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| Dr. Jeff Bader, Director MSU Extension |
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| Gallatin Barn by Jeff Bader |
I recently had a chance to visit with the MSU Director ofExtension, Dr. Jeff Bader. His calm,
humble demeanor was evident on the phone, despite the busy day he was having. Dr. Bader came to Montana State University
from New Mexico, where he had been a county agent for 22 years in three
counties with different roles in each county.
He started his Extension career in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a 4-H Agent
which he did for four years. He then moved to Quay County, NM, which is a very
rural agriculturally based county. He
served there as an agriculture agent and county director for a dozen
years. During that time, he went back to
school for his doctorate, then became the county director in Bernalillo County,
where Albuquerque is the county seat.
Dr. Bader said, “This was a larger office, certainly, than Quay County
in terms of personnel. Depending on
grant funding, we had up to 23 employees during the time I was there. My duties were nearly 100% administration at
that time.”
Later, Dr. Bader became the
Northern District Department Head. “The
northern district covered an area that included about two-thirds of the state’s
population.” Dr. Bader continued, “Outside of a short stint
teaching community college out of state, I was pretty much with New Mexico State
University since I was 18 – either as a student or employee.”
“So it was about two years ago that you made the move to
Montana?” I inquired. “I just had my
two-year anniversary during 4-H Update in Billings. I started at MSU on February 3, 2014,” he answered. I remembered a little bit about his arrival,
which also happened to be during 4-H Update, which was held in Lewistown that
year. “Tell me a little bit about that
first week,” I requested.
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| Photo by Jeff Bader |
“Well, I needed to travel to Lewistown the second day on the
job to make an appearance and start meeting the Extension faculty. It was about –26 degrees in Bozeman as we
prepared to leave. I’m pretty sure the
wind chill hit -46 degrees Farenheit by the time we got to Lewistown. Mary Fran, Human Resources Coordinator, and
Jill Martz, then assistant director were along.
Mary Fran was driving, and she and Jill were visiting away while I was
looking out the window. I had never seen
the environment look like that. It was
white. ALL white. The sky was white, the road was white. It seemed like you couldn’t tell the
difference. And, thinking about it, I
bet my face had gone white, too. It was
cold and dry and windy and the snow seemed like smoke blowing across the road. It was a very eerie feeling. There were not many other people on the road
that day. I’d been in blizzards before,
but just nothing like this, with the cold.”
As a Montana girl myself, I had not thought about how it
must feel to experience those frigid temperatures for the first time, but I
know what Dr. Bader means about an eerie feeling. The world gets so still and quiet and crisp (like it might snap) at those temperatures. I cannot imagine
how it must have felt for a New Mexico native in Montana that week. Dr. Bader was quick to add, “February and
March of 2014 were much colder than the winters of 2015 and 2016. There is some change between New Mexico and
Montana in terms of climate, but not as much as you might think. Also, in terms of Extension systems, the two
are fairly similar in size, organizational values and philosophy. I am very happy with the move. There are new challenges, people and places,
but a lot of the issues and process of how to address those are the same.”
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| Canola by Jeff Bader |
Since Dr. Bader has a newer perspective on the state, I
inquired what he has enjoyed in Montana.
“It may sound hokey, but it is true – the people. I have never been anywhere that people have
been so genuinely friendly. It doesn’t
matter where you go, people are asking how things are going, how you are
doing. From service people at businesses
to colleagues across campus, Montana just has this friendly atmosphere. Maybe it is because people know that they may
have to rely on each other. It is like there is still the Western independence
with a dose of community reliance. It is
definitely the friendliest place I have ever been.” I remarked that I was visiting our neighbors
to the north this summer and spent some time in Alberta, Canada. I felt the same was true there. Perhaps it is our expanse of landscape
compared to our population. It would
seem everyone who wanted to get out and away from people would have a pretty
easy opportunity to do so. The United
States Census reports not quite seven people per square mile in Montana, which
puts us as the 48th most sparsely populated state.
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| Map from CEIC.mt.gov |
In addition to the friendliness of Montanans, Dr. Bader
added, “The recreation opportunities that abound, and are so accessible in this
state, are pretty tremendous. I can go fishing for an hour, without much of a
drive. It isn’t everywhere you get the
opportunity.” I suspect sometimes all
Dr. Bader has is one or two free hours at a time. I know the lack of traffic makes a big
difference in getting to the great outdoors on a routine basis. Dr. Bader mentioned that there are things to
enjoy all across the state and each part has its own feel. This led me to wonder if Dr. Bader had kept
track of how many miles he had traveled in the state. He hasn’t kept track, but did admit that he
underestimated the size of the state a little.
Knowing he is the only director who has visited my office in my nearly
two decades here, I wondered how he was doing with his goal. “Well, see, my goal was to get to all the
counties in the state in the first year.”
Hmmm. I believe he did underestimate
the size of the state a little. I tried
to let him off the hook. I’ve lived in
Montana the majority of my 47 years and I haven’t gotten to all the counties
myself! Most, but not all. Montana has 56 counties and seven
reservations, with MSU Extension represented in all of those locations. He estimated having made it to about
three-quarters of the counties. He has
hit several county fairs. He did one
trip for meetings where he left Bozeman and traveled to Kalispell and then on
to Miles City, so one trip was 1600 miles or so for three meetings in two and a
half days. It is about 10 hours between
Kalispell and Miles City.
If you travel between the farthest points in Montana, it
would be equivalent to going from Madison, Wisconsin to Washington D.C. or just
a little shorter than going from Memphis, Tennessee to Washington D.C.
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| Elder by Jeff Bader |
“From your travels around the state, are there some ‘must
see’ locations on your list?” I prompted, looking for suggestions for our
NEAFCS visitors. “I have so much on my
list,” he responded, “Glacier is amazing, Flathead Lake is great, the drive
from Kings Hill, the Belt Mountains to White Sulphur to the Bridger Canyon. The Eastern part of the state is
beautiful if there is time to get there.
Yellowstone Park, of course, but not sure how that works. It is mostly in Wyoming.” I assured Dr. Bader that Montanans have been
indoctrinated to think of it as half ours, since half the entrances are in
Montana. I worked for University of
Wyoming Extension and was actually surprised to learn that our Wyoming
neighbors think of Yellowstone as mostly in their state! As not to get baited into the debate, Dr.
Bader continued, “The Missouri River is great and would be especially great if
you got some time to spend out on the river.”
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| Crow Chief by Jeff Bader |
Dr. Bader encouraged MEAFCS to host the national conference,
and I’m sure it wasn’t solely to show off our state, so I wanted to get his
perspective. “When I was at NMSU, we
hosted both the NEAFCS and the NACAA conferences. The states are about the same size in terms
of staff and probably small by comparison to other states. Serving as a host serves the state hosting as
much as it serves the national association and profession. Hosting brings faculty together in a teamwork
fashion that is different from our other work.
Hosting builds morale, cohesiveness and demonstrates the great work in
each state.”
Some of Dr. Bader’s interests outside of directing MSU
Extension include photography. I thanked
Dr. Bader for sharing some of his beautiful photographs with us. I wondered how he became interested in
photography. “My parents gave me an
instamatic camera when I was nine years old and I thought it was so cool. My dad had some interest in photography. He had an old camera from the 1920s that I
used when I started learning about exposures.
I did take the photography project in 4-H. Our family had a business of training horses,
so at one point they had hired someone to do the photography for
advertisements. She took me under her
wing and taught me how to use the dark room, which I really enjoyed.”
Suspecting that Dr. Bader’s family business in horse
training influenced one of his other interests, team roping, I wondered if
there was anything he learned from team roping that could apply to Extension
work.
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| Dr. Jeff Bader is ready to rope you in with some Western hospitality at NEAFCS 2016! |
“Well, patience,” he said. “You try not to force horses or
people. Provide them the opportunity to
do the right thing and reward them. With
people, it seems easier. Hire the right
people, make sure they have what they need, and get out of their way.”
We have a surprise in store for our guests in September and
we’ve roped you into helping. Is there
anything you’d like to tell people without giving away the surprise? “Just that, like in the rest of our Extension
work, we’ll be taking the bull by the horns.
And, you might want to wear boots, if you have them.”
At the end of the interview, true to his unassuming and
approachable nature, Dr. Bader said to me, “Jane, it would really make me a lot
more comfortable if you would start calling me Jeff.” I told him I’d start working on it!
