Forestry Crew member

Great Basin Institute, founded at the University of Nevada Reno in 1998, is a mission-driven non-profit organization headquartered in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. GBI has been a leader in the conservation stewardship field for over two decades, supporting thousands of individuals each pursuing a career in public land management or advancing their academic standing. Partnering with federal, state and local governments, as well as other NGOs and researchers, GBI supports projects in eleven western states ranging from Alaska to New Mexico, and southern California to northwestern Wyoming.

The Great Basin Institute, in cooperation with the USFS, is recruiting Forestry Crew Members to perform timber sale-preparation, vegetation management and restoration projects within the Sierra Nevada mountain range (see location details below). Selected Technicians will serve Region 5’s vegetation management and fuels reduction efforts, supporting initiatives for healthy, productive, and resilient forest landscapes and resources. Projects will vary across Forests and Districts, and include but are not limited to fuels reduction initiatives in wildland urban interface (WUI) areas, in and around sensitive habitats for threatened and endangered species, and watershed protection. Members will receive professional development opportunities and benefit from exposure to USFS processes, procedures, compliance measures and reporting, and technical experience.

Forestry Crew Members will perform a wide variety of activities to support all stages of project work. Crew size will range between 2-6 people. Forestry duties may include timber sale unit boundary delineation and layout (GPSing, flagging, painting), tree species ID, green and salvage timber marking and cruising, timber and biomass plot cruising, collection of stand examination data, and general silviculture data collection. Duties may also include identification of various resource concerns including hydrology, heritage, wildlife and recreation. All procedures will be performed in compliance with complex silvicultural prescriptions based on forest and treatment type and land management goals. Data will be gathered using standard instruments, direct measurements, general observations, and on-site inspections. Project-specific training will be provided on tree-species identification, GPS data collection, tree marking, hydrology, entomology/pathology, heritage, fire/fuels and other elements. Prior experience in basic GIS skills, GPS data collection, tree-species identification, timber marking and cruising, identifying hydrologic concerns, recognizing forest entomology/pathology issues, identifying heritage sites, and experience with fire/fuels assessments or related field tasks is preferred.

This physically demanding work, often in remote project locations, will provide Forestry Crew Members with rewarding exposure to some of California's lesser-known forested landscapes. This work requires extensive hiking in steep terrain at high altitudes (5,000 to 9,000 ft.) with heavy packs on a daily basis, possibly during extreme or inclement weather conditions such as heat, smoke, high winds, snow or rain. Positions often require operating 4-wheel drive vehicles in rugged conditions including, mud, snow and high clearance roads. Work schedules, generally four 10-hour days with three days off each week, are subject to change depending on weather and project needs.