wespac generally prioritized commercial fishing interests over recreational and conservation interests, and it raises questions about what course the regional council will chart under new leadership.

“She’s kind of irreplaceable, and whoever replaces her, I mean, I just don’t know — good luck,” said Esther Kiaʻāina, a Honolulu City Councilwoman who got to know Simonds while working as a federal aide and Interior Department deputy director in Washington, D.C.

“Kitty Simonds is one of the most colorful and energetic and effective people that I have ever known,” Kiaʻāina said Friday. “When she walked in a room, people not just respected her but they feared her. And they feared her because that is how effective an advocate she was.”

Few federal officials have been as passionate as Simonds, Kiaʻāina said, about protecting and strengthening the vulnerable economies in the Pacific’s often-overlooked U.S. territories: American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

“She has been an invaluable steward of Pacific Ocean fisheries,” Amata Coleman Radewagen, American Samoa’s Republican Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, said Sunday. “I commend her longtime service.”

However, Simonds often butted heads with environmental groups over access to the Pacific’s vast marine protected areas. In recent decades she led Wespac’s repeated efforts to lobby against marine national monuments and sanctuaries that sought to keep out commercial fishing to better protect vulnerable native species and keep pelagic fish stocks healthy.

Her efforts culminated in an appearance with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last year when he signed an executive order to reopen the Pacific Island Heritage Marine National Monument in the southern and central Pacific to commercial fishing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which Wespac advises, was scheduled to open the public comment period Monday on the proposed rule to allow commercial fishing in the monument.

Earlier this year, Trump signed a similar order lifting the ban on commercial fishing in Hawaiʻi’s Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as former, current and future Wespac members looked on.

Simonds’ fishery allies and foes alike have been impressed with how effective she’s been over the years and her sustained dominance over Wespac. One former council member called her a “force of nature.”

There’s been speculation for years over when or whether Simonds would retire – and how that might impact Wespac’s direction going forward.

“I think we’re still all in shock,” Conservation Council of Hawaiʻi Executive Director Jonee Peters said Friday of Simonds stepping down. The nonprofit group is challenging Trump’s efforts to reopen the Pacific monuments to commercial fishing in federal court.

“It just came out of left field. It’s going to be hard shoes to fill,” Peters said. She hopes Simonds’ successor “would truly listen to conservation.”

Wespac often presents scientific studies that support the expansion of commercial fishing in Pacific waters. “The people in the conservation field,” Peters said, “we have scientists as well. We speak for not only the marine species but also for the people. It’s for the longevity of the fishing industry itself.”

Wespac under Simonds further drew scrutiny in recent years from members of Congress, including Hawaiʻi’s Rep. Ed Case, over questionable spending and management practices.

A 2021 Inspector General’s audit, following a 2019 Civil Beat investigation into Wespac, found the group had misspent $837,000 and had to pay those dollars back. It still has not done so, according to NOAA.

Wespac’s executive director position oversees 20 employees, according to the job announcement, and has a salary range between $172,956 and $224,073. Candidates have until Dec. 1 to apply and Wespac hopes to pick the new executive director by Jan. 1.

“You don’t want a technocrat whose expertise is just fisheries management,” Kiaʻāina said of Simonds successor. “Fisheries management is just not about fishing in the ocean. It’s about the people and the islands whose livelihoods depend on fishing.”