FWP overhauls warden division after poor audits
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) After almost a decade of internal unrest, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is reorganizing the wardens’ division to address employee issues of trust and morale.
On Wednesday, FWP director Christie Clark told the legislative Environmental Quality Council that she’d temporarily hired former state Department of Corrections director Brian Gootkin to help the wardens’ division become less dysfunctional than it’s been recently. That’s resulted in some personnel and organizational changes intended to return the division to the culture it had until a decade ago.
“Nearly a decade ago, our agency underwent a pivotal leadership change, and it was a moment that sparked a shift in enforcement philosophy from a conservation focus to more of an enforcement-driven approach. While some viewed this as modernization, it was a significant transition from the traditional conservation identity to more of a police-centric model," Clark said. “Simultaneously, the department was undergoing centralization of the enforcement division. That, coupled with the shift in leadership, really did begin a period of turbulence and challenge of the enforcement unit.”
That period was characterized by warden resignations and high turnover. A 2023 legislative audit of FWP’s law enforcement division highlighted wardens’ fears of retaliation and communication breakdowns. A follow-up audit in 2025 found the problems hadn’t diminished.
Governor Greg Gianforte appointed Clark as FWP director in December 2024, replacing two Gianforte-appointed directors who’d made several large department changes in just a few years and contributed to employees’ lack of trust and morale. After an internal survey in March 2026 identified specific leadership and cultural challenges, Clark decided to replace the warden chief and deputy, Ron Howell and J.D. Douglas. Clark said Howell stepped aside voluntarily. Gootkin said the new chief may not come from within the warden ranks.
Then Clark hired Gootkin to help her restructure the division, paying him $6,000 for two months while he waited for a federal marshal appointment after being nominated in October. Gootkin said he’d initially met with warden captains and later the sergeants to hear what issues they’d encountered.
One of the problems was the centralization of law enforcement. Centralizing everything in Helenas isolated it from the seven FWP regions that are more decentralized because each has different demands. So now, the wardens are working on ways to keep some centralization but retain each region’s identity, Gootkin said.
Sen. Pat Flowers, a former FWP Region 3 supervisor, said the decentralized model worked well for him although centralized management could be useful to a point.
“I would ask that you keep a close eye on whether that balance is being met because it slips out of balance pretty easily. And it leads to inefficiencies and loss of mission,” Flowers said.
A new leadership structure may help that. Instead of one warden captain in Helena helping the chief and assistant chief make all the decisions, the warden captains from each of the seven regions will now be included in decision-making.
“They have a buy-in in exactly what’s going on. I told them to be careful what you wish for, because now you can’t blame Helena,” Gootkin said. “They embraced it.”
Another problem was that, since about 2017, wardens have become more police-like and less conservation-oriented. Wardens differ from citizen law enforcement in that they attend public meetings and often help biologists with projects, which is one of the reasons they’re required to have a college degree. But then they started wearing riot gear such as bulletproof vests. Some wardens said that gave sportsmen the wrong message.
“What’s really cool about being a game warden is the conservation side of it. They have a balance of enforcement and conservation. One is not more important than the other,” Gootkin said. “That has to be balanced. I’ll give you an example from corrections: if we focused only on public safety and not on rehabilitation, we would fail.”
Gootkin said wardens are now starting to wear body cameras.
Finally, the division will monitor its progress to be sure the changes are helping the warden culture and morale improve. Gootkin said he’s already received positive feedback from regional supervisors and warden sergeants regarding the proposed changes.
“It’s not any different than a family setting where there’s toxicity or addiction and you have to reach outside. And that’s what we did in this case,” Clark said. “These wardens are the very face of our agency and we had to turn this around.”
Gootkin has worked with FWP before. After Gianforte appointed Gooktin director of the Corrections Department, Gootkin instituted a program at the state prison in 2021, paid for by FWP, to raise pheasants to be released for youth hunting. The 2021 Legislature passed House Bill 637, a hodgepodge of items proposed by then-FWP Director Hank Worsech, that included spending about $1 million in federal Pittman-Robertson money and sportsmen’s license dollars on the pheasant stocking program. Many hunters considered it a waste of money since pen-raised birds tend not to survive after being released.
In 2017, Gootkin was the Gallatin County Sheriff when Gianforte assaulted a reporter during a fundraising event for Gianforte’s Congressional campaign. Gianforte wasn’t detained or arrested at the scene, but he was later charged with and convicted of misdemeanor assault. At the time, Gootkin denied that a $250 donation he’d made to Gianforte’s campaign led to any conflict of interest in the case.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.