WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday nominated Sally Jewell, the chief executive of Recreational Equipment Inc., to lead the Interior Department, with a vow that she will balance the agency’s sometimes conflicting mandates to promote resource development and preserve the nation’s natural heritage.

If confirmed, Ms. Jewell, a former oil company engineer and longtime advocate for conservation and outdoor recreation, will take over a department that has been embroiled in controversy over the regulation of oil and gas on public lands and in the Gulf of Mexico and Arctic Ocean. She also will be the steward of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands, from the Everglades of Florida to the Cascades of Washington State.

Ms. Jewell, 56, who also had a 19-year career as a commercial banker, took over as chief executive of REI in 2005. The company, which is based in Kent, Wash., just south of Seattle, has since grown to nearly $2 billion a year in sales.

She is in line to replace Ken Salazar, who has led the department since the beginning of the Obama administration.