Conservation Projects Coordinator

About Black Swamp Conservancy

Black Swamp Conservancy is an accredited land trust serving northwest Ohio and the Western Lake Erie Basin. The Conservancy’s mission is to protect and preserve natural and agricultural lands in northwest Ohio for the benefit of future generations.

The Conservancy is seeking to hire a Conservation Projects Coordinator to join our staff in preserving the rural heritage, unique natural habitats, and lakes and streams of northwest Ohio.

Black Swamp Conservancy currently protects more than 160 properties covering 23,000 acres and representing some of our region’s finest family farms, wetlands, woodlands and other open spaces. We have many active projects in process including large-scale stream and wetland restoration projects.

The Conservancy’s office is located on a protected property south of Perrysburg, surrounded by woods and prairie.

Learn more about the Conservancy: www.blackswamp.org/

Position Profile

Reporting to the Conservation Manager and in collaboration with the entire Conservancy team and its community partners, the Conservation Projects Coordinator joins Black Swamp Conservancy’s land protection and stewardship team.

The Projects Coordinator’s duties and responsibilities include:

• Initiating and managing land protection projects
• Administering restoration projects
• Grant writing to support land protection projects and restoration projects
• Using GIS to inform and track projects

The Projects Coordinator will be the lead staff utilizing the Conservancy’s Parcel-based Ecological Restoration Model (PERM). PERM is an ESRI Online based model which identifies land areas in Ohio’s Western Lake Erie Basin that could provide significant ecological and water quality benefits if protected and/or restored. The PERM assesses legal parcels’ restoration potential based on several parameters (e.g. Hydrology, Soils, Connectivity) and assigns a score to each legal parcel in the Conservancy’s 14-county service area. The higher the score, the higher the water quality improvement / restoration potential of these land parcels.

The Projects Coordinator will use the outputs of the PERM to identify restoration-viable land that has high potential to improve water quality in the Western Lake Erie Basin. The Coordinator may then proceed with landowner negotiations and land acquisition and restoration funding and implementation, thereby accomplishing the protection and restoration of important lands.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in environmental policy, natural resource management, geography, biology or a closely related field
• Experience securing and managing grant funding
• Proficiency in ArcGIS
• Must be able to effectively manage multiple projects at the same time
• A dedicated team player with a sense of humor and a commitment to protecting the natural environment who also works well independently
• Available to work before and after normal business hours and on the weekends, as necessary

Preferred Qualifications:

• At least two years non-profit experience, preferably with a land trust or similar conservation organization
• Experience initiating and managing real estate transactions, including due diligence process
• Excellent negotiation skills
• ESRI Certification
• Experience managing stream and wetland restoration projects
• Experience creating baseline documentation reports
• Knowledge of Great Lakes ecosystems

More than anything, Black Swamp Conservancy is looking for …

A highly motivated, creative, organized and detail-oriented self-starter with a passion to serve our land conservation mission. The Projects Coordinator must have strong diplomatic skills and the ability to work with diverse stakeholders to achieve common goals.

Compensation:

The Conservancy offers a competitive compensation package including health insurance and retirement match. Salary commensurate with experience. Anticipated starting salary is $40,000.