Longtime Alaska Department of Fish and Game employee Charles “Charlie” Swanton has been appointed to the Deputy Commissioner’s position within the department. Swanton has also been nominated as the state’s Commissioner for the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Swanton, who is currently attending a Pacific Salmon Commission meeting in Vancouver, according to Fish and Game staff, has been the director of the department’s Division of Sportfish for seven years.

“He stepped right into it,” said Fish and Game Deputy Commissioner Kevin Brooks. “That was part of getting him into the seat because there’s meetings this week and then additional ones next week as well. People fish in the summer and they meet in the winter.”

Deputy Sportfish Division Director Tom Brookover has been named as acting director of the Sport Fish Division.

Acting Commissioner Sam Cotten appointed Swanton to his new role, according to a Tuesday news release. The nomination to the Pacific Salmon Commission is a presidential appointment, according to the release.

In his new role, Swanton will be working with the Pacific Salmon Commission and the Pacific Salmon Treaty between the United States and Canada — which governs the harvest and sharing of the nations’ salmon resources, said Brooks.

That agreement, most recently approved in 2008, will be up for renegotiation an 2018, according to the Pacific Salmon Commission.

Rashah McChesney can be reached at rashah.mcchesney@peninsulaclarion.com.