Mike DeBacker

DeBacker is an ecologist and natural resource inventory and monitoring coordinator for the Department of Interior’s National Park Service, overseeing a program that spans eight states in the central Great Plains.

“In my ‘business’ of natural resource conservation, the customer is the American public who entrust local managers to steward park resources,” DeBacker said. “Success is measured by the usefulness of the scientific data we collect and report toward adapting management practices to new technologies, information and emerging threats, and ultimately toward preservation of our natural resources.”

DeBacker has worked with the program since 1996, when he was one of only two full-time employees.

“Today my program employs more than a dozen professionals in Springfield, and through a nationwide network of similar programs, conducts ecological monitoring in more than 270 National Park Service sites,” he said.

DeBacker has given many presentations locally and at conferences across the nation. He also has been recognized as Network Coordinator of the Year, an annual honor awarded by the National Park Service to one manager nationwide.

DeBacker said he feels “rewarded by my position and the value of work I am currently undertaking,” and he hopes to “continually promote better stewardship of natural resources through scientific information.”

DeBacker is an adjunct member of Missouri State University’s Department of Biology, through which he supports graduate student research and offers informal mentoring. He also is active in the Springfield-area home schooling community through participation in science education events.

Born: 1967

What do you feel is your most important accomplishment to date? Being a good father.

If you were faced with a difficult business decision, from whom would you seek advice? My wife.

What book do you currently have open? “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” by J.K. Rowling