Conservation legend Buzz Long retires after 45 years of service on Leelanau Peninsula lands.
“It’s just my age, and it’s just time. I’m ready to hang it up. I’ve enjoyed it (at the Leelanau Conservation District), and I enjoyed working for NRCS and serving the district for all those years,” Long said.
Another celebratory moment for Long is that he and his wife Karen are celebrating 51 years of marriage this weekend.
Long has worked for the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) and the Leelanau Conservation District for nearly 45 years.
At the NRCS, he worked as a district conservationist for 34 years, from 1981 to 2008, before becoming executive director of the Leelanau Conservation District for the past 18 years.
“When the opportunity came when the previous executive director retired, I was right on board to retire from NRCS. I just let the district know I was interested, and they hired me,” Long said.
Long, originally from Cadillac, graduated from Michigan State University in 1971 with a crop science degree, specializing in turf grass management.
He originally worked as a superintendent in golf course maintenance. He started at the Missawaki golf course before being hired by the USDA for the soil conservation service.
He started out in Mount Pleasant and served as a soil conservationist for a little over a year. Then, he was transferred to Lapeer, where he spent about a year and a half before finding his way to Leelanau.
Once he arrived on the peninsula, he never looked back.
At the NRCS, he worked with farmers in the field. He continued that at the Leelanau Conservation District, this time on the back end, overseeing the soil and erosion program, among many other things.
“It was different being the executive director and with the conservation district doing the soil erosion permits for the county; that was a whole new ball game,” Long said.
His favorite part of working for NRCS was being involved with the farmers.
“It’s just a pleasure to get out there and work with them, help them out, and get conservation on the land. Also, just be outside and enjoy it. The job changed through the years, with more money to share with the producers but fewer staff.”
The NRCS and Conservation district office in Lake Leelanau closed in the early 2000s, and the district moved on its own to the new county government building at the time. Long says this was one of the biggest successes throughout his career.
The difference between the Leelanau Conservation District and the Leelanau Conservancy is that the conservancy is a private, non-profit entity, and the conservation district is a government entity.
“We had office space in Lake Leelanau, and the commissioners had approved funding for us, but when we moved in here, the funding was reduced because we were building this space out for us,” Long said.
One of the real challenges throughout his career is staff turnover in the soil and erosion program.
“But it got to the point where we were doing so many developments, just blossoming, and they’re doing so many permits. We didn’t have to put on more staff. And so over the past several years, we’ve gone through quite a few different people in the program,” Long said. “We’ll have two full-time people out in the field with another full-time equivalent of people working in the office,” Long said.
Jake Moord will be replacing Long once he retires.
Long hopes that the soil and erosion programs continue to improve while wishing the best for more educational opportunities through the conservation district.
The Leelanau Conservation District marked 80 years of service in 2024. The governmental organization was created in 1943 to serve as a resource for farmers to reduce soil erosion.
Conservation Districts are local units of government that utilize state, federal, and private sector resources to address today’s conservation challenges, such as soil erosion, education, and water quality.
Conservation districts began popping up around the country in the 1930s in response to the Dust Bowl, an environmental disaster caused by severe drought and strong winds that eroded the Great Plains.
To create a framework for cooperation, USDA drafted the Standard State Soil Conservation Districts Law, which President Franklin Roosevelt sent to the governors of all the states in 1937. According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the first soil conservation district was organized in North Carolina in 1937.
According to Long, the county had over 600 signatures from local farmers in 1943, but today, there aren’t 600 farmers in the county.
Long will spend as much time as possible on the golf course at Bahle Farms, where he has been a member since the 1980s.
