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Message from Kevin Wickey

By now all of you probably know where I've been in my career with NRCS, but I'll just review a few highlights.

  • I've got a degree in Forestry from Michigan Technological University (MTU) which is about as far north as one can get in MI─about 275 inches of snow a year, the record is over 400 inches.
  • I started out as a GS-4 Student Trainee in 1984, and was a District Conservationist (DC) during the height of the 85 Farm Bill implementation period. I did lots of Highly Erodible Land (HEL) plans and wetland determinations.
  • Next I was a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialist and later a Resource Inventory specialist in the MI state office.
  • From there, I had the opportunity to work in Fort Collins, CO at what is now the NRCS Information Technology Center (ITC). I was a Project Manager for several projects, all involving GIS. Probably my biggest contributions included developing the standard for the Common Land Unit with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and leading a few prototypes including the development of the soil data viewer and the mobile planner. You know those products now as the Web Soil Survey and the Customer Service Toolkit.
  • Next, I went to Washington DC and led the Service Center Implementation Team effort on Business Process Reengineering (BPR). There were many BPR projects─some you're familiar with now include SCIMS, CAMS, CST.
  • And then I went home. Back to MI where I was the Asst. State Conservationist for Technology for the last 8 years.

I grew up on a farm in southern MI and have very deep roots in farming.  I am an urgent person, but I like to think of myself as fair. I put a lot of trust in people who work for me. I expect them to tell me when I'm wrong, and I expect them to support a decision once it is made.

I'm not here to make a big changes, but changes are probably going to be forced on us. Some of these changes may be painful at times. We'll get through them together.

I don't know anyone here really well. I'm terrible at names (including my kids), so don't take it personal if I can't say your name sometime in a meeting in front of everybody.

I have four rules I want to give you:

  • Achieve every goal
  • Meet every deadline
  • Spend every dollar
  • Be fair to everybody

I want to say something about our partners. We can't do this job alone. We need their help as well. We have to find ways to work together.

Our customers want more than cost share dollars. NRCS has a long history of providing high quality conservation plans and technical assistance and I believe our customers want our technical assistance. We're in danger of losing that if we don't continually improve the technical capacity of our employees. So I will expect that of each of you.

I have an open door policy. Feel free to stop in at any time.  But if you need more than a few minutes, for the consideration of others, please schedule an appointment.

Thank you for making me feel welcome. Thank you also for the good work you did last year. It is summarized in the 2006 Annual Report.

Kevin Wickey
State Conservationist
West Virginia

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