Episodes

43 years is a long time to do anything, and Dennis Lewiston spent that long working in county conservation, spending 37 of those years in Jefferson County alone. The wealth of knowledge that these long-serving leaders bring r...

Shortly after Ray Delmege started his career at Polk County Conservation, he was assigned to Jester Park which was described to him as "a glorified cow pasture where motorcycle gangs and college kids came to drink beer and pa...

If you build it, but nobody knows about it, will anybody come? What's the "personality" of your organization? How do you build so much trust among your community that 81% of it votes to give you $65 million to further your pa...

When one county department sues another over a hog confinement issue, that's a story worth telling. But then again, over a 40-year career, you end up with plenty of stories to tell. Bob Etzel retired from Tama County Conserva...

In this podcast, I try to glean insight from those that have been in the industry for a while and this guest certainly fits that criteria. Rick Schneider served as director in Woodbury County for 43 years and shares some of h...

Adams County, Iowa is one of, if not THE, smallest counties in the state. Yet the county conservation department's main park, Lake Icaria, generates over $600,000 annually in direct revenue with a local economic impact of $3-...

Tom Hazelton is to County Conservation what Aldo Leopold is to the concept of a Land Ethic, or what Ding Darling is to political cartoons about environmental topics. Tom has been involved in County Conservation his entire adu...

Linn County is the third of four counties in Iowa where voters overwhelmingly approved funding to support parks, trails, water quality, and other quality of life improvements via the county conservation department. In this ep...

In 2008, voters in Johnson County passed the state's first county conservation bond referendum. In this discussion with Larry Gullett, Director at Johnson County Conservation, we go over how the bond came to be...and almost d...

Polk County voters have passed two bonds to be used by the county conservation department for park and trail development, water quality, and other quality of life improvements. The first bond passed in 2012 with over 70% supp...

I had a moment of insight while walking a trail today and couldn’t help but share it. Too often we parks and conservation leaders get lost in the job and the day-to-day grind that we forget why we do what we do (at least I do...

After more than 30 years in public service, the last six of which were spent as Deputy Director with Polk County Conservation, Doug Romig decided to leave Iowa to be closer to family and to pursue a new career challenge. Befo...

Daryl Parker officially retired in 2020 after 28 years leading the conservation department in Jackson County, Iowa. In this conversation, we discuss board relations and how we as leaders can manage them, catastrophic floods, ...

This was the very first recording I did for what has now become this podcast. This is an interview with Dan Biechler, the then-Director at Linn County Conservation. This was recorded in early 2018, just about a week before Da...

In this interview from January 2018, I talk with Tom Buckley who had recently retired as the Executive Director after 27 years with Lee County Conservation in Southeast Iowa, which happens to be my neighbor county to the sout...

Here we discuss the Iowa DNR's Wildlife Diversity Program - what it is and how it's funded - and how we as park and conservation leaders can contribute to it through our state tax form and/or through our vehicle license plate...

Who is this Outdoor Executive Dad? And what is this podcast about? This short episode answers those questions.

Dan Cohen, Director at Buchanan County Conservation and Matt Cosgrove, Director at Webster County Conservation, have been the legislative committee leaders in some capacity for the County Conservation Directors Association fo...