Episodes

Emily Naylor has been deeply involved with County Conservation for the better part of a decade. Now that she's with Bolton & Menk, her job is specifically to help us as parks and conservation leaders serve our communities and...

Many of us in the parks and conservation world either have written, or will write grants at some point. I've been on both sides of the grant process - I've written many grants (some successfully, even!) and have served on gra...

Jody Maberry started the first podcast focused on developing park leaders way back in 2014. Now, nine years and almost 300 episodes of The Park Leaders Show later, he chats with me about how it all began and what he's learned...

At my department, a 33-year veteran employee just retired. Not only does it suck to lose a long-tenured employee, it really sucks because he played a big role in the culture of our department. As the leader of the organizatio...

This brand new nonprofit wild turkey conservation organization is investing heavily in research, collaboration, and ways of getting turkey science out to the hunting public. Turkeys for Tomorrow (TFT) officially began in Febr...

Michelle Wilson wants to change the way REAP Assemblies are held, but she needs our help doing it. Iowa's Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) program has been around for over three decades and for as long as most of us...

We've all seen the impact our parks and public lands have on the people in our communities. But how many people do those parks bring to the community from somewhere else? How many new residents chose to move to your community...

How do you take big ideas and turn them into community-impacting reality? These guys know. Confluence is the consulting firm that worked with the City of Burlington on a master planning process and then the ultra-inclusive de...

The Outdoor Executive Dad podcast is now called Parks and Restoration. The content is largely going to stay the same, but I wanted to rebrand the show to make it more reflective of the content, and less about me as the host. ...

The term "inclusive" gets thrown around a lot in the outdoor recreation industry but what does "inclusive" play really mean? In the city of Burlington, Iowa, park leaders are showing us exactly what it means as they construct...

Dr. Jim Pease is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Natural Resources, Ecology, and Management (NREM) department at Iowa State University. He's been teaching people about the natural world for over 40 years in both formal...

As we head into the busy park season, many of us will be leading or working with seasonal staff and interns. Do you view them simply as “grunt workers” or are you actively investing in their professional development? In this ...

"I'm not against farming. I'm against pollution." ~Chris Jones Chris Jones is a research engineer at the University of Iowa where he manages the state's water quality monitoring system. But he is probably best known for his b...

Let's call this another installment of the County Conservation Legacy Society. Richard Erke retired last year after 39 years in Decatur County. I love having conversations with long-serving conservation leaders because the pe...

Wild turkey populations have declined in many places across their range and many parts of Iowa are no exception. Research is going on across the country studying various aspects of turkey population dynamics. In this episode,...

Why do we cut cedars out of prairies? Why do we thin trees in forests and oak savannas? Why do we burn? For many of us, the answers to those questions are fairly straightforward. But some people think about land management on...

What are effective ways to recruit new people to hunting when the "It's our heritage" statement doesn't resonate? How can we diversify our education programs to reach broader demographics? How can the DNR more effectively com...

It's Leopold Week where we celebrate the life and work of Aldo Leopold, the "Father of Wildlife Ecology" and no doubt a big influence on many of us in the conservation field. But how many of us stop to appreciate the fact tha...

Kody Wohlers has built a career around fire. Now he is ensuring that future generations of land managers have the skills and experience to properly apply this critical management tool to landscapes in their own communities. T...

There's a lot going on in the statehouse lately, notably a bill in the Senate that would fund the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund (aka IWiLL ) while making some significant changes to various other tax cod...

What if we gave every student in an entire 4th or 5th grade class a fully immersive, week long, multidisciplinary outdoor learning experience? That’s exactly what School of the Wild is doing in school districts across Iowa. I...

This is the first of what will likely be many legislative updates shared through this show. This is a snapshot of the status of the Iowa Legislature as it applies to the world of county conservation as of this day in time (Ja...

Here on day two of the Winterfest conference I chat with The Armless Archer, Matt Stutsman and try not to go too fan-boy on him. I also chat with some of the event’s presenting sponsors and Adam Shirley, the new CEO of Iowa’s...

Coming to you live (sorta) from the annual Winterfest Conference in Coralville. Here we dig into what goes into putting on the premier county conservation employee conference and get some insight into the event itself. This i...