To 06…and Beyond

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief Natural Resources Conservation Service, at National Leadership Team

Arlington, Texas
October 18, 2005

Every Saturday, after I watch my daughter play soccer, I take her to dance class. While the girls dance, I sit with the other dance moms in the lobby of the dance studio, and every week they seem to run the same video—Toy Story. I’m impressed by that sage citizen of the future—Buzz Lightyear. He’s always ready to go as far as he can—“To infinity…and beyond.”

His Toy Story buddies may have dismissed his exuberance and hubris, but he had a point—he was forever looking forward.

We may not have our eyes on infinity, but this NLT session is definitely focused on the future. And we all want to go as far as we can, both in FY 2006, and for many years to come, in getting conservation on the ground and leaving a legacy.

Seventy years of helping people help the land gives us a firm foundation. Our job is to build on that foundation and take conservation to an entirely new level.

Strategic Plan

Tomorrow you’ll be hearing from Kathy and Dick on the final draft of our strategic plan, and you’ll have an opportunity to provide input.

But I can give you a few hints—the key themes involve
• cooperative conservation,
• healthy watersheds and
• market-based incentives.

The plan is bold, forward-looking and far-reaching. It offers the right touch and the vision to take us into the future.

It’s not the standard USDA five-year plan, but a 15 to 20 year plan. It’s structured along business lines, market segments and outreach to customers. After the team gets feedback from you and others, they’ll refine the plan.

Personnel Changes

Looking a little closer to the present, I want to mention the staff changes since our meeting in Rochester in August.

At headquarters:

Kevin Brown is now the Associate Deputy Chief for management.

We have a number of folks in new positions in the Programs area. Michael Gonzales is the New Programs and Initiatives Coordinator, and Ross Lahren is Easement Support Branch Chief. Gus Jordan has been named to head the Conservation Technical Assistance Branch, and Jackie Davis-Slay is now our Watershed Surveys and Planning Program Manager. Tony Puga is WRP manager.

We have two new natural resource specialists: Gregorio Cruz in the Stewardship Programs Branch and Mary Grande on the Programs Business Tools Team in Ft. Collins.

George Teachman is serving as the Army Liaison Soil Scientist in Aberdeen, Maryland. Carolyn Adams is the new director of the East National Technology Support Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Carl Lucero has been chosen as the National Leader for Clean Water in the Animal Husbandry and Clean Water Division. Dr. Kelsi Bracmort has joined our Conservation Engineering Division as an agricultural engineer, and Claudia Scheer is the new national hydraulic engineer.

Thanks especially to all those who’ve been serving in acting capacities at headquarters:

• Andrew Johnson, acting director, Conservation Planning and Technical Assistance Division
• Rick Simms, then Steve Chick, acting director, Financial Assistance Programs Division
• Tony Kramer, acting branch chief, Conservation Technical Assistance Branch
• Gus Hughbanks, acting branch chief, Water Resources Programs Branch
• Dennis Alexander, acting FRPP manager
• James Schmidt, acting WRP manager
• Jerry Thompson, acting National Tribal Government Relations Coordinator, and
• Helen Flach, acting Natural Resources Specialist in the Environmental Improvement Programs Branch
• Bob Graham and Robin Heard, acting CFO’s
• Jack Carolson, acting CIO

And in the States:

Adolfo Perez will take over as State Conservationist in Wyoming next month, after serving as acting in Idaho for Rich.

Many thanks to those who’ve served as acting State Conservationists this fall—

• Ron Alvarado in Oregon
• Michele Gidcum in Wyoming
• Rafael Guerrero in Washington
• Carlos Suarez in California
• Amy English in Delaware
• Doug Zehner in New Jersey, and
• Doug Gahn in Nebraska.

FY 2005 Achievements

I want to look back for just a moment at FY 2005—we have many accomplishments to be proud of. Just to name a few, last year NRCS

• Served nearly 100,000 farmers and ranchers

• Invested $3.3 billion in voluntary, cooperative conservation

• Established a unified comprehensive policy and transparent allocation formula for conservation technical assistance

• Expanded CSP nationwide
• Launched the Web Soil Survey
• Supported the President’s Wetlands Initiative
• Re-established Conservation Boot Camps

Thanks to all of you—and your staffs—for a job well done!

FY 2006 Operational Themes

Now I’d like to turn to FY 2006…and beyond. This is the most important NLT—as we begin a new fiscal year.

Last month, we held a planning session in Beltsville to zero in on NRCS’ priorities for the coming year. We took a team approach to developing our business plan for the coming year.

As part of that process, the executive staff agreed on several operational themes for FY 2006. The overarching theme for NRCS in 2006 is consolidating our gains.

We’re going to take this past just software programs, making sure we achieve excellence in every area, that everything is working well and humming along.

We’ve experienced three and a half years of tremendous change and unprecedented growth—
• new money,
• new programs,
• new organization,
• new people,
• new business tools.

Now it’s time to pull all those changes together, to slow down on the new and consolidate the gains. This year we need to do some fine-tuning—to fully realize all the progress we’ve made.

We need to make decisions earlier. We need to develop one ranking template to use across programs. And we need to work the bugs out of our business tools. We want to make sure everything works smoothly—for our employees and our customers.

Emphasis Areas for FY 2006

I see the operational themes as our collective philosophy, setting the tone for how we operate. On a very practical note, we are looking at five leadership emphasis areas:

• 2002 Farm Bill
• Cooperative Conservation
• Watershed Approach
• Human Capital, and
• Market-based Incentives.

Everything any NRCS staffer does should contribute to one of these emphasis areas. These areas are in line with our legacy goals, the promises Mark Rey and I made to Secretary Johanns, which you can view on the website under “About NRCS.”

2002 Farm Bill

Let me start with the 2002 farm bill. Completing our work under the 2002 farm bill remains Job 1 for NRCS. What counts is getting conservation on the ground. I can’t stress that enough—and you can’t stress that enough to everyone in your charge. Several of us had the chance to hear the President last week, and his message was just do your job.

It’s very clear that our performance with the 2002 farm bill will determine what responsibilities we receive with the 2007 farm bill. Follow-through is critical. Doing a good job—and finishing it—is the best way to get ready for what lies ahead. Now is the time to prove that we are up to the challenge.

2007 Farm Bill

Before I move on to the next emphasis area, I have to just briefly mention the 2007 farm bill. As you know, Secretary Johanns, Chuck Connor, Mark Rey and others have been reaching out to our customers to learn about where they want to go with the next farm bill.

USDA has held 33 listening sessions already; 8 more have been scheduled—including two forums this week in Florida and Georgia. The reviews for conservation have been generally positive. We’ve heard support and appreciation for what we’ve done—being more transparent more understandable for our customers.

Cooperative Conservation

Our next leadership emphasis area in FY 2006 is cooperative conservation—locally-led, collaborative efforts to benefit the environment. Cooperative conservation is what NRCS has always done—working with private landowners to conserve the soil, increase the quality and quantity of water, preserve air quality and expand habitat for wildlife. It’s a bottom-up rather than top-down voluntary approach that recognizes that economic prosperity and environmental stewardship go hand-in-hand. But this is radical and revolutionary to land management and regulatory agencies.

We need to help others in the federal family understand this approach. We must reinvigorate our strength in cooperative conservation and build on it. This is especially important as we go into an austere period.

Cooperative conservation can take longer—it’s important to reach out to all the potential partners—and it may cost more.
But it is worth the extra time and increased dollars because the net result is so much greater than what a solo effort can produce.

Watershed Approach

Another emphasis in the year ahead will be moving to complete the transition of our programs to a watershed level. We know that watersheds are nature’s boundaries. But this is a novel concept for many people—especially those in urban areas. The boundaries they are familiar and comfortable with are the geopolitical ones. But this approach is gaining excitement from everyone in the Department of Agriculture.

Emphasis on Human Capital

During 2006, we’re also placing particular emphasis on human capital. Over the next five years, more than half our employees could retire. There will be many new faces in NRCS.

Retaining employees and replacing those who choose to retire will be a major leadership challenge for every manager in the agency. My vision remains the same—for NRCS to be the employer of choice for everyone interested in serving in conservation.

So we need to create a work environment and the opportunities for NRCS staff to make that goal a reality. In August, we talked about our revitalized Boot Camp. We plan 10 sessions of Boot Camp over the next year.

If you’re asked to share members of your team to help with Boot Camp, you have one answer: Yes. This is critical to all of us.

Market-Based Incentives

The final area of emphasis—market-based incentives—I like to think of as our venture capital area. This is an area we will be fleshing out during the year.

I’ve been asked what I mean by market-based incentives. It’s still evolving, still developing. It includes nutrient trading, wetland banks and carbon trading. That’s part of the future, and in some cases, it’s working very well. We want to encourage and capitalize on these strategies.

But these strategies alone are too narrow a focus. Market-based incentives also involves using the principles of the marketplace in how you define, refine and implement conservation.

For example, in Virginia, there’s been a slow uptake of WRP. But there’s a reason. In Virginia, there’s a vibrant wetlands banking program—and the market is buying all the wetlands. There are two approaches for NRCS in such a situation. We can pay more money to get acres into WRP or we can recognize that we have a conservation success because more wetlands are being created—just not with our help.

We need to use the marketplace to determine where conservation resources need to flow—in some areas private resources may address the problems. My dream is to lure more NGO dollars to conservation.

NRCS has a state of the art reporting system in PRS. Could it be available to the private sector to report conservation achievements? We have almost a one-stop shop on our website. Can we steer other agencies or NGO’s there?

We want to find ways to transfer our practices to the larger community so we can accomplish more. We want to create the enabling platform that makes it easy for others to invest in conservation.

Market-based incentives are exciting and innovative, and I believe offer great promise for benefiting both producers and the environment.

Communications

Let’s move to communications. In August, Mission Strategies shared with you their findings and recommendations following the communications evaluation.

We’ve made great strides in communication over the past five years, thanks to Terry Bish and his staff:

• Adopting a single agency logo
• Issuing more press releases and holding more events
• Creating an intranet and a common calendar of events

We’re ready to take the next step.

Many of you have asked for more help, and we’re restructuring our communications to serve you better. You’ll hear more about this tomorrow, but I just want to give you a quick overview.
We are forming a new Public and Legislative Affairs Division, which Doug McKalip has agreed to head. Doug has a special gift for developing integrated outreach strategies, and the vision to make it happen. There will be four branches:

• State and Field Communications,
• Executive Communications, which Terry will manage,
• Legislative Affairs, with Gayle Norman acting, and
• Conservation Correspondence under Stephanie Edelen.

In addition, Sam Thornton has agreed to serve as a special assistant to Doug to work as a liaison with partnering organizations, such as NASDA and NASCA.

I am convinced that this new structure will help us deliver consistent, excellent messages to all our audiences—customers, partners, Congress and the general public.

Conclusion

We have an exciting and challenging year ahead—and a promising future many years beyond that. This is our opportunity to consolidate the gains we’ve made and build on our progress.

We need to step forward, to take the next step in conservation, to leave the land better than we found it, to provide a legacy for those who come after.
 

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