Gretchen Benjamin Bio | The Nature Conservancy

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Freshwater: Gretchen Benjamin

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Gretchen Benjamin, Director, Large Rivers Program, Great Rivers Partnership. © Jay Harrod

Gretchen Benjamin

Director, Large Rivers Program, Great Rivers Partnership

Contact Information

E-mail: gbenjamin@tnc.org

Brief Biography

“I have lived along the Mississippi River most of my life. It’s in my veins and I want to leave it better than how I found it. I am so fortunate to work with great people who are as passionate as I am to recover this great river valley.”

Gretchen Benjamin knows the Mississippi River. As director of the large rivers program for The Nature Conservancy’s Great River Partnership (GRP), she provides leadership on North American work focused there—including science, policy and partnership efforts to achieve integrated river basin management.

Prior to joining the Conservancy, Gretchen spent nearly 25 years serving as a field biologist, river planner and basin policy advisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Her experience involved monitoring water quality, fisheries and aquatic vegetation on the Upper Mississippi, and working with multiple river partners—especially the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—on habitat restoration through conventional and innovative approaches. She also worked on federal policy to promote river restoration through legislative authorizations and appropriations.

Gretchen has acted as founding board member of the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, a Wisconsin land trust working in six of the state’s counties. She has received recognition for contributions in ecological restoration from the State of Wisconsin and the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee, among others.

In addition to a B.S. degree in natural resource management from the University of Montana, Gretchen has completed post-graduate work at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse and St. Mary’s University in Winona, Minnesota. She is a certified SCUBA dive master and master diver, and travels globally in pursuit of a life list of marine biodiversity. She currently lives on the banks of the Mississippi River in La Crosse with her family.