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Life Hacks Over Lunch: A Meet-up Series for Watershed Professionals
Life Hacks Over Lunch: A Meet-up Series for Watershed Professionals
This free, virtual meet-up series is a peer-learning opportunity for watershed professionals to share ideas and advice for solving real-life challenges of watershed projects. If you work with farmers and communities on watershed-scale projects to improve water quality and have ever found yourself thinking, “I don’t want to recreate the wheel,” this meet-up series if for you.
Join us for these informal gatherings of peers who share a passion for watershed work. Registration is required.
How It Works
In each meet-up, one person kicks things off by presenting a challenge they’re experiencing in their watershed work for the group to “hack.” We all this person our “hack pitcher.”
Conversation, collaboration, and commiseration ensues, as the group shares ideas on how to troubleshoot the challenge. We converse both as a large group and in smaller breakout groups. The focus is on conversation, not presentation – so come ready to be an active participant!
Details for the Fall 2026 Season
WHEN: Third Tuesdays of the month: October 20th, November 17th, and December 15th, 2026. *Life Hacks over Lunch takes place each spring and fall.
TIME: 11:30am CT / 12:30pm ET. The meet-ups last 60 minutes.
PLACE: Zoom. We highly recommend you use a device with a camera and microphone, so you can take part in the conversation.
*Please note: We do not record Life Hacks over Lunch due to its conversational nature, and we spend a good chunk of time in breakout groups.
This Season’s Pitch Line-up
October 20th: How can we fund the ongoing maintenance of stream restoration sites post-implementation to prevent invasive creep and native plant loss, especially if volunteer capacity and budgets are limited? Pitched by Tricia Coakley, Board Chair of Kentucky Watershed Watch and co-founder of Human-Nature Systems.
November 17th: TBD
December 15th: How can we draw in new agricultural audiences to conservation-related events, such as farm managers and middle and late adopters? Pitched by Rachel Curry, Agriculture and Agribusiness Educator, University of Illinois Extension.
Have a burning question or challenge you’d like to pitch at a future Hack? Pitching is easy! Contact Jenny Seifert to learn more.
Previous Hacks
Spring 2026 Season
- May 2026: Mariah Roberts, Watershed Manager for The Watershed Foundation, pitched this question: What strategies have you used to engage non-operating landowners to consider conservation practices on their land?
- April 2026: Esther Lofton, Urban Watershed Resilience Advisor for University of California Cooperative Extension, pitched this question: How can we design watershed stewardship and citizen science programs across age groups and partner institutions so they build sustained capacity and coordinated impact, rather than fragmented efforts?
- March 2026: Tali MacArthur, Water Program Director for Pennsylvania Environmental Council, pitched this question: What does meaningful capacity building support for all-volunteer watershed organizations look like?
Fall 2025 Season
- November 2025: Emily Dick, Water Resources Project Manager of Prior Lake-Spring Lake Watershed District, pitched this question: How do you discover/define where underserved communities are in your watershed to ensure funding for projects is distributed equitably?
- October 2025: Laura Gregory, Watershed Program Director of Kentucky Waterways Alliance, pitched this question: What have been your best professional mentorship experiences, and how could we build valuable mentorship opportunities for watershed professionals?
- September 2025: Andrea Lubberts, Program Manager of Plaster Creek Stewards, pitched this question: What strategies to reduce salt use and runoff are you taking at a state, municipal, or watershed level?
Spring 2025 Season
- May 2025: Lauren Haydon, Watershed Protection Coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, pitched this question: How does your organization define watershed protection (versus restoration), and what is your approach? And how do you then prioritize where you invest resources and time?
- April 2025: Rachel Curry, Agriculture and Agribusiness Educator at Illinois Extension, pitched this question: What have you done to connect with agricultural landowners about conservation practices, what information needs to be shared, and how best can we share information?
- March 2025: Meredith Meyers, Watershed Program Coordinator for Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District pitched this question: How can I keep my volunteer steering committee engaged over the long term and make sure we’re meeting their diverse priorities, while also making progress on our watershed plan?
Fall 2024 Season
- December 2024: Mahtaab Bagherzadeh, senior manager of the Mississippi River Program at National Wildlife Federation, pitched this question: Nature-based solutions and perceptions thereof can look different on rural versus urban landscapes. How can watershed practitioners best connect rural and urban landscapes and stakeholders to maximize the benefits of using nature-based solutions?
- November 2024: Colin Duncan, Green River Basin Coordinator at the Kentucky Division of Water, pitched this question: What outreach strategies work to make community members care about watershed management issues that they otherwise have never thought about before?
- October 2024: Staci McGill, Midwest Program Manager at American Farmland Trust, pitched the following question: How do you identify farmer leaders who’d want to step up to participate in farmer-led conservation groups, and how can you ensure groups’ long-term success?
- September 2024: Sadie Neuman, Public Participation and Communications Project Specialist of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMRBA), pitched the following question: How can I make natural resources planning more inclusive, especially when it comes to ADA and language accessibility?
Spring 2024 Season
- May 2024: Melanie Bomier, Board Conservationist with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, pitched the following question: How can we evaluate outreach and engagement activities and events effectively and efficiently?
- April 2024: Erin Erickson, Watershed Coordinator with the Maquoketa River Watershed Management Authority pitched the following question: How can I engage my Board during meetings (and beyond) to enhance interactions and avoid a “sit and listen” mindset?
Fall 2023 Season
- December 2023: Speed Networking Edition
- November 2023: Laura Gregory, Watershed Program Director at the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, kicked us off with this: How do you stay connected with other watershed professionals in your state, and how would you want to see a state-wide network of watershed professionals designed?
- October 2023: Malissa McAlister, Watershed Project Manager at the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, kicked us off with this: What creative approaches have you used or seen others use to attract interest in water topics at informational booths during community events?
Spring 2023 Season
- May 2023: Josh Balk, Dry Run Creek Watershed / Source Water Protection Coordinator for Iowa Department of Natural Resource, kicked us off with this: Is urban development pressure impacting landowner and producer attitudes about long-term conservation practice implementation in your watershed, and how are you addressing it in your engagement approach?
- April 2023: Chris Howard, Watershed Coordinator for Bluegrass Greensource, kicked us off with this: How are you encouraging farmers and landowners to be leaders for conservation in your watershed/community?
- March 2023: Tali MacArthur, Program Manager for Watershed Outreach at the Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers, kicked us off with this: How can volunteer-based community watershed associations with very small annual budgets conduct effective communications strategies and build more sustainable budgets?
Fall 2022 Season
- December 2022: During floods, there is a need to keep people out of harm’s way. What are ways watershed professionals and watershed groups can engage a larger diversity of people in their communities and raise broader awareness about flooding and climate change? Nancy Wedwick, president of Coon Creek Community Watershed Council Inc., and Bob Micheel, Monroe County Land Conservation Department Director, kicked off this discussion.
- November 2022: Kim Meyer, watershed programs coordinator/agronomist for Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, will kicked us off with this: While we know urban practices have a much smaller impact on water quality than agricultural practices in some places, how can we make the case to local leaders and “higher ups” that change in urban areas is still important? What outreach, messaging, and funding approaches could justify the effort and demonstrate that we’re all in this together?
- October 2022: Becca Trueman, watershed coordinator for Oldham County in Kentucky, kicked us off with this: How can new watershed coordinators learn about key collaborators’ roles and what partners can do what, and then how can they integrate that information into watershed plans?
- September 2022: The Speed Networking edition
Spring 2022 Season
- May 2022: Jean Brokish, Midwest Program Manager for American Farmland Trust, kicked us off with this: Documenting the economic benefits of conservation practices is a challenge, and often farmers are focused only on the upfront costs for seed and new equipment. What documents and data showing economic benefits of conservation are out there, and how can they be used to get more farmers on board?
- April 2022: Maggie Sullivan, Watershed Coordinator of Friends of Lake Monroe, is trying to help upstream farms and communities connect with a downstream water body of concern, and she’s keen to get input on how to connect the dots between urban/suburban and rural communities and their concerns.
- March 2022: Joe Bonnell, Natural Resource Educator at UW-Madison Division of Extension, kicked us off with this: What engagement strategies could be effective for working with farmers who are resistant to adopting conservation practices, but whose management practices are contributing disproportionately to water quality problems in a watershed?
Fall 2021 Season
- December 2021: Jennifer Jones, Watershed Outreach Associate with Illinois Extension, kicked us off with this: How do we encourage and motivate middle to late adopting farmers to become involved in or lead watershed groups in watersheds that are considered state priorities for nutrient loss reduction?
- November 2021: Malissa McAlister, Kentucky River Basin Coordinator at the Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, kicked us off with this: What social media tools or tips should watershed professionals who do outreach have in their toolbox – especially those who don’t come to the job with those skills, but find themselves using social media to reach audiences?
- October 2021: Eric Schmechel, Watershed Program Director for Dubuque SWCD in Iowa, kicked us off with this: How can watershed professionals work more collaboratively with ag retailers, given the differences in messaging and lines of communication between them?
The Confluence for Watershed Leaders
We are a multi-state community and collaborative of people working for healthy watersheds in the Great Lakes, Greater Mississippi River, and Red River Basins of the U.S. Midwest and Mid-South. The Confluence is where watershed professionals, watershed educators, and engaged farmers and landowners can connect, learn, and increase their success in achieving clean water goals.
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