You might say Glenn Austin has turned in his governmental shovel and taken up one of his own.  The Tannehill resident is a familiar face around Winn, having helped private landowners for 37 year to conserve natural resources on their farms and timberlands.  From 1995 until his recent retirement, he’s been the Natchitoches District (including Winn) district conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (originally Soil Conservation Service).

Now he’s working in the private sector in the areas of forestry consulting and land management.  Over time, his responsibilities with the government office had expanded from two parishes to seven.  “Essentially I was just managing 35 people instead of managing landowner properties.  I wanted to get back in the field, helping folks with their land.  I retired young enough to do something else.”

Born in 1967 to longtime educator Charles “Pee Wee” Austin and school secretary Barbara Austin, Glenn grew up in Tannehill.  His grandfather, Evan Austin, had a timber mill nearby where Glenn worked some summers and said this piqued his interest in forestry.

“I was always involved with the outdoors.  Due to my back issues, I couldn’t play school sports so my dad always had me out in the woods, out on the water, keeping me occupied.”

A 1985 graduate of WSHS, he attended Louisiana Tech in Agriculture-Business which he described as “half ag/science, half business…accounting, finance, management.”  He received his BS degree four years later in 1989 (“I had to finish in four years…I couldn’t afford any more”) and began fulltime work with the SCS Monroe office.  He’d started two years earlier with summer work with the SCS.

The agency’s name changed to Natural Resources Conservation Service in 1991 and Glenn stayed on to work in Monroe, Oak Grove, West Carroll, Morehouse and in 1992 Farmerville, then as district conservationist.  There he met Maria Doster who was working for Farmers Home Administration next door.  They married the following year.  They have two children, Caleb (Opelousas) and Angela (Ruston) and three grandchildren.

Through those years, Glenn has helped landowners in planting trees…lots of them.  He’s seen some 20,000 acres of nonproductive farmland turned into hardwood forest that both benefit wildlife and provide timber production.  “But it’s not just planting trees.”  He’s helped them manage timberland, both hardwood and pine.  And he’s also been involved in feral hog control, both through trapping as seen in forested Winn and even shooting from helicopters as seen in open-fielded Natchitoches Parish.

Glenn had already launched a small landscaping venture and, with retirement, is branching into the field of consulting.