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Mower SWCD Board chairman Randy Smith has been elected to a two-year term as vice president for the state association for soil and water conservation districts.

Earlier this month, Smith was elected to the position with the board of directors for the Minnesota Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts (MASWCD) at its annual convention in the Twin Cities.

Smith is an Adams-area farmer who has been on the Mower SWCD Board for 10 years. In this elected role, Smith represents the southwest Mower County townships of Lyle, Windom, Nevada, Marshall and Adams.

Since 2020, Smith has served on the MASWCD Board as the representative for the SWCDs in southeast Minnesota. This year, Smith represented Minnesota as a delegate to the National Association of Conservations, a role he will continue with in 2025.

Smith is positioned well to be a strong voice and advocate for SWCDs during his two-year term as vice president given his background with working lands conservation practices and his well-established role in leadership capacity, said LeAnn Buck, MASWCD’s executive director.

“Randy’s experience in conservation issues, both as a landowner and as a supervisor for the Mower SWCD, give him a real advantage as vice president of our organization,” Buck said.

Smith is a graduate of the MASWCD Leadership Institute, a partnership with the University of Minnesota Extension Service that provides individuals with skills to excel as conservation leaders. He also recently was selected as a participant in the National Conservation Foundation’s Next General Leadership Institute (NGLI) in partnership with the National Association of Conservation Districts.

MASWCD is a nonprofit association representing Minnesota’s SWCDs and the 440 men and women who serve on their elected governing boards. SWCDs are local government units that started forming in the 1930s when the U.S. Congress responded to the large amount of topsoil being lost to wind and water erosion.

Minnesota has 88 SWCDs across the state, with at least one SWCD in each of the 87 counties, with the exception of the two most-populated counties (Hennepin and Ramsey).

MASWCD is involved in helping to set policy for various conservation programs, including comprehensive watershed management planning and implementation efforts; Reinvest In Minnesota (RIM) reserve easement program; the Minnesota Wetland Conservation Act; and the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program, among others.