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Conservation Biology Through the Lens of a Career in Salmon Conservation

Written by: Charles Conn
Published on: Oct 13, 2022

salmon
Photo credit: slowmotiongli/Adobe Stock

These are personal reflections on the state of the field and thoughts on a potential way forward for conservation biology from a grant maker who came to conservation science late and from an unusual starting point.

In primary school, I fell in love with a drop of pond water under the microscope and from then on thought I would grow up to be a biologist. Somewhere I lost my way and ended up a businessman. I cannot remember exactly how it happened, but eventually I was trained in what is known as the Catholic church of capitalism, Harvard Business School, and then capitalism's U.S. Marine Corps, McKinsey & Company, the management consulting firm. After McKinsey, my partners and I started or acquired several well-known internet companies, which prospered despite market ups and downs.

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