Jaime Pinkham

Jaime A. Pinkham has been the Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission since April 2025. CRITFC provides policy and technical support to four treaty tribes in the Columbia Basin: Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce. In 2021, he joined the Biden Administration to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) providing guidance and oversight to the Army Corps of Engineers in their mission areas including navigation, flood and storm risk management and response, ecosystem restoration, and regulatory affairs. His previous experience includes CRITFC's Executive Director (2017–2021) and Vice President of the Bush Foundation (2009-2017) in St. Paul, MN leading their efforts in MN, ND and SD to partner with tribes as they redesigned their governing institutions. At the Foundation he led the creation of the Native Governance Center, an independent, tribally led non-profit and was a loaned executive in 2016 assisting the center’s launch. He worked for the Nez Perce Tribe from 1990-2002, where he was elected twice to the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee retaining the position of Treasurer as the Tribe was expanding gaming operations. When he was not on the executive committee he oversaw Tribal fisheries, forestry, wildlife, cultural resources and agriculture and was involved with salmon restoration, land acquisition, water rights negotiations and wolf reintroduction. 

He currently serves on the boards of Defenders of Wildlife, American Rivers, and the Nature Conservancy’s Washington State Trustees. He is also an original member of NNI’s International Advisory Council.

He has a forestry degree from Oregon State University where he was recognized as an OSU Alumni Fellow and a College of Forestry Outstanding Alumnus. He also received awards from the Intertribal Timber Council, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, The Wilderness Society, and the US Army.

Watch videos of Jaime on the Indigenous Governance Database.