Employment Outreach Notice U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station Resource Monitoring and Assessment Program GS-462-05/06 Forestry Technician Forest Inventory and Analysis Crew Member La Grande, Oregon; Mt Shasta, CA; Mammoth Lakes, CA PLEASE REPLY by May 31, 2015 The Pacific Northwest Research Station anticipates filling at least three Forestry Technician crew member positions at the locations listed above. Additional positions may also be filled at any of our 17 satellite duty locations depending on needs at the time of vacancy announcement. Please indicate ALL duty stations of interest on the outreach response form. About the position... These are permanent seasonal positions, consisting of 18 pay periods of full time work and 8 pay periods of non-pay status per year. Appointees may be offered the opportunity to work longer depending on workload and funding. These positions are career ladder with the full performance level at a GS-06. The positions are with the Data Collection Team of the PNW Research Station s Resource Monitoring and Assessment (RMA) Program, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) unit. The FIA unit is part of a nationwide program which collects, processes, analyzes, evaluates, and publishes comprehensive information on forest and other related renewable resources. Administration for this Data Collection team is located in Portland, Oregon and field crews are remotely stationed throughout Washington, Oregon and California. These positions will support work sampling field plots located on a systematic grid across all landownerships and will be almost entirely field based. A wide variety of information is collected in the inventory including: tree measurements; forest pathogens, understory vegetation composition and structure, stand treatments and disturbances, down woody material measurements, and land ownership. The areas sampled for FIA by the PNW Research Station cover a diversity of ecological communities which include: the temperate rain forests of coastal Oregon and Washington, the redwood coastal forests of California; high mountain conifer forests of the Cascades and Sierras; drier ponderosa pine, oak woodland and juniper forests of Oregon, Washington and California. Each crew covers a large area, and no matter where you work, you will see a wide variety of country.
Crew members work under the direction of a local crew leader and work alongside one to three people. Crews will use maps, aerial photos, and GPS units to navigate to permanent plot locations. Measurements taken by crews include: tree data (species, diameter, height, defect, insect & disease, damage, etc.); understory vegetation (shrub, herb, grass species and percent cover, etc.); down woody material (line transects, litter depth, and fuels measurement, etc.); and site index and site attributes. Crews use portable, handheld computers to collect data in the field and then process the data later using laptop computers to address any inconsistencies or errors. The field-season typically runs from early April through early November. Each crew travels frequently and independently within their duty station area. Crews can expect to travel away from home for a significant portion of the field season. Travel will sometimes involve week-long trips while other times crews may need to spend a month away from home. Lodging is generally in motel/hotels and car camping, with occasional backpacking required. In all areas, work conditions are often arduous. Work may be performed in inclement weather (cold, heat, rain, snow) and on rugged, steep, slippery, and/or brushy slopes. Significant amounts of on-trail and off-trail hiking are required. Crewmembers must carry a 45lb pack daily, with pack weights sometimes exceeding 60lbs. Exposure to hazards such as poison oak, bears, and insects is common. Additionally, travel by helicopter, stock animal, or boat is occasionally required. Duty Station information: Actual work area boundaries fluctuate yearly based on workload and travel outside the duty station area will be required to assist other field crews if necessary to meet program critical objectives. Work sites include forest land on industry, privately owned, tribal lands, BLM, State and NFS lands. One must be comfortable with remote work environments and off-trail hiking; the dramatic landscapes (though beautiful) can make access sometimes challenging. Long work days and long drives are unavoidable. La Grande, Oregon: The La Grande FIA crew traditionally covers a territory that covers the eastern 1/3 of Oregon and a bit of SE Washington. From Burns on the southern end and the corner of SE Washington on the Northern end, this work area includes the Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman, and Malheur National Forests. Wilderness expanses define much of the backcountry work including the Eagle Cap Wilderness, Hells Canyon, Monument Rock and North Fork John Day wilderness areas to name a few. This work zone has dry Juniper desert, high elevation sub-alpine fir communities and everything in between. This work area boasts Oregon s largest Wilderness (Eagle Cap), the clearest lake (Wallowa Lake), the steepest tram (Mt. Howard), the deepest gorge (Hells Canyon) and the greenest valley (Wallowa) east of the Cascades. La Grande is nestled between the Wallowa Mountains and the Blue Mountains, located off of I-84 in the Grande Ronde Valley. As Union County's county seat, La Grande is a vibrant small town community. There are seemingly limitless opportunities for camping, hiking, PNW FIA PSE Crew Member Outreach p.2
snowmobiling, mountain biking, swimming, boating and water skiing in the mountains, trails and lakes in the national forest. Downtown La Grande has a pedestrian friendly shopping district with the campus for Eastern Oregon State University just a ten minute walk away. For more information on LaGrande, OR, visit their website at http://www.el.com/to/lagrande/. Mt Shasta, California: The Mt Shasta field crew covers the area of Northern California from the Pacific Ocean east to the Nevada State border. About 65% of this area is in the Klamath Mountain Province, with some work in the Siskiyou, Red Buttes, Marble Mountain, Russian, Trinity Alps, Castle Crags, Mt. Shasta, Lava Beds, and South Warner wilderness areas. Work in this region is challenging due to steep slopes and off trail hiking, but rewarded by the unique landscapes which the field crew visits. Mount Shasta, CA is a mountain community with population 3,400 located in Southern Siskiyou County in far Northern California. Mount Shasta rests at 3,600, approximately 9 miles southwest of the 14,179 summit of its namesake volcano. A variety of outdoor activities including alpine climbing on Mt. Shasta, rock climbing at Castle Crags State Park, river rafting and kayaking on the Klamath River and its tributaries, trout fishing on the Sacramento, McCloud, and Pit Rivers, mountain biking on Mt. Shasta and the Klamath Mountains, and backpacking and hiking in the Marble Mountain and Trinity Alps Wilderness are available nearby. Interstate-5 is a major travel corridor running north-south through Mount Shasta. It is located about 1 hour drive south of Ashland, OR and 1 hour drive north of Redding, CA. For more information: http://www.ci.mt-shasta.ca.us/. Mammoth Lakes, California: The Mammoth Lakes field crew covers the region from the coast south of the Bay Area, through the Central Valley, and east into the Sierras to the Nevada border. Work covers all elevations, including forest plots at the edge of the tree line, with forest types of coastal redwoods, oak woodlands, mixed conifer, brushy chaparral, red fir/white fir, lodgepole pine, white bark pine, foxtail pines, and subalpine krumholtz. The Mammoth Lakes crew spends a significant portion of the field season traveling away from the duty station. While much of the spring and fall is spent in hotels, the summer includes extensive camping and backpacking trips with long hikes in the Eastern Sierras on the Sierra, Inyo, and Sequoia National Forests as well as in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks. Mammoth Lakes is a small town in the Eastern Sierra at an elevation of 8000' and with a population of around 8,000, much expanded during the winter ski season. The nearest city is Reno about 3 hours to the north. It has world class recreation with skiing, rock climbing, fishing, mountain biking, natural hot springs, and borders Yosemite National Park. Visit the town s webpage for more information: http://www.ci.mammoth-lakes.ca.us/. PNW FIA PSE Crew Member Outreach p.3
IF YOU RE INTERESTED... If you are interested in a crew member position at any of our locations with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, please use the attached response form to express your interest by May 31, 2015 and you will be notified when the positions are advertised. You can send your response electronically to: pnw_fia_outreach@fs.fed.us (please use the subject line PNW-FIA-Forestry Tech ). Please visit our team s website for more information, including an information page on how to join our team! http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/rma/fia-topics/data-collection/ For more information about the duties and work conditions of this position, please contact: Marin Palmer, California State Coordinator or Jane Terzibashian, Oregon State Coordinator at pnw_fia_outreach@fs.fed.us, or 620 SW Main St, Ste. 400 Portland, OR 97205 the email listed above. This is a pre-announcement only. When the position is advertised, the announcement will be posted on the Office of Personnel Management web site: www.usajobs.gov. The announcement will contain all of the information you need to apply for the position. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual s income is derived from any public assistance program.(not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). PLEASE NOTE: The purpose of this Outreach Notice is to determine the potential applicant pool for this position and to establish the appropriate recruitment method and area of consideration for the advertisement. Responses received from this outreach notice will be used to make this determination. The vacancy announcement for this position, when open, will be posted at the USA Jobs website, the U.S. Government s official site for jobs and employment information: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov. PNW FIA PSE Crew Member Outreach p.4
OUTREACH RESPONSE FORM Forestry Technician GS-462-05/06 Forest Inventory and Analysis Crew Member PNW Research Station, Resource Monitoring and Assessment Program Please complete this form and submit to pnw_fia_outreach@fs.fed.us PLEASE REPLY by May 31, 2015 NAME: EMAIL ADDRESS: MAILING ADDRESS: TELEPHONE NUMBER: If you are currently employed by the Federal Government: WHAT AGENCY ARE YOU EMPLOYED BY: TYPE OF APPOINTMENT: PERMANENT TEMPORARY TERM OTHER (describe) If employed by the Forest Service: WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT REGION/FOREST/DISTRICT/STATION? CURRENT SERIES AND GRADE: CURRENT POSITION TITLE: If you are not currently a Federal Employee: CURRENT EMPLOYER: CURRENT POSITION TITLE AND SALARY: Are you eligible for appointment under any of the following special authorities? Former Peace Corps Veteran s Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 Person with Disabilities Veteran s Readjustment Student Employment Program Reinstatement Eligibility Veteran with 30% Compensable Other Disability Duty Station(s) of Interest (check all that apply): INTERESTED IN ALL Portland, OR Mt. Shasta, CA Olympia, WA Eugene, OR Redding, CA Cle Elum, WA Grants Pass, OR Chico, CA Sedro-Woolley, WA La Grande, OR Nevada City, CA Twisp, WA Bend, OR Mammoth Lakes, CA Klamath Falls, OR Fresno, CA Acton, CA Thank you for your interest in our vacancies.