Lloyd E. Wright is a farmer and retired USDA employee with 37 years of service with the Agency. Wright served as an advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and worked on civil rights program complaints filed between the years 2000 and 2008. He served as the Director of the USDA Office of Civil Rights, working directly with USDA Secretary Dan Glickman on the watershed Black Farmer Settlement. Prior to holding this position, he was director of a number of conservation, community assistance, resource development, and watershed protection divisions in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Washington, DC. He has held a number of other positions with NRCS at the state, area, and local levels. He is the principal author of the USDA Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) System. The system is used as the criteria in the Farmland Protection Policy Act (FPPA) and to protect farmland from conversion to non-agricultural uses. As a Legislative Assistant for Senator Tom Harkin, he was responsible for drafting a much-needed bill to stabilize land prices. He has spent time in the People’s Republic of China and South Africa, providing assistance on soil conservation and farmland protection. He grew up on a family-owned soybean, corn, and wheat farm in southeastern Virginia, where he is currently still active in farming. He holds a B.S. in Agronomy and an M.S. in Human Resources Management.