Prior to joining the New Mexico State University faculty in 2020, flying drones was just a hobby for Casey Spackman. As a Cooperative Extension Service range management specialist and director of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences-Cooperative Extension Service Unoccupied Aircraft Systems Natural Resources Laboratory at NMSU, he now uses the resource professionally.
“It wasn’t until I started traveling the state and meeting with producers that it dawned on me; these people could use drones,” Spackman said. “I sought funding and purchased a drone in 2022, after which I began providing Extension workshops to show what drones could do for rangeland management. From there, it expanded to using AI in research to identify and map plants from the sky, a task traditionally done through time-consuming, on-the-ground surveys.”
Spackman’s daily responsibilities include helping producers, land managers and agency personnel keep their rangelands healthy and set goals to improve them.
“That means a lot of phone calls, one-on-one visits and group workshops, most of which wouldn’t happen without our awesome county Extension agents. I couldn’t do it without their first-hand local knowledge,” Spackman said.
A Utah native, Spackman earned a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences in 2015 and a Ph.D. in rangeland sciences in 2019 from Utah State University. While pursuing his doctorate, Spackman worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service Poisonous Plants Research Laboratory.
“What I find most rewarding about being at NMSU is watching someone take something I talked about and actually use it,” he said. “Whether it’s a student or a rancher who’s been doing this for 40 years, seeing something I shared actually make a difference is incredibly rewarding. That’s what a land-grant university is supposed to do, and I feel lucky to be part of it.”