Botany Crew Technician

The Great Basin Institute, in cooperation with the USFS, is recruiting Botany Crew Members to perform vegetation surveys within the Sierra Nevada mountain range. These projects all serve the Basin & Range Forestry program’s greater mission of helping the USFS in their critical goal of improving forest resilience in the face of worsening climate conditions and increased wildfire threats. The work that you will do directly improves the quality of these forests helping ensure they continue to thrive for generations to come. 

Crew members will benefit from exposure to USFS processes, procedures, compliance measures and reporting, and technical experience. Expanded opportunities and exposure to additional disciplines (e.g. archaeology, wildlife, hydrology, recreation, etc.) and projects may exist. These positions serve to protect sensitive botanical species and contribute to USFS vegetation management and fuels reduction efforts, and to support initiatives for healthy, productive, and resilient forest landscapes and resources.  Outcomes of field work, conducted in accordance with USFS protocols, will advance planning for management actions on National Forest lands.

A Temporary Special Assignment (TSA) employee is one who is hired for a specific temporary assignment external from the institute’s administrative operations with one of GBI’s partners for 52 weeks or greater or less than 52 weeks and may work full-time (30 or more hours per week) or part-time (less than 30 hours per week).

Essential Job Functions may include the following:

• Botanical surveys to determine species identity, population characteristics, environmental conditions, factors affecting vigor and extent of species and their habitat;
• Lay out monitoring plots;
• Photograph or collect specimens as directed;
• Produce maps of survey areas;
• Record, enter and summarize data;
• Use botanical keys to identify plants; and
• May be asked to assist with reporting tasks.

Botany crew members will conduct botanical surveys to establish distributional occurrences of targeted species and populations in and around designated project sites and access routes. Data from these surveys will inform mitigation measures set to protect targeted plant species and vegetation communities considered habitat for designated wildlife.

WORK SCHEDULE
This position will begin in mid-May and end as late as mid-November. Season start and end dates are project and weather dependent and may change slightly. 

Forestry Crew positions follow 10 hour days, 4 days a week schedule. 

QUALIFICATIONS
To perform this job successfully, employees must be able to satisfactorily carry out each essential duty. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable employees with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Required:

• Degree in botany, plant ecology, or a closely related field in the biological sciences, including coursework in plant taxonomy and/or systematics (transcripts may be requested); AND/OR
• Experience conducting rare plant surveys and other botanical field work; AND/OR
• Six months of professional fieldwork experience.
• Experience using technical keys to identify plants to the species or sub-species level;
• Experience working with hand-held GPS, maps and compass for field navigation and data collection;
• Capacity to collect and maintain field data in an organized manner that is easily understood and accessible to other resources staff; 
• Ability to communicate effectively, both written and orally, with a diverse audience;
• Possess a clean, valid, state-issued driver’s license;
• Ability to live and work in rural and remote field and office setting; and 
• Physically fit to work outdoors, carry up to 50 pounds of personal and/or field equipment and withstand the rigors of a forested and/or high desert environment in all seasons. 

Preferred:

• Knowledge of the flora of the Eastern Sierra/Great Basin transition zone;
• Skills related to Geographic Information Systems (GIS);
• Comfortable with noxious weed control;
• Ability to understand, implement and adhere to established data collection, inventory, assessment and monitoring protocols; and
• Ability to safely operate and maintain a 4WD vehicle on and off paved roads.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
Wage: $21/hour with overtime at 1.5x hourly rate. Full time, average 40 hours per week.

In addition to a competitive base salary, this full-time,onsite position includes company-paid comprehensive medical, dental (with option to upgrade in coverage), and vision insurance, as well as $25,000 Life/AD&D policy. Voluntary short-term and long-term disability policies are available, and voluntary Life/AD&D policies for family members.  Mental health support resources are employer provided, competitive PTO accrual, and paid holidays.  Shared housing is provided.  This exciting role contributes to GBI’s significant positive impacts within the fields of environmental research, education, and conservation.