New OSU Extension educator on the job

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert County’s new Ohio State University Extension ag educator was on the job on Friday and had a few words to say about his new position and some of the qualifications he brings to the local community.

Curtis Young, Ph.D., is very familiar with Van Wert County, having been with the OSU Extension program for the past 19 years, including serving as a pest management expert for a 19-county district in northwest Ohio that included Van Wert County. He noted that he also established test plots as part of the former Farm Focus program for a number of years.

The trained entomologist (one who studies insects) earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from what was then Edinboro (Pa.) State College (now Edinboro University), and his master’s and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University’s entomology department.

Following his district position, Young was the Allen County Extension educator from 2003 to 2008, when the county commissioners there cut funding for the Extension program. He then took a part-time position in Hancock County and also taught biology at the Lima Branch of OSU. He later took a similar job in Miami County, and left there to come to Van Wert County.

Young was hired here March 15 — a day after interviewing locally for the position formerly held by Andy Kleinschmidt — and took over for Kleinschmidt on Friday, approximately six months after Kleinschmidt left the position to take a job with Pioneer Hi-Bred International in Iowa.

The new Van Wert County ag educator said his duties will be about the same as those handled by Kleinschmidt, but noted that his background in entomology will allow him to add some new programs to the services the local Extension provides.

“They will be very similar in terms of my responsibilities here in the county, working with farmers, dealing with agronomic crop production,” Young said of what he will be doing for the local Extension service, compared to what Kleinschmidt’s duties were.

In addition, Young said he would be doing entomological surveys in the area for farmers, as well as the community at large. “There are several different insects that are of significance to crop production that we will be following,” the new ag educator noted, but also added that his background will also have benefits for the non-agricultural community. “That’s part of the reason that I thought that I would be a very good fit for Van Wert, not only with the agricultural community, but also the urban community, since everyone has insects to deal with.”

Young will also be the coordinator of the local Master Gardeners program and is familiar with the local program, since he taught classes for it.

The new Extension educator also has some new ideas he plans to bring to the community, including an Extension signature program entitled “Why Trees Matter.”

According to Young, the program was created “to help people recognize the value of that living thing growing in the front yard,” and noted that trees provide multiple economic values to their owners, including energy savings and adding value to a property when it’s sold.

As part of the program, Young said he would be providing education on what species would be best to use in a particular area, and would also be conducting tree inventories that would assist in calculating the economic value of trees, as well as the replacement cost of trees for insurance purposes.

As an example, Young talked about a tree inventory he was involved with in Wooster that allowed the community to collect about $1.5 million in value for the trees destroyed in a tornado that went through the area.