NRCS provides farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners with free technical assistance, or advice, for boosting agricultural productivity and protecting our natural resources through conservation. Programs are available to provide financial assistance to implement these recommendations. Helping people help the land. 

Learn more about the NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program:

NRCS Lewiston Field Office Staff

Alexander Stace

District Conservationist 
Phone: (207) 241-5373
Email: alexander.stace@usda.gov
Alex Stace is the District Conservationist for the Lewiston Maine USDA Service Center serving Androscoggin and Sagadahoc counties. He has a B.S. in Forest Management with a minor in Surveying engineering technology from the University of Maine. He worked for the Virginia Department of Forestry as a County Forester for 5 years, and has been with the NRCS in Maine since 2011. He worked in the South Paris Service Center in Oxford County from 2011-2020 and has been in the Lewiston service center since. He has been District Conservationist since July 2023.
 
The role of our district conservationist role is to provide technical assistance and guidance to carry out various types of natural resource conservation programs, ensuring conservation goals are effectively and efficiently achieved.
The District Conservationist assists landowners with the application of planned resource management systems in compliance with agency standards and specifications. They also provide program support to field office personnel and technical service providers in carrying out programs, policies and procedures in resource conservation planning, contracting, and conservation management systems implementation.  Alex represents the NRCS agency in local committees and/or task forces as needed.  NRCS has a positive working relationship with other federal, state, and local agencies, units of government, and interested groups, including the District, where they attend our monthly board meetings and serves as an advisor to district committees as assigned, and participates with those groups in meetings, tours, and demonstration projects to explain resource conservation planning.
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Candi Gilpatric 

Agricultural Engineer
Phone: (207) 241-5378
Email: candi.gilpatric@usda.gov
Candace (Benwitz) Gilpatric, PE – graduate of UMaine with a BS in Agricultural Engineering.  Candi grew up on a livestock farm in Western New York along Lake Ontario.  She came to Maine for college and has never left. Candi started with NRCS as a work study student. Upon graduation she became a full time employee assisting the engineer in the Bangor area. In 1992 the agency moved her to Lewiston where she assisted the Southern Maine area engineer until his retirement. She currently provides engineering to the Southern 8 counties of Maine with assistance from Abel Cardona-Villeneuva.  Candi always enjoys teaching and has instructed trainings for NRCS across the nation over her 30 years of service.  She still instructs locally to new NRCS hires in Maine and at district workshops.  When not working Candi enjoys time with her family upta camp.​