Meet the Voices of Wildlife! - Ryan Taylor

We are going to do a little series called “Meet the Voices of Wildlife” to introduce our members to the people lobbying for wildlife this legislative session. Up first is Ryan Taylor with Ducks Unlimited…

Ryan Taylor is the director of public policy for Ducks Unlimited in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana. He works closely with state policymakers in the three states, consults on federal conservation issues in DC, and has a special interest in agricultural public policy that helps align the goals of farmers, ranchers, sportsmen and women, and conservationists in voluntary, working lands habitat conservation.   

Taylor continues to own and manage his family’s cattle ranch near Towner, N.D., a ranch homesteaded by his family in 1903 and inducted into the ranches division of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2010. He wrote a syndicated column called Cowboy Logic that ran in agricultural newspapers across the western U.S. and Canada for 21 years, and he did professional after dinner speaking and entertainment in the same region.

Taylor served in the North Dakota State Senate from 2002 to 2012 and was the senate minority leader in 2011. In 2015, he was appointed by the President to serve as state director for USDA Rural Development, leading a team of 44 employees and making $590 million worth of direct program investments, loans and loan guaranties in rural North Dakota.

Taylor was named a Bush Foundation leadership fellow in 2013 and he graduated from North Dakota State University with degrees in Agricultural Economics and Mass Communications in 1992. He currently serves on the board of directors for Starion Bank and the State Historical Society of North Dakota Foundation board of directors, and he is a recent past board member for ND Farmers Union, Farmers Union Insurance and Agraria Restaurants, as well as numerous other local, state and church organizations. He enjoys life on the prairie with his wife, Nikki, and their three high school and college age children.

If you want to support the great work Ducks Unlimited does in North Dakota, please consider becoming a member here: https://www.ducks.org/get-involved/du-membership-levels