Rick Van Klaveren was selected as the regional conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Northern Plains Region, based in Lincoln, Neb. He succeeded Judy Johnson, who served in that position from September 1998 until January 2001, when she retired following 20 years of service with NRCS.

    From March 1996 until he was recently selected for this position, Van Klaveren was director of NRCS’s Conservation Engineering Division at the agency’s headquarters office in Washington, DC. He worked as the regional conservation engineer in Sacramento, Calif., with NRCS’s West Region from 1995-96. From 1990-95 he served as head of the Engineering Staff at the agency’s [then] National Technical Center in Portland, Ore. He was the national irrigation engineer at NRCS headquarters from 1989-90, after having been the NRCS state conservation engineer for Montana, based in Bozeman, from 1987-89.

    From 1984-87 Van Klaveren served as the NRCS/Agricultural Research Service liaison, based in Pullman, Wash., where he directed research on projects concerning frozen soil and how freezing and thawing affected erosion on farmland in the Northwest. He was the agency’s state irrigation engineer in Sheridan, Wyo., from 1981-84, after having been its area engineer in Sheridan from 1977-81. He began his career with the agency as a field office engineer in Torrington, Wyo., in 1975, and then became a field office engineer in Sundance, Wyo., in 1976.

    A native of Cheyenne, Wyo., Van Klaveren holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in agricultural engineering from the University of Wyoming and a Ph.D. degree in engineering sciences from Washington State University.