 Hello, my name is Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrative Coordinator and co-host of this program, Sheboygan County Government, working for you with Chairman Bill Gehring. And today our guest is Dave Such, the Community Development Resource Agent or Department Head for UW Extension, one of 23 important departments that we have in Sheboygan County. And let me repeat that title just to make sure I got it right, Dave. Community Resource Development Agent. I'm not used to calling you by that title. It's a mouthful. We probably used our entire time by just spilling out the title here. Dave, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your roles and responsibilities as the Department Head at UW Extension. Right. Well, I've been in Sheboygan County since 1993 in the capacity as Community Resource Development Agent for University of Wisconsin Extension. Prior to that, I had held the similar position in Jefferson County for about 12 years. And prior to that, I worked at Bay Lake Regional Planning Commission in Green Bay since the 70s. So my degrees are in planning from UW Green Bay. Bachelors and Masters went to Carroll College. And we're going to talk a little bit later about smart growth and planning, but that's something that's kind of near and dear to my heart. And the reason I got into it, because I grew up in the village of Germantown back in the 1950s. And it was a community of about 600 people when we saw the urban area expanding back then and saw some not too good examples of planning. And I guess that's why I chose planning as a profession and got into that. And I think we're kind of in the same boat now in Sheboygan County. That urban area, I mean, it's way past Germantown. That went from a community of about 600 to, you know, probably almost 18,000. And we're beginning, well, we already are seeing some of the same development pressures. But that's pretty much why I wanted to get into something that kind of dealt with the future and looking at wise land use and things like that. So, again, degrees aren't planning. I've been in the county about 10 years wearing the hat of Community Resource Development Agent for UW Extension. And also, I wear this dual hat of the Department Head. So I have administrative functions as well. I'm sure many of our viewers are aware or have heard of the UW Extension Department or agency. But many of them are probably wondering, what is UW Extension? What's the mission? We're often, well, the mission. Actually, I had it memorized. Our mission is helping the people of Wisconsin and Sheboygan County apply university research knowledge and resources to meet their educational needs wherever they live and work. That's really what we're all about. We're the outreach arm of the university. And typically, you might have heard the Wisconsin idea, the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state. And now with the electronic age, the boundaries extend far beyond the state into the nation and world for that matter. In terms of funding, we're cousins with the University of Wisconsin. We are funded by the UW system, but the federal government as well, where county, state, and federal employees. The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides about 30% of our funding. The state also provides a dollar amount for each of the agents' salaries. And we have about 12 personnel of which eight are funded by the state and federal government. It's called cooperative extension, a cooperative partnership between the county, state, and federal government. There's a county extension office in each of the 72 Wisconsin counties, and the counties typically provide 40% of the agent or educator's salaries. And then the other 60% is funded by state and federal government. I like to think of it as kind of an economic development model. We're kind of plugging the leaky bucket. County taxpayers' dollars that were taxed away come back to our county through positions like ours, because, again, county, actually state and federal dollars come back into our positions. And we live and work here in the county in which we're assigned. So, you know, we're spending dollars locally, so probably, and you get 150% professional out of it as well. So we'd like to think of it as a really good deal for the taxpayers of the county. I think it is a good value, and it does represent the model that we need to see more in government with the partnerships. As you said, local, state, federal. I know you work with the private sector with some of your programs, and distributing information would have you. And we'll talk about that more in a minute. But to expand a little bit more on UW Extension, what would you say is the difference then between UW Extension and UW Shabuige? Now, we're often confused. We get a lot of calls for classes. Somebody says, when is that class on the campus? Well, we're not the campus. And I think it goes back to the 1960s, when the two-year campuses. Just people know there are 13 four-year campuses in Wisconsin through UW System and 13 two-year campuses. Shabuige County has one of those 13 two-year campuses. Back in the 60s, it was known as the extension. And I think tradition, you know, dies hard. And we're still confused with the two-year campus. Typically, cooperative extension is taking the university to the people. The research and knowledge of the university. Our mission is to get that information out to meet the everyday needs of people where they live and work. People typically come to the campus for more formal courses and things like that. Our counterparts here are known as campus-based faculty. We're community-based faculty. Our mission is education. That's the common mission. Yet, we serve a whole range of clientele from basically kindergarten age youth through our Cloverbud program and 4-H all the way up to senior citizens. Now, when you say we, how many employees do you have in total in your department? Can you briefly touch on how it's organized? Sure. Right now we have 13 lucky number of which there are, we have four support staff. Actually, those are 100% funded by the county. When the county enters into an agreement with the university to provide an extension education program, the contract basically calls for the county to provide the support staff as well as the building and things like that. We're organized into four major program areas. People have probably heard about 4-H and their symbol, the four-leave Clover, I guess, looking at some research. It's the third most recognized symbol out there in the nation behind, I think, like the United Way and some probably McDonald's, I think, are the top three. So we have a 4-H program, which is staffed by two educators. We have a family living education program area where we have one person on a 40-60 funding split and the other person, our nutrition education coordinator, is 100% federally funded. By having the family living educator, we are able to provide this nutrition education program coordinator. Again, 100% federally funded, no county dollars going to that one. And then we also have our Ag Natural Resources area, which we have two agricultural agents. One specializes in crops and soils, the other in dairy and livestock, and we're going to touch upon the economic impact a little later. Very important to our county. And then my program area is known as Community Natural Resource and Economic Development. So each of us has some coursework and specialization in one of four broad program areas, and each of those program areas has a wide array of responsibilities. Like mine, the Community Natural Resource and Economic Development gets into the long-range planning, the Community Development, Economic Development, natural resource protection like water testing, things like that. To do that, not any one of us can be a specialist in that whole array of program responsibilities, and that's why we have specialist backup being affiliated with the University of Wisconsin. We have access to over 250 specialists on eight campuses around the state. So if there's a small business question that comes in and maybe my background isn't planning, not small business, I can contact people on the UW Oshkosh campus, a small business development center, and get assistance there. Either simply answer questions or provide a person to come over to Sherbrooke County and do, say, starting a small business class. So, you know, it's really a fantastic opportunity for a job in terms of you can pretty much pick and choose. I've said oftentimes before, it's like a kid in a candy store. You have all these different opportunities, and, you know, also we have to jump through tenure hoops as well. Same thing as our campus-based partners. So we have to, within seven years, prepare, now it's called a portfolio for demonstrating our teaching and research and things like that. Our research is a little different than the campus, obviously. We do things more like community surveys, and you utilize that research to help people make better informed decisions. So you mentioned for your particular area, and you mentioned for, but for yours, land use planning, surveying and learning the interests and concerns of the community, water quality, natural resource protection, what are some of the programs and services offered by the other areas? Okay. Well, again, 4-H probably is our most recognizable, well, going back in history, probably the county agent, the ag agent, that's how we all got started about 90 years ago, how Extension really got its start trying to transfer the knowledge of the university out there and make the farmer more efficient to grow food for more than just themselves. So it was that transfer of information and research. And we've basically applied that into the four other program areas. 4-H, and we have actually a very large program in Sheboyton County, the third largest in the state of Wisconsin. We have about, and that number fluctuates just as a school class fluctuates from year to year, but somewhere between 1,100 to 1,400 youth currently. We have about around 1,200 in Sheboyton County's program, again making it the third largest. We have two 4-H educators in that program area, and they, plus our program support staff person, are responsible for managing or overseeing that program, which also consists of about almost just not quite 500 adult volunteers. And again, three people, if we think about it in terms of county government, are managing a department basically of almost 1,200 youth and almost 500 volunteer leaders. I mean, that takes some coordination to pull all of that together. We also, in our Ag Natural Resource Program area, we've got probably about 1,100 farms throughout Sheboyton County. And they typically work one-on-one with those farmers. Looking at their needs might be transfer of the farm from a father to a son, things like that. We have what's called a Tri-County Egg Specialization, where we work cooperatively with counterparts in Ozaki and Washington County. So we provide, again, a whole array of programs and services to meet different sectors of our county's economy and citizens. Very good, Dave. I'll turn it over to Bill. Centering in then, Dave, a little more on the agricultural community. Many people, at least in the more urbanized areas, say that agriculture is dead in Sheboyton County. What can you tell us about egg in Sheboyton County and how your office works in that area? Sure. Well, it's far from dead in Sheboyton County. Actually, one in eight jobs in our county here are a result of agriculture. So we have about 9,170 jobs directly related to agriculture. That's about 12% of the total employment in the county has a direct impact to agriculture. And I might say, well, what is that? I mean, you said there was only about 1,100 farms. How do you get 9,170 jobs? Well, we have six cheese processors, four cheese packaging plants, two sausage processors, two ice cream processors, and things like that. So I mean, there is a major impact in terms of jobs in our county. Again, 12%, the sales related from those jobs translate to about $122.6 million in farm sales, actually, directly related to ag products. And then if you take a look at the total ag-related income from wages and salaries from people, say at the Sargentos and Sartori and places like that, as well as the farmers themselves, we're talking about $485 million in wages and salary. And when you take a look at the impact of that in the county's economy, like they go on by gasoline and groceries and things like that, that you're creating the multiplier effect of additional jobs as well as economic activity. For those 9,170 jobs related to agriculture, the overall impact in our county to agriculture is $1.668 billion. So by no means is agriculture in Sheboygan County something that's going away. You hear, granted, the number of farms are declining, yet the number of cows has pretty much stayed the same, but milk production is increasing. And that we like to think is a direct result from people becoming more educated about this. And we have a major role to play in that arena. So is the dairy industry probably the largest industry in or the largest part of the ag component in Sheboygan County with the milk processors that you use to plant? Sure. We have 232 dairy farms. Out of those roughly 1,100 farms, 232 are dairy farms. There are about 25,700 milk cows in the county. I know the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board came up with a figure looking at the economic impact, and they said about $2,300 per cow is generated in the local economy. $2,300 per cow is generated. So if we take that number, $2,300 times the 25,700 milk cows in the county, you're talking somewhere upwards of almost $60 million just from the dairy industry in our county alone. So $60 million, that's what we're talking about, the PGA and a single event pouring millions of dollars. But this is, every year, that segment of our economy pours $60 million plus. Can you talk a little bit about how your staff would interact with folks in the ag industry, what services you offer? Sure. Again, I mentioned this tri-county ag specialization where we cooperate with Ozaki and Washington County. Our county funds two ag educator positions, crops and soils and dairy and livestock. Washington County funds a farm management educator, farm business management educator, and Ozaki County, the ag agent they have there, he specializes in the buildings and structures. So let's say we have a dairy operator that's looking at the dairy expansion. Well, we put the team together from, we draw upon the educators in Ozaki and Washington County to compliment our two educators here and vice versa. We've also have gone down there, but it works extremely well. We get a team of four people and only basically pay 40% of two positions. So that way, you know, if the person, the dairy producer is looking at, say, a farm expansion and they've got a lot of questions as to, you know, how is this going to cost out and things like that and in terms of structures and all of those considerations, that's the kind of package we're able to pull together for the ag producers out there. And much of the information I know said, well, why can't the private sector do this, you know, the co-ops and that many times we also provide educational programs and ag producers attend those programs and their consultants use university information to go out there and they take that information. I mean, so they're utilizing the information from the university and there's enough of a demand out there that, you know, with just our two educators, there's, we can't serve that entire need. So we work cooperatively with the private sector as well. You talked earlier about the family living component of your program. Sure. Could you talk about that? Family living kind of like ag. Ag and back in, you know, 90 years ago called home economics and, you know, the agricultural agent focused on crop production and growing food. The home economists was looking at perhaps, you know, preparation of food and food safety and things like that. Over the 90-year history, families have evolved to the point where, you know, we're now more concerned about things such as parenting information, you know, first-time parents and preventing child abuse and making sure that people are providing, you know, the best information raising that young person. For example, Jane Jensen, our family living educator, has, in our county for the last decade, have put together this thing called Parenting the First Year newsletter. And that's a cooperative arrangement with a service club, Huanas, provides the printing. Every year it's over $1,000 in printing they donate. And then the hospitals provide the postage and mailing costs, which again amounts to about $4,000. So no taxpayers' dollars go into that component. And I know when I was a first-time parent, I had received that newsletter and, well, I tell you, that's something, no matter what your educational background, raising a child, you want all the information you can get. And that's something that Extension through the Family Living Program has provided. And again, at minimal cost to the taxpayer, we look at those creative ways of financing getting the information out. And really, that's what we're all about, is information dissemination. And so we look at those creative ways via programs or printed materials or websites, electronic means, what have you. Bulletins have been really our big focus in the past. I mean, again, we're affiliated with the University of Wisconsin. We have a lot of information to share. We do that in the past. We've relied heavily upon bulletins. And we've been known to have bulletins on just about every topic under the sun. Maybe that's an issue, I guess, for Extension, that we are all things to all people that we haven't focused. But I think that in itself has been probably one of our biggest values, is that we do have a lot of information on a lot of different topics. Typically, we're getting the calls from the various county departments. When they don't know where to send people, they send them to the Extension office. And typically, if we don't have the information, we can usually find it. But we do focus on those four major programs, and that's really our bread and butter. You talked earlier about your really liking planning and having a firm background in that. Smart growth is really the buzzword now, although maybe a lot of folks aren't too familiar with smart growth. As a town chairman, I'm very grateful that your department offers assistance in doing our smart growth plan. But could you talk a little bit about smart growth, what it is, and how you're working with many communities in the county? Well, planning has been around in Wisconsin since the 1920s. The smart growth legislation back in 1999 really defined what constitutes a comprehensive plan, what all goes into it. A key component is public participation in the planning process, because typically you're looking 20 years into the future, so we want to make sure that you get citizen input into this whole planning process. That's a role extension place in terms of providing the law says you have to have a written public participation plan, and that's an area where extension has probably excelled and taken the leadership, as well as our community surveys. Prior to smart growth in Sheboyin County, we have worked with probably 22 of the 28 units of government in doing community surveys to help people start thinking about their future. And we're continuing in that regard, building that into the smart growth process. And again, we've been building these programs from the citizenry on up kind of the grassroots input, which is the foundation for developing the vision statements and all of those things, which will go into formulating the smart growth plans with a 20-year horizon looking into the future. What do you want your town villager city to look like 20 years from now? Probably now you're working with what, 15 communities simultaneously? Right now we have 13 community surveys out there, which, yeah, it's a lot of night meetings, but you sure get to know what the issues and concerns of people are. And again, we're trying to build that into the planning process to ensure that the quality of life is at least maintained, if not enhanced. I mean, Sheboyin County is a great place to live. We've had national notoriety here from so many different organizations about what we have to offer. We want to make sure through the planning process that the quality of life as we know it continues, like I say, at least as maintained, if not enhanced. And how do we manage that growth to make sure all those things, those values and assets that we take for granted are maintained for the future? Thank you. Dave, you've covered a tremendous amount of ground and given our viewers a snapshot of a number of programs and services that you're involved in and you were talking about planning and in the couple of minutes we have remaining, I know there's a major objective that you're currently planning toward and that's going to be coming up in 2006. Why don't you give our viewers a taste of that? Sheboyin County has agreed to host Wisconsin Farm Technology Days, formerly known as Wisconsin Farm Progress Days. The last time Sheboyin County hosted that was back in 1975. The event then drew in about 165,000 people. So it's not going to be quite as large as the PGA, but nevertheless it's a major event that a number, not only extension department, but a highway department, the Sheriff's Law Enforcement will be involved in undertaking this issue. So July 11th through the 13th of 2006, the event will be taking place on the Hesseling Farm, northwest of Usberg, south of Gibbsville. And we're looking forward. There's about 15 committees now working diligently. We need about 1,500 volunteers to pull this event off. So it will be a major countywide undertaking. And so we're really looking forward to that event. From a planning standpoint, I was involved in the one when I was in Jefferson County in 1984. You're planning a city for about 100 plus thousand people. You know, from utilities and sanitation, water, things like that to traffic movement. It's, it is a remarkable undertaking when you take a look at a field out there, typically 75 to 80 acres. We need probably closer to four or 500 acres for the total event with parking and the field demonstrations. But planning, you know, this 10th city, which will spring up here, comes summer of 2006 for an event where that magnitude is really something to see. It's kind of every planner's dream to be involved with something like that. And having the PGA coming up in August, I know that's presented some opportunities to think about public health and sanitation and all the things that are involved with that. From our event, we'd like to see that as kind of our trial event. It'll be a good test in terms of traffic movement and all of those kinds of things to help us make our show go off without a hitch. Well, Dave, we sure want to thank you for joining us today. And again, for those of you who have viewed this program, whether it's natural resource protection, land use, planning, water quality, 4-H, providing assistance to families that have a newborn child, UW Extension provides services from A to Z. And as Dave said, if they don't have the answers, they certainly will take steps to find you the answers. So those of you watching this in Sheboygan and maybe agriculture isn't your first priority, you may certainly have questions about even fertilizing your lawn, lawn care application, or again, if you have a newborn at home, please don't hesitate to contact Dave Such or a member of his team because he's got some great staff working at UW Extension. Next month, our guest will be Dale Pauls, the Healthcare Center's director. And many of you are aware as well that the county has been faced with the challenge of operating two nursing homes and how we continue to do that, despite federal and state revenue reductions and market trends and other changes that the county board's grappling with. So Dale Pauls will be here to talk a little bit about the task force, the citizen task force final report and give you a flavor for some of the work that's being done to tackle those challenges. So until then, on behalf of County Board Chairman Bill Gehrig and myself, County Administrative Coordinator Adam Paine, thank you for joining us today. Between a grape and a raisin is time spent in the sun. Ever wonder what the sun is doing to you? Gotta keep ducking. Truckers beware. Carry protection. Stop the spread of AIDS.