Education 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 qualified candidate who can lead a new $1.5 million Comprehensive Wildfire Education Program funded by a 5 year grant from CalFire. Current wildfire education focuses on targeting homeowners about home hardening and defensible space. However, the impacts of wildfires extend far beyond homeowners and structures. This grant seeks to expand wildfire education to a more diverse audience (kids K-12, working professionals in the landscaping, architect, and realtor fields, non-homeowners, disadvantaged communities, etc.) and expand the scope of material for wildfire mitigation, response, and recovery. 

In year one, the Program Manager will conduct an extensive review of pre-existing educational material, identify gaps and needs in the currently available material, and develop a plan for addressing gaps and needs in wildfire education material in years two-five. 

In years two and three, the Program Manager will coordinate with local artists to create new interactive multimedia material, coordinate with curriculum developers to design various outreach materials and curriculums in both Spanish and English, establish a process and metrics for testing the curriculums to improve upon them in the future, develop new relationships with intended audience members, conduct outreach to schedule educational events, oversee associate educators who will assist with leading education events, and teach developed curriculums across the County. 

Years four and five will more heavily focus on organizing and teaching at educational events to various audiences. In addition, the Program Manager will explore the feasibility to establish a certificate based multi-week class through a university/college to formally deliver and certify a standardized curriculum to laymen practitioners. 

Main goals of the grant include reproducible and bilingual curriculums and educational material made publicly available on the SBCFSC website and a certain number of educational events held each year. 

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, ensuring safety guidelines and SBCFSC policies are followed, keeping daily logs, and completing timesheets. 
• Curriculum and Outreach Material Development: Conduct review of existing materials, develop new educational materials with SBCFSC staff and subcontractors, create metrics to assess the impact of the developed materials, continuously take feedback to improve upon the developed curriculum. 
• Staff and Contractual Oversight: Hire and oversee subcontractors and a small team of part or full-time staff who will assist with grant deliverables, particularly teaching at education events. 
• Teaching: Coordinate with various stakeholders to organize educational opportunities. Attend education events to teach the developed educational material. 

Qualifications: Overall we are looking for a flexible, adaptable, and creative individual with prior teaching and curriculum development experience who can make our vision of a holistic and comprehensive program outlined above a sustainable and on-going program at the SBCFSC. The ideal candidate will have the following minimum qualifications:

• 4+ years teaching experience and curriculum development
• Experience with managing budgets and tracking expenses
• Detailed 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, and a graphic design program like Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. 
• 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:

• 3+ years experience developing education programs
• Ability to communicate factors influencing wildland fire behavior and how vegetation treatments impact fire behavior 
• Experience with geospatial mapping tools like ArcGIS online, ArcMap, ArcPro, QGIS, Google Earth, etc. 
• Experience with grant management
• Knowledge of defensible space and home hardening requirements, local fire history,  wildfire mitigation activities, County emergency preparedness programs (i.e., Ready, Set, Go! and ReadySBC), and/or fire ecology
• CA Teaching Credential 
• Experience teaching or Bachelor’s in environmental science, ecology, biology, or general sciences is preferred 
• Fluent in both English and Spanish

Location: This is a Countywide program in Santa Barbara, California. 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 January 19th.  The ideal start date is before mid-2024.

Terms of Employment:  Funding is available until March 15, 2029, however the employment offer will start with a 2-year contract. This program is central to the SBCFSC mission, so plans are in place to apply for funding to continue this position past the 2029 completion date. 

Salary and Benefits: This is an exempt position. Expected salary is $83,200- $104,000/year (DOE), 3 weeks PTO, 5 sick days, retirement plan, and health insurance stipend.