David Patrick has broad education and over 23 years of experience in community ecology and the use of financial incentive programs in support of conservative values. Beginning in the early 1980's in Florida, and for ten years thereafter, David provided regulatory guidance and technical management for numerous public infrastructure projects throughout the U.S. as Senior Environmental Scientist for a global engineering design firm. Project experience included regulatory and environmental counsel for public infrastructure, environmental impact reports and land management plans, lake/reservoir studies and restoration programs, watershed planning and management, and design, implementation and monitoring of large-scale habitat restoration efforts.

Since the early 1990's, he has been intimately involved in national development of wetland and stream "mitigation banking," a financial incentive based system for establishing habitat reserves which provide compensation, or "credit," for unavoidable impacts to natural communities ("debits"). In 1995, David moved to the non-profit sector to become founder and director of the Zahniser Institute for Environmental Studies, an education based, public lands oriented conservation program founded on principles of wildlands preservation and public lands restoration. He has since gone on to establish three private environmental consulting firms operating in the Midwest and Northwest U.S. David and his family live in Clancy, Montana where he works diligently to further the conservation vision of his firms and to put that vision to work for their clients.