Mike Rader has a bachelor’s degree in Park Resources Management from Kansas State University and started his full-time career with the Kansas Dept. of Wildlife & Parks in 1989 at Wilson State Park. Mike was hired as the Wildlife Education Supervisor in 2007, working at the KDWP operations headquarters and continues in that position. He supervises the directors of the Milford Nature Center and Pratt Education Center, and education specialists at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center and in the Kansas City metro area. Mike is also responsible for a statewide program assisting schools create wildlife habitat called Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) and coordinates the Kansas Birding Big Year competition. Mike developed interest in birds at a young age and has been avidly pursuing that interest for more than 40 years. He writes a regular column for Kansas Wildlife magazine; was named Avian Conservationist of the Year by the Kansas Ornithological Society in 2014; and was named as the winner of the John K. Strickler Award for Excellence in Conservation and Environmental Education by the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE) in 2018. He is keeping busy working on the new Kansas Birding Trail plan along with the many other duties of the position.

Mike is from the north central Kansas town of Kensington, but has lived in Wilson, KS since 1989. His wife, Ellen, is the Administrative Specialist at Wilson State Park. His oldest daughter, Jenn, is the director of the Southeast Kansas Nature Center in Galena for KDWP, his middle daughter, Heather, lives and works in Lindsborg, KS and his youngest daughter, Andrea and her husband Scott, live in Wilson where he is a state game warden and she works in the district court system.