Playground Posts Are Getting Set Before They Are Concreted Into Place.

A New Playground At Mill Creek Park Near Paullina Began Construction At The End Of May. Here, Post Holes Are Being Dug For The Playground Structure.

On May 31, O’Brien County Conservation Board named Mark Wilson as the Interim Director. The appointment was necessary when the board accepted the resignation of Travis Scott from the Director position, and made it effective on May 24, 2023. Scott began work in O’Brien County in 2021.
Wilson, who came to O’Brien County Conservation from Cherokee County Conservation, in October 2021 served as Natural Resources Manager at Cherokee. He came to O’Brien County as a Ranger and later had his title and duties changed to Operations Supervisor. As Operations Supervisor, Wilson was responsible for day-to-day needs of the parks and oversaw the field staff based out of Mill Creek. As Interim Director, would be to oversee the staff that is based out of the Heritage Center as well, working with them to make sure the naturalist program and our new Naturalist, Lindsay has what she needs to do her job. The Interim Director is much more involved with the business side of it, the administration side – the budget, attending meetings and representing County Conservation at those meetings and the community.
Some of the bigger tasks underway that Wilson inherited include the upgrades at Tjossem Park, continuing discussions with PHC staff and the redesign project, keeping it going forward. Wilson spoke about the ongoing discussions to He is also wanting to put together a stakeholders’ group to determine use at Hannibal and getting up to speed with what Wildlife Habitat Stamp committee said when they were here.
“My focus and priorities is to resolve and finish the projects underway and not to initiate anything new,” he said adding, “of course we are in the middle of camping season. We do a lot of routine maintenance. We’ve had some really full weekends the last few weekends. A lot of day use. Our cabin rentals are really strong.”
He went on to say, “We have a full staff with seasonal [employees]. Luke starting fulltime with Joe out in the parks – that’s why we’re able to start projects like this playground. I think we have a really good nucleus of fulltime staff.”
The transition has been pretty seamless. Wilson believes that for the public nothing is different with the amenities.
Wilson added, “We have a strong nucleus of staff. We’re all young, generally speaking. We don’t have that much experience, y’know, decades in County Conservation, and with the amount of turnover county conservation has had in the last couple of years we are lacking in institutional knowledge regarding the specifics of these parks and our facilities and the land. So, I request a little bit of patience as we learn how things have been done in the past and to continue to do the things that are working really well and then adapt to using our own past experiences outside of O’Brien County. There will be a learning curve for our young staff, myself included.”