Parks & Restoration

If you think technology won't influence the parks and conservation world, this episode will make you think otherwise. And if you think today's young people aren't planning to change to world, you haven't talked to this guy... Samuel Malkasian, a young tech entrepreneur in Des Moines, is developing AI systems that can make climbing walls safer and that can "see" in places without cameras. And he's...

This is the first of five (or more) mini-episodes I will post focused on leadership and organizational culture. Through these episodes, I will discuss my framework, the 5-P's of a Thriving Culture, that I present through my leadership speaking and consulting work. This one is all about People, and how for workplaces to thrive, people must be at the center. If you're interested in learning more or...

With the holiday season upon us, it's a perfect time to assess whether we are really getting JOY out of our lives. It's real easy to bogged down in the daily grind, the hustle of life, and the chasing of the things that society tells us to chase. But Lisa Even brings a perspective that I like, and it's this: we should pursue JOY like it's our job. What if we put the same priority on enjoying life...

For the last four weeks, I've had the benefit of having a 7-person Americorps NCCC team serving with my team at Des Moines County Conservation. Today, after the last-day lunch I treated them to, I sat down with a couple of the team members to discuss their experience with the program, best practices for managing a team, and the opportunities that national service programs such as Americorps offers...

In Harrison County, Iowa, less than an hour northeast of Omaha is the brand new Willow Lake Nature Center, now the headquarters of Harrison County Conservation and the showpiece for Willow Lake Recreation Area. In this episode, I talk with Conservation Director Scott Nelson about how such a big project came to be (it was 10 years in the making), and how he cultivated the relationships necessary to...

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 achieve the dreams we have for our parks and landscapes. In this sponsored episode, I talk with Emily about what Bolton & Menk can do for us in the world of parks 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 grant scoring committees. Having just concluded a scoring process and with several grant deadlines coming up in the not-too-distant future, I took some time in this episode to sh...

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 from talking with so many great leaders from around the country. We discuss some of his favorite episodes and guests and how we as park and conservation leaders can adapt to...

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 organization, I find myself in the position of navigating this change with my team and thought I’d share with you one strategy I just used to get feedback from the crew and to take a pro...

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 February of 2021 with the goal of reversing declining wild turkey populations using research as the foundation of decision making. The organization is currently working with sever...

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 can remember, the biannual REAP Assemblies have been done the same way. That's going to change this year. Hear what's changing, what's staying the same, and what the future h...

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 because those places existed? We also know how much our parks make in direct revenue. But what's the real economic impact to our community? To the state? In this episode, I t...

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 destination playground project at the city's Dankwardt Park which was the topic of Episode 32. Confluence is a professional creative firm dedicated to bringing people, ideas, an...

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. I will also still personally maintain the Outdoor Executive Dad moniker and the OutdoorExecutiveDad.com website where you'll continue to find show notes and links from the var...

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 a $1.5 million destination playground that will be the most inclusive playground in the region. This playground goes well beyond just "accessible." It will give kids of varyi...

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 and informal settings and his list of credentials is impressive, to say the least. He is certainly leaving a legacy here in Iowa. Today he continues to paddle Iowa rivers (he...

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 mini-episode, I share my thoughts on how today’s seasonal staff are tomorrow’s coworkers and what we as leaders should be doing to cultivate a future workforce.

"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 blog , through which he describes the state's water quality crisis and its sources: mainly the industrial agricultural system. Over the years, Chris Jones has become one of the...

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 perspective looking back on a 4-decade career is much different than what it is for us in the still deep in the trenches. This particular conversation reinforced for me, yet aga...

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, Dan Kaminski, Wildlife Research Biologist with the Iowa DNR walks us through the research happening in Iowa, who's involved, and what questions researchers are trying to answ...

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 a deeper level. They see thinning operations as managing the flow of energy in a system. Or they seek to understand the microclimate impacts from prescribed fire. Some people...

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 communicate with county conservation professionals across the state as we collectively work to bring outdoor recreation to a new generation?  I tackle these questions and much mo...

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 that Leopold is from here in Iowa, born and raised in Burlington (my hometown, incidentally). So much of what he wrote and what has been written about his focuses on his professi...

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. The Loess Hills Alliance's Cooperative Burn week has become the gold standard for agencies working together to not only impact a globally significant landscape, but to teach an...

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 codes. In this episode, I chat with ICCS CEO Adam Shirley about some of the bill's details, what some of the response has been to it, and what we can do as parks and conservation...