SOIL CONSERVATION: Meet the staffs

Meet the new district conservationist and soil conservationist

My name is Katie Yule, and I am the new district conservationist in the Charles City Field Office.

I grew up on a farm in southeast Iowa. My family no-tills corn and beans and raises hogs. I loved tagging along with my parents when they did anything in the field and I still do.

My dad always said people needed to be good stewards of the land. That was the start of my education in conservation.

I started with the NRCS as an intern in college. The summer of 2010 I was in Ankeny and the summer of 2011 I was in Red Oak. I was hired full time after graduating from Iowa State University in 2012.

I started as a soil conservationist in the Charles City Field Office. I tried to get outside as much as I could, checking CRP, surveying waterways with Marty, or doing compliance status reviews.

After being in Charles City for a year and a half, I moved to the New Hampton Field office. While there, I worked with the Environmental Quality Incentive Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program. In February, I moved back to the Charles City as the district conservationist.

My name is Brooke Lerum. I am the new soil conservationist in the Charles City NRCS office.

My family is from Austin, Minnesota, and I moved to Minneapolis in 2011. I graduated from the University of Minnesota in December of 2018 with a Bachelor’s of Science in environmental sciences, policy and management and a soil science minor.

During the summer of 2018, I completed an internship with the NRCS in Rhode Island. This was a great experience that highlighted the many different programs available to producers through the NRCS.

After graduation I worked as a project scientist and field technician with an environmental consulting company collecting soil and monitoring well samples on petroleum spill sites in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. After a year of field work, I decided I wanted to focus my career on conservation accessibility and helping people achieve their land stewardship goals.