Rocky Mount attorney Joe Hester has been appointed to the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission.

Hester, 64, is a board-certified specialist in state criminal law and a senior partner in the law firm of Hester, Moore & Tucker PLLC. He is a past president of the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation and the first chairman and a current board member of the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Hester was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine in 2001.

Hester earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1971, a master’s degree in zoology from N.C. State University in 1975 and a law degree from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law in 1977.