Suzanne Case

Suzanne Case is a conservationist and natural resource manager in Hawaii.

Born in Hilo, Hawaii along with five siblings and including her brother, Ed Case, a member of American congress. She graduated from Punahou School in Oahu in 1974. She attended Williams College in Massachusetts and Stanford University where she graduated with honors in 1979, obtaining a BA in History. Case received her JD in 1983 from the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco where she contributed to the Hastings Law Journal.

Case served as counsel for The Nature Conservancy from 1987 to 2001 before becoming its Executive Director from 2001 to 2015. From 2015 to 2022, she served as the Chairperson of Hawaii Land and Natural Resources, the state agency responsible for the management of terrestrial resources.

During her time at The Nature Conservancy, Case was involved in creating a National Wildlife Refuge on Mauna Kea and supervised eight Nature Conservancy Preserves. She implemented conservation projects in California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Hawaiʻi. She was a critical help in establishing multiple other international conservation programs. Working in the Department of Land and Natural Resources as chairperson, she oversaw the acquisition of the 116,000-acre Kahuku Ranch in order to bring it under the umbrella of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. In addition to her work in the Department of Land and Natural Resources, she served as Chair for the State Commission on Water Resource Management, as well as co-chair of the Sustainable Hawaii Initiative, the Hawaii Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Commission, Hawaii Invasive Species Committee, and as a member of both the Hawaii Board of Agriculture and the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission.

In 2014, Case received the Ho‘okele Award. Case assisted in the creation of watershed partnerships for forested management in the state of Hawaii to connect and grow networks of local communities who would restore near-shore marine life. She helped implement large-scale projects to remove dangerous invasive algae from Hawaii's coral reefs and coastal areas.