Rich J. Casale of Aptos recently was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the first EnviroCert Lifetime Achievement and Distinguished Service Award Ceremony, which took place in San Diego on Oct. 21. The award was given to him by EnviroCert International (ECI), Inc., which manages five international certification programs for professionals serving the stormwater community in the United States and over 20 countries and has certified over 16,000 professionals over the past 40 years.
Rich, a recently retired United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) employee (2017) who served as a NRCS natural resource conservationist for nearly 43 years in the Monterey Bay area of California. Rich is an active Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control (CPESC #3) a credential that he has held and been very proud of for more than 35 years. Rich has extensive erosion and sediment control planning and on-the-ground technical experience having assisted thousands of land users with their erosion prevention/control needs over his career.
Rich co-founded CPESC in 1981 after four years of work and served on the CPESC Promotions Committee for several years. Additionally, he promoted CPESC locally and at the state level as an NRCS employee and as President of the CA chapter of Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS), which was an initial and official sponsor of CPESC.
He has also assisted several California communities in need under NRCS’s Emergency Watershed Protection program following devastating fire, storm, flood, and earthquake disasters.
Rich was honored by NRCS and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010 for his early pioneering efforts that led to the establishment of a national NRCS volunteer program called the “Earth Team.” Today, nearly a half million people have participated in the program nationwide contributing more that 15 million hours toward the conservation effort.
Rich has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Natural Resources Management from Humboldt State University. He has been an active member of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, having served as past California Chapter President, since 1975. Rich loves wine tasting, golf, jogging, acting/modeling, woodworking, and travel.
He even practices erosion and sediment prevention on his own small horse ranch in Aptos, CA where he lives with his wife of 37 years.
He and his wife also own and operate an adventure travel agency and have organized and led groups to exciting destinations around the world including Patagonia, Antarctica, Galapagos, Peruvian Amazon and Machu Picchu, Northern Spain and Portugal.