Employee of Year: Joe Schneider

At the June 2008 Commission meeting,  Joe Schneider was commended for being named Employee of the Year and recognized for 10 years of service to the Conservation Commission and state of Oklahoma.

Joe Schneider honored as Employee of the Year and for 10 Years' Service

At the June 20ly Commission meeting,  Joe Schneider was commended for being named Employee of the Year and recognized for 10 years of service to the Conservation Commission and state of Oklahoma.

The Conservation Commission's Awards and Recognition Committee had announced at the May 2008 full staff meeting that Joe Schneider had been selected as Employee of the Year. He was selected from four winners of Employee of the Quarter awards for 2007. He was named as Employee of the Quarter at the December 2007 staff meeting. Schneider joined OCC's Water Quality Division in July 1998 and is is Eucha Project Coordinator. The nomination for Schneider stated “Joe brings a vast amount of local knowledge to the project and is excellent at building relationships with personnel in other state and federal agencies as well as those interested in participating in the project. This has been an integral part of the success of the project. Joe is the OCC’s 'guru' for information about agriculture and water quality in northeastern Oklahoma.”

After retiring from a career of more that 30 years with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Joe joined OCC's Water Quality division in 1998. OCC Assistant Director Ben Pollard commended Schneider for his ability to work with landowners and for sharing his experience with newer OCC employees. OCC Water Quality Director Dan Butler credited Schneider with the success of the Spavinaw and Beaty Creek watershed projects. "When Joe started on the Spavinaw project, landowners in the community were polarized against installing riparian buffers," Butler said. "Now it is an accepted conservation practice and Joe was able to get $1.8 million in practices put in place in three and a half years in that project," Butler said. Joe was continuing his successful track record in the state's new Conservation Reserve Program in northeast Oklahoma, Butler said.