Patricia (Pat) Leavenworth served as state conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Wisconsin from 1994 until her retirement in October 2012. Before receiving her master’s degree from Yale, Pat worked in water quality analysis for the State of New Hampshire and as an event researcher for the Smithsonian Institution Center for Short-Lived Phenomena. Pat joined NRCS in 1979. She served in the field in several locations in Massachusetts and Connecticut and was deputy state conservationist in Connecticut before her move to Wisconsin. Pat co-chaired the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters’s original Waters of Wisconsin Initiative from 2000 to 2002. She also served on the coordinating committee for the Academy's Future of Farming and Rural Life Project from 2006 to 2007.
