Donald Meyer is County Extension Director for University of Illinois Extension in the McLean County Unit. In his role as Director, Donald provides leadership in managing the fiscal resources, local staff, and marketing. In addition he is responsible to assess McLean County program needs and develop and evaluate educational programming to meet those needs.

Donald began with the McLean County office in 1983 as an agriculture educator and in 1990 moved to the role of manager, overseeing all unit programs. Under his leadership, the Extension program has expanded to meet the growing population needs as well as the changing client needs including both rural and urban issues. Besides his management responsibilities, he continues to teach workshops in a variety of subject areas including agricultural awareness, horticulture, agriculture economics, and pest management.

A graduate of Illinois State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Agricultural Education, Donald also holds a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Illinois. Prior to joining Extension he was an agriculture instructor at Lexington High School.

Donald is a member of the Illinois Extension Agriculture Association (IEAA) and has been recognized for his work as Achievement Award winner in IEAA and has twice received state awards in the IEAA program. He presented a paper to the National Association of County Agricultural Agents national meeting in 1987. Locally he received the McLean County Outstanding Service to Agriculture Award in 1990, and was recognized for service to the ISU Agriculture Department in 1992. He was recognized in 2000 by University of Illinois Extension, receiving the Award of Excellence for Sustained Excellence in Extension Programming.

He has taught credit courses at Illinois State University for 13 semesters during the past 14 years, with courses in agronomy, turf, landscape management, agricultural education, and introduction to horticulture.