[Birds singing, duck quacking]
[Guitar music playing]
I am Joseph Krystofik. I'm retiring from the US Fish & Wildlife Service as
the state coordinator for the partnership Fish & Wildlife Program in
Arkansas. I've been with the Fish and Wildlife Service for 20 years I basically got
into conservation through experiences growing up as a child my father going
fishing and I didn't really get the hunt with him but he did take me on a couple
of hunts and he was always a conservation to sportsmen even though we
grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey he was from aastern Pennsylvania and we
would always go to visit family up there and we would go out in the woods and
shoot and so that kind of got me going. When I was young I had no intention to
go to college and found myself in the Job Corps and was learning to be a
tradesman in carpentry and you know I had an opportunity to go to college and
I thought well what do you want to do and I said I want to give something back
so I went into forestry and while in forestry I was in the wildlife option
that was the most attractive to me because it was not just production and I
got a job with the University following graduation and I was in the lab with the
wildlife folks so they were doing turkey research and I was able to go out with
them on some of their research projects and it just really grabbed me. Also, when
I was in one of my wildlife classes we went to Rockefeller National Walk
Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge and there was a guy out in the marsh with a
headset on an antenna and he was tracking ducks and I thought I want to
do that and I actually ended up doing it I for part of my thesis research ended
up at Rockefeller Refuge tracking ducks through the marsh I would hope that
people say if they look back see my name they say wow I really enjoyed working
with Joe he was uh he was a good guy man we always had fun man we laughed a lot
and he was a good partner he helped us get things done he helped us achieve our
mission and we had a good time while we were doing it I think the the thing I'm
the most proud of is that I've been able to foster and develop partnerships with
some entities that would not typically be strong partners for Fish & Wildlife
Service I was able to make a connection with the Arkansas sociation of
conservation districts their program manager Debbie Moreland she had
suspicions about the Fish and Wildlife Service about the wildlife conservation
community and over time of going to meetings and sitting down for meals with
her and talking about things I think she came to the realization that the Fish
and Wildlife Service is not the enemy that we are all interested in
conservation we come at it from different ways and there are places
where we overlap and where we can work together is where we can make a
difference and so we don't worry about where we have differences but we work on
the things where we can agree and that making those inroads with the
agricultural community I think has been very significant for conservation here in Arkansas.
I think for people that are coming into the career now coming out of
college I think you need to understand that what you learned in school and
what's your perception of working in the wildlife profession is not going to be
what you're going to be doing and you have to be open to doing things that you
never thought you were ever going to do. Things that maybe you may not want to do
but they're all part of the job. You're going to encounter obstacles -- barriers to
making progress whether it's because of bureaucratic stuff or whether it's
because of individual landowners or agencies or even other colleagues or
staff my suggestion is persevere. Perseverance is really
important if you give up then you're not going to get anywhere, but if you
persevere you work through those roadblocks then you accomplish great things.
Don't look for the glory. Do the job. If you're looking at a performance
plan and you're just checking things off in boxes then you're not really
going to get the fulfillment that you want. If you do those things, but you
don't do it in a way that you're just trying to do the best job you can then
you will achieve those things and more. I think my biggest regret is that I
wasn't able to get on with the Fish and Wildlife Service out of college. That it
took a while to get on with the agency. I love Fish and Wildlife Service I think
it's a great organization to work for a great agency. Looking back at my career I
have to say that I have just been you know I don't use the term much, but I've
been blessed I've been very fortunate to have worked with so many great people
and I appreciate everybody that I've worked with that has helped me over the
years to achieve what little bit of conservation successes I've had. And I'll
keep saying that there are times with this job where I said I can't believe
that they're paying me to do this and there's not a lot of people that can
actually say that about their jobs so those are the types of things that that
have influenced me.
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