A Greene County native has come back home to be the new County Conservation Director.

Tanner Scheuerman is a 2000 Jefferson-Scranton High School graduate. In 2008, he went back to school to pursue a career in conservation and earned a bachelor’s degree in forestry from Iowa State University. In 2015, he served as Boone County Conservation Operations Manager before taking over as the Conservation Director in 2017. 

Scheuerman tells Raccoon Valley Radio when he learned that Dan Towers was retiring as the Greene County Conservation Director, he was excited to apply for the position and come back to an area he was familiar with. He says Towers was his gun safety education instructor when he was a kid and now he is the person that replaces his teacher.

“It’s almost surreal just to think about it. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that I am in the position that I am right now. Just want to let everybody know that I’m not Dan and we all do things differently. Dan and I have had a lot of conversations about that. When he stepped into this role 37 years ago, it was a completely different organization.”

Scheuerman praises Towers for the updates and improvements to the county parks over his 37 year career, which he says he wants to continue.

“So (I’m) really looking forward to kind of continuing where Dan left over as far as updating those, and again the natural resource restoration, that type of thing too, I’m really looking forward to really getting out in some of these areas, as far as land acquisitions too. In the state of Iowa, I think we rank almost last as far as public lands, statewide.”          

Scheuerman officially took over as conservation director last week.