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About Verle Kaiser
About the Photo Archive
 

His work (and photographs) emphasized agricultural practices that would conserve soil such as management of crop residue, experimenting with new equipment and cultural practices, as well as documenting the amount of soil erosion resulting from various practices.  Many of the captions for his images contain estimates of the amount of soil lost from the field(s) shown, and data he has collected has been used in the development of erosion prediction and soil conservation programs.

He graduated from Washington State College in 1935 with a B.S. in agriculture and devoted much of his 37-year career to the Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service.  He helped organize eight new conservation districts as the Area conservationist for the Palouse Region and worked as Agronomy Specialist for dry farmlands of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.

Retiring in 1972, Kaiser remained an active conservationist, sportsman, and historian. At the time of his death, June 16, 1982, Verle was actively working on a book entitled The First Century of Farming in the Palouse.  He was posthumously named a Fellow of the Soil Conservation Society of America during the organization's 37th annual meeting.

Kaiser's lifelong dedication was to the conservation of natural resources and to the belief in the indispensable role natural resources play in the support of strong, prosperous, and free nations.

The Verle Kaiser Endowment is sponsored by the Inland Empire Chapter, Soil and Water Conservation Society of America, in cooperation with the College of Agriculture and Home Economics, Washington State University; the Washington State Foundation, and the College of Agriculture, University of Idaho.