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I am the Director of the Ida County Conservation Board.

My primary responsibilities are to oversee and manage the day-to-day operations of the Ida County Conservation Board. We are a department within the county government charged with providing parks and recreation to our region, as well as museums, preserves, wildlife habitats and education related to outdoor activities.

I was the only one at work on Friday, because everybody else was on vacation for the Christmas holiday. I began work on our annual budget for 2009. Our budget runs on a fiscal year from July 1st to June 30, and part of my job is to figure out year-to-date expenses. We are exactly half way through our year right now, so I calculated year-to-date expenses, what we've spent and how much above or below we are, adjust expenses for next year, and estimate how much funding we can expect from tax revenue. We usually get 30.5 cents per $1,000 spent in our county, and then we add that total to our income and calculate the amount we have to work with. It's a great deal of work, so spent much of the day with the budget.

No, not really. My duties are so varied, and I do just a little bit of everything in the county. Part of that is because I am in a small county, so I'll do some construction, organize tree plantings, and oversee the day-to-day activities. There is never really a typical day, because things change so much depending on the season.

Depending on the season, I probably spend about 75 percent of my time indoors, and 25 percent outdoors.

Every December and January, I actually put a budget together, I'll go in front of our conservation board, and they have to approve that budget and indicate any changes. Then I'll have to go in front of the county board of supervisors, and they will approve or disapprove of that budget. Finally, I go back and figure out where we should cut expenses, and what we should leave alone. That process is an annual thing, but we do budget work monthly. I meet with my county conservation board, and one of the things I have to do is give them a budget total for the fiscal year. I keep a month-to-month budget that details where we are and where need to be.

Our winter season is obviously the slowest time. That's when I work on any types of grants and proposals that we want to submit. Each grant has it's own criteria for what they want, so I have to determine eligibility for any available grants. January is budget time, grant time, and organization time where we clean up everything. We also do a lot of maintenance work, from painting to building and repairing. In spring, people are excited to get back out to the park, because they have been sitting inside all winter long, so that's when I get really busy. That's when I do most of my maintenance, and that's when we clean shelters, turn the water on, and figure out what got ruined during the winter. The summertime is my favorite time of the year. It's when all the people are there, in good moods and having fun. We get campers, picnickers, and bird watchers. I just love working with all of the people. I will help out with some of the mowing and tree plantings as well. When we get into the fall, we start to wind down and finish the maintenance from the summer usage. We do a lot of our repairs and use a lot of our grant money in the fall; this year we built a shelter.

My least favorite part of the job is trying to find funding. There's not always enough tax money or grant money, and we have been forced to lay people off from time to time. It's really hard, because I can really see a need for these things. There are also a lot of fishermen that want to keep the fish that are restricted due to size or type, and when you confront them, they lie, but these are all just minimal things.

The atmosphere is pretty good and with very few exceptions the people are just great. They love being out there. Our staff gets along great and it makes things go so quick. The days just buzz bye.

I took farm management classes through college. When I started this job, I was looking for something to provide income until I could find more land to farm. The first job that came up was a park ranger/maintenance job, so I applied and it was offered the position. I planned to just take the job until I could find something better. I started to really enjoy it, mainly because of the people. The director's position opened a year later, and they offered me the job. Nowadays, it would be a lot harder to do it that way, because most cities are requiring a four-year degree in nature or wildlife studies.

I've been here for 28 years. Things have changed a lot in that time. 28 years ago, I was able to spend most of my time outside, but now like we said, it's probably 75 percent office work.

Our county is unique because it is so small; so there is no chance upwards progression; I'm at the top of the hierarchy. You start out as a seasonal ranger, and then progress up to graduate level. We are the 92nd of 99 counties in terms of population in our state, but if you move to a larger county, there are quite a few steps in the organizational hierarchy. In some counties, there is a system that is larger than the county system. For instance, Linn County has a County Conservation Law Enforcement system that is larger than the county's total law enforcement system. You can branch out in some of the larger counties, and go into mechanics, plumbing, and more focused professions within the department. Some have carpenters, some have foresters, and some have turf specialists. In small counties like mine, you just do a little of everything.

The main difference would be that I would need a minimum of a four-year degree.

Usually, I start at 8:00 a.m., sometimes earlier when it's hot. We have a short staff meeting and discuss things that happened the day before, and make decisions regarding the things that need to be done. I then check voicemail and emails.

Correct, and usually with input from all employees. We employ naturalists that take their own schedule and go with it, I don't have a lot of input with them.

We have a one-hour lunch break; some stay at the site and some don't. That varies a little day-to-day, depending what we are doing.

There is somebody at the site every day of the week in the spring, summer and fall, including holidays. The normal workweek is Monday through Friday. There are five of us working during the week in the summer, and then we take turns on the weekends. We each usually work the weekends once a month. You have to have somebody there on the weekends because we have campers, reservations for the shelter houses, and camper cabins that need to cleaned.

Yes, it is.

Because we are working with the public and they need to be able to identify us, we wear uniforms. We always wear a nice pair of work pants. In the summertime, I wear a short-sleeved green polo shirt that says 'Ida County Conservation Board' and in the winter, I just wear something a little more dressy with a tan county shirt.

I started out as a maintenance person, 28 years ago, making $9,000 a year. That is still not a high paying job. Currently, in the director's job, I'm making about $36,000 a year, but I also receive really good benefits. There is an insurance package worth about $14,000, as well as good vacation and sick leave. Most counties will run higher than that, but this is a small county so we are on the lower end of the pay scale. In some of the bigger counties, if you get up to director you could make up to $70,000.

In the state, you really can't do that because pay is based off of tax money. As far as bonuses, there are none.

We are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, so we have to be compensated if we work more than 40 hours in a week. That's a federal law, so we try to stick close to that 40 hours. We will get a little overtime from time to time and get compensated for that.

I have a lot of state meetings. I belong to an association called the Association of County Conservation Boards, and I attend educational seminars and do a lot of networking, so I travel to other counties, mainly just as for educational purposes.

It has pretty much been the same as far as workdays, especially since I'm still working on weekends.

The good thing about county jobs is that we are covered under IPERS, and I can retire with sixty percent of my salary at the age of 55. We follow the rule of 88, which means that if your years of experience plus your age equal 88, you can retire with all of your benefits. Since I started at an early age, I will be able to do that if I choose. The problem with that is that you no longer get your insurance benefits.

It's strange because it's gotten better as I moved along. I used to not be able to take vacations in the summertime or on weekends, because the camp was booked up, and I worked every holiday.That's probably the worst way it has affected my family. Now I have a larger staff in the summertime, and I get more weekends and holidays off. I've become more comfortable with my staff, so now I can take a week off in the summertime. I also get a lot of calls. People will call in with a wildlife problem, or if they find an animal that has been abandoned, so I will get those calls and I'll go out late at night. But other than that, I don't think work has affected my family life much.

It's crazy. A lot of people will ask, 'How has the fishing been?' or, 'What do you think about deer hunting this year?' They look at me to answer those questions. They look to me on questions that I don't even know the answer to sometimes.

The most satisfying part of my job is that I truly, truly believe in this stuff. I think getting close to nature is good for people and that you can learn a lot of lessons in the great outdoors. It's satisfying to me to take a group of kids and lay on the ground with magnifying glasses and look at all the bugs in the grass. Things like that just really open people's eyes up to what is out there, and that really satisfies me. I had a neighbor that had never said much to me, and I had her daughter in a class where we were talking about habitats. The mother came over to me later that night and started talking up a storm about what her daughter said she had learned in the park, and that meant a lot to me, just to know that she had gotten something from us and cared enough to share it with her parents. The most frustrating part is the lack of funding. Some of our programs really suffer because of the lack of funding. There are things like improvements to the park that I know need to be done, but I also know that there is no way to do it financially.

We've seen a lot of changes, not so much in funding; that has always been a struggle. but the main difference I've seen is in the parks. For instance, people used to do a lot of picnicking in the park, and the shelter houses were always full, but now if you go through the park, hardly anyone is using a shelter and there is very little picnicking. Now, you see a lot of boating and camping. We also have campers with huge living campers with double air conditioners. It makes me wonder whether this is really "camping."

It's amazing. Just in my office, for instance, the bookkeeping has become so much easier. I used to have to do everything long hand, but now I've got the computer program set up so I can just punch in the numbers and it will do everything for me. As far as programming, I organize a lot of programs for kids, and I put together slide shows. I used to use a slide frame, but now I use digital photos and put them on the computer, and it makes the presentation a lot better.

Each of the 99 counties in Iowa is required to have a country conservation board by law. It used to be up to each county to vote and decide whether they wanted to have a conservation board, and under that system, 98 of the 99 counties voted to have a conservation board. Iowa is unique because now we are the only state that requires every county to have a conservation board. There are a lot of states out there that have governments in charge of parks and recreation, but none of them are as successful as Iowa.

We receive a lot of money from the state for different programs, and much of that money comes from grants. If the money from the national and state governments isn't there, then we don't get the grant money, which hurts. Some of our funding comes directly from the state, and if the state's economy is poor, then we don't get that money.

We'll look back and see how much usage we had, and evaluate whether camping usage has increased and whether the park cabins have been kept full. We'll look back and see if the camper cabins have been booked up every weekend and on 60 percent of the weekdays. If we make it to these numbers, it is a pretty successful season. We also look at the improvements we've made, and at some of the buildings that we built to see how they held up. There have been very few unsuccessful seasons. It seems that if people are out there having fun, we will be successful.

Things have changed so much that it's a hard question. I guess I am not as gullible now as I used to be. People used to be able to roll over me; they would come up with a good excuse of why they were taking a fish that was illegal to take and try to convince me to allow it. Now I have hardened a little. I've also learned how to deal with problems better, and learned that people that are trying to get away with things are not necessarily bad people. I just make sure everyone plays by our rules, and if they do that they are more than welcome to come back.

I really love the campers. They are all happy and nice to get along with. They appreciate the parks and what you are doing for them. You get to know them because some of the people will stay at the park for a couple of weeks at a time.

They need to be an outdoors person and enjoy being outside. They don't have to like to hunt and fish, but I think they have to have a love for the outdoors. They also need to enjoy people, because they are going to be thrown out there with all kinds of people every day.