Forest Monitoring Crew Lead (Lakeview, OR)

Forest Monitoring Crew Lead (Lakeview, OR)
Great Basin Institute
 

The Great Basin Institute is an interdisciplinary field studies organization that promotes environmental research, education, and service throughout the west. The Institute’s mission is to advance applied science and ecological literacy through community engagement and agency partnerships, supporting national parks, forest, open spaces and public lands. 

The Ecological Monitoring Program at GBI serves as an excellent professional development opportunity for natural resource professionals looking for experience in botanical, soil, and rangeland surveys. This program focuses on the collection of reliable and consistent quantitative data on the status, condition, and trend of natural resources on public and private lands.

GBI is partnering with Lake County Umbrella Watershed Council and Lake County Resources Initiative (LCRI) to monitor forested areas and locate sites at risk for high intensity or crown fire. 

GBI’s Ecological Monitoring Program is dedicated to providing college graduates and emerging professionals with hands-on survey, inventory, monitoring, and reporting experience in natural resource management. Extensive training and technical field skills development provides employees a unique opportunity to obtain valuable experience in executing monitoring protocols that will increase their employment success.  

Description:

GBI is recruiting two Crew Leads to work with GBI, Lake County and LCRI staff. Each Field Lead will coordinate a field crew (one Lead will supervise one Technician) to document fire effects, identify native and invasive flora, and appraise potential for future treatments (FIREMON). Crews will be employing FIREMON and other protocols including: Plot Description (PD), Tree Data (TD), Fuel Load (FL), Species Cover (SC), Cover/Frequency (CF), Line Intercept (LI), Density (DE), Point Intercept (PO), Rare Species (RS), and Composite Burn Index (BI). 

Duties include following established field protocols to perform vegetation sampling and field data collection at new sampling plots. Data will be used by resource specialists and land managers to inform decisions regarding land management at various temporal and spatial scales. During field work, working in remote locations will typically be required.

Field work will include:

• Maintaining safety awareness and practices; 
• Extensive 4x4 driving on unmaintained roads;
• Navigating off-trail to sampling sites; 
• Establishing sampling plots and transects;
• Collecting vegetation data (including tree canopy data, tree characteristics, seedling/ sapling characteristics, fuels, and vegetation)
• Collecting soil data (including depth, moisture, and temperature)

Additional duties include:

• Regular communication with GBI support staff and agency staff
• Participation in GBI and agency trainings
• Entering data on paper datasheets and excel
• Identifying plants to species using dichotomous keys 
• Employing extensive QA/QC data checks; 
• Leadership:

• Supporting and managing a field crew 
• Coordinating field logistics and scheduling; 
• Report writing and completing administrative paperwork

Project Locations and Tentative Timeline: