Environmental conservation efforts regarding privately owned land will be under the stewardship of a committed conservationist with more than thirty years of service in the field. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack named career conservationist Dave White Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) on March 24, 2009. Originally established in 1935 as the Soil Conservation Service as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the NRCS has 12,000 employees and a budget in excess of $3 billion. Today, the primary function of the NRCS is to help administer the government’s conservation policy and practices. NRCS provides technical and financial assistance to private land owners and users, who occupy 70 percent of the contiguous United States.
White is an honors graduate of the University of Missouri at Columbia, where he earned a BS in Agriculture. He began his career with the NRCS in 1977 as a conservation aide in Missouri. Subsequently, he has served the agency in South Carolina, Montana and its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
In 1997, White was detailed to the
Senate Agriculture Committee, where he worked on Senator Richard Lugar’s (R-Indiana) staff and handled conservation and environmental issues. In 2000, he went to work at the Clinton White House as communications director for the White House Task Force for Livable Communities. In 2001 and 2002, White was dispatched for a second time to Sen. Lugar to work on the Agriculture Committee on the conservation and forestry titles of the 2002 Farm Bill. From 2002 to 2008, he was assigned as the
NRCS State Conservationist in Montana. In 2007 and 2008, he was detailed once again to the Agriculture Committee to work on Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) staff to develop the conservation title of the 2007 Farm Bill.
Dave White and his wife have a grown son and daughter.
-Matt Bewig
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