CWPP Project Manager

Overview: The Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council (SBCFSC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to unify public and private organizations in Santa Barbara County to educate, motivate, and coordinate to minimize negative impacts associated with future wildfires. Members of the Board include current and past firefighting professionals, representatives of local government, and citizen representatives from various local communities.  The Board holds monthly meetings with the goal to provide relevant information to local citizens and offer a platform for community members to become active participants in the solutions to the challenges fire poses to our wildland urban areas. 

The SBCFSC is funded through donations and grants, using these funds to increase wildfire preparedness through education, planning, and mitigation projects. Recent projects have included the Gaviota Coast Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), Firewise USA® program coordination, Community Chipping, educational videos, and Wildfire Preparedness Expositions. Current staff include an Executive Director, Community Project Manager, Chipping & Grazing Project Manager, a Firewise Associate, and an Administrative Assistant/Communication Coordinator. 

Current Opening: SBCFSC seeks a highly qualified candidate who can lead the creation of a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for the Lompoc Valley in Santa Barbara, CA and oversee our Defensible Space program. 

CWPP: The process of developing a CWPP can help a community clarify and refine its priorities for the protection of life, property, and critical infrastructure in the wildland–urban interface. Most CWPPs focus on suggesting and prioritizing landscape treatments in the project area. The SBCFSC aims to follow the Regional Wildfire Mitigation Program (RWMP) framework in creating this proposed CWPP. As such there will be more of an emphasis on the built environment during the process and leveraging this opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with the engaged community to ensure a continually engaged and organized community and more effective implementation of proposed projects in the future.  This project will ensure the engagement of disadvantaged communities, which often lacks in planning processes, and work with communities to become Firewise USA sites. 

Defensible space: SBCFSC got a 1 year grant to help low-income and disadvantaged communities with creating defensible space on private property and a separate grant to retrofit vents. The Project Manager will collaborate with residents, contractors, and other SBCFSC staff to coordinate the completion of over 100 defensible space projects. Contractors will be responsible for creating the defensible space. 

The selected applicant will have the following duties:

• Grant management: Become the subject matter expert on the grant. Provide written documentation of the program including monthly project updates to the SBCFSC Board of Directors and Quarterly Reports to CalFire. Manage the grant budget, which includes tracking all costs and forecasting expenses each year. 
• Project Management: Establish a new program that accomplishes grant objectives within the pre-identified timeframes. Prepare and coordinate contracts and operations with contractors such as developing requests for proposals, creating project schedules, and establishing final product outputs. 
• Stakeholder engagement: Assemble a Development Team comprised of local residents and agency representatives to be the main advisors on the project. Organize a minimum of 3 public meetings with the local community to seek their input on the project. Coordinate with the Development Team and other stakeholders to conduct field tours of the local communities and potential project sites. Represent the SBCFSC at all engagement activities. 
• Focus group coordination: Work with a bilingual team to organize and host focus groups with disadvantaged communities. Follow a pre-existing engagement plan and coordinate with other SBCFSC staff to ensure a long-term relationship will be built with the participating communities. 
• GIS and social vulnerability mapping: Work with County Fire GIS and subcontractors on mapping products. Be able to read and explain GIS maps to the community. Create a dataframe containing the locations of social infrastructure in the project area following a pre-established process developed by the RWMP. Coordinate with local stakeholders to use institutional knowledge to identify socially vulnerable communities at a finer scale than pre-existing census tract based maps. 
• Writing: The Project Manager will be responsible for writing the CWPP document. 
• Home evaluations: Conduct home evaluations to assess landscaping and home hardening needs to make the home more fire safe. 

Qualifications: The ideal candidate will have the following minimum qualifications:

• MS degree in fire ecology, ecology, environmental science or equivalent (5+ years) experience with wildfire management (e.g., fire behavior, wildfire mitigation)
• Ability to communicate factors influencing wildland fire behavior and how vegetation treatments impact fire behavior 
• Knowledge of defensible space and home hardening requirements, fire history,  wildfire mitigation activities, County emergency preparedness programs (i.e., Ready, Set, Go! and ReadySBC), and/or fire ecology
• Experience with managing budgets and tracking expenses
• Detail oriented person who goes above and beyond
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a positive and respectful attitude 
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint
• Excellent communication and people skills for shared leadership and coordination across teams and projects, community and stakeholder engagement, and proliferation of progressive resilience planning
• Experience in program development and implementation
• Current driver license with functioning vehicle – selected candidate will be required to drive their own vehicle; fuel stipend will be provided for project related activities

Desired skills:

• Experience with geospatial mapping tools like ArcGIS online, ArcMap, ArcPro, QGIS, Google Earth, etc. 
• Experience with grant management
• Graphic design experience with a program like Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. 
• Fluent in both English and Spanish

Location: The ideal candidate lives in the project area. Work is hybrid, but the selected candidates will need to be within reasonable commuting distance to the project area as there are frequent in-person duties. Office space is available in north or south County. 

Application Deadline: Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until a suitable candidate is found. However, for full-consideration please apply by the end of day January 16th. 

Terms of Employment: The ideal start date is ASAP/mid-February. Funding is available until March 15, 2026. Plans are in place to apply for funding to continue this position past its completion date. 

Salary and Benefits: Exempt $104,000/year, 3 weeks PTO, 5 sick days, retirement plan, and health insurance stipend.