Michael Dupree earned his MS in Life Sciences in Botany from Louisiana Tech University in 1986 and an Advanced Degree in Agriculture Education from the North Carolina State University in 1995. He has over a decade of experience as a professional educator in secondary and post-secondary institutions. Since 1992, Michael has contracted with state organizations, state government entities, and national organizations to develop and administer Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) curricula. In 2009, he developed career training opportunities for youth in the STEM fields by creating the Bionomic Educational Training Center (BETC) concept, which was piloted in 2010 in Durham, NC. This program engages students in the design and implementation of Stormwater Control Measures (SCM) and, using grants and county funding, employs them and their teachers to install these sustainable projects on public and private property throughout the county. He has authored and served as the principal investigator of multiple educational research grants, most recently culminating in the summer of 2022 with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) division of National Institute of Food & Agriculture (NIFA). With this grant, the Piedmont Conservation Council, Inc. expanded the BETC program to involve ten counties throughout the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

A licensed and bonded North Carolina Landscape Contractor & North Carolina Irrigation Contractor, Mr. Dupree has provided landscape and irrigation installation services to many thousands of North Carolina customers since 1989. From 2010 until 2021, he worked for Durham County as its Agribusiness & Environmental Services Manager, designing and overseeing the construction of SCMs for landowners. During his government experience, he obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to enable more than 200 landowners with installing more than 260 SCMs.