The successful candidate will have a certificate or degree in forestry, ecology, natural resource management, or three years equivalent experience of professional work mapping and marking timber or fuels units for treatment. This individual will have excellent organizational, communication, and written skills, the ability to work outdoors in remote locations, and a desire to support ecological forestry and forest dependent communities in the Southwest. The Guild has been expanding in the Southwest, and the ideal candidate will possess the desire and leadership skills to sustain and strengthen the Guild’s regional presence and impact. Previous experience in field forestry management and working collaboratively with diverse partners in the Southwest, coupled with project coordination experience, is highly desirable. The SW Forestry and Fuels Coordinator will work closely with directors and staff based out of the Santa Fe, NM office.

The successful individual will:

Advance resilient forestry by working with a team to develop strategies and build partnerships that benefit underserved and small-acreage forest landowners

• Support the delivery of technical forest and fire management services with other Guild staff and/or contractors.
• Seek opportunities to increase treatments on non-federal lands by identifying linkages between the federally funded CFLRP, federally managed lands, and non-federally managed lands.
• Address challenges such as limited contractors, information access, and lack of partnerships that hinder climate-adaptive stewardship efforts.
• Build trust, improve forest health, and increase landowner participation in resilient forestry practices through one-on-one conversations, deep listening, and follow through.
• Engage with small-acreage and underserved landowners to foster emerging markets.

Work with the Senior Forester to identify and prepare forestry treatments on privately and federally managed lands.

• Lead outreach to perspective land stewards.
• Work with New Mexico State Forestry Division, Colorado State Forest Service, and US Forest Service to find willing landowners as well as look for opportunities to develop opportunities to work across boundaries.
• Conduct site visits to discuss resilient forestry practices, in line with the Guild’s principles, and project funding.
• Develop site maps, forest management plans, and site-specific treatment prescriptions.
• Support office-based project management work such as cost estimating, budgeting, issuing Requests for Proposals, preparing agreements, reporting, and general correspondence with partners.
• Perform project layout and tree marking.
• Coordinate with private landowners and federal land managers, and contractors, to implement treatments.
• Provide regular oversight of contractors and inspect completed work.

Facilitate meetings, trainings, field tours, and other opportunities to support local contractor capacity in line with existing partnerships.

• Coordinate with New Mexico State Forestry Division, Colorado State Forest Service, Northern New Mexico College, America’s Job Center, New Mexico Workforce Solutions, and the Santa Fe, Carson, Rio Grande, and San Juan National Forests, and other interested partners.
• Maintain relationships with partners and funders across New Mexico and Colorado, often in-person with some travel required.
• Lead and facilitate education and outreach activities for private landowners and forest contractors.
• Support grant proposals to build and maintain local contractor and mill capacity, and their participation in emerging markets that promote efficiency and climate-smart forest practices.

Support Forest Stewards Guild work in the region.

• Maintain and grow partnerships for Southwest programs.
• As needed and desired, support Guild prescribed fire operations.
• Represent the Guild at professional conferences or events and perform public speaking, such as PowerPoint presentations or panel discussions to share on project deliverables
• Collaborate as a team using software such as Asana, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
• Track budgets, match, metrics, and deliverables for projects.
• Perform grant writing, administration, and reporting to a variety of different funders, including private foundations and government grants.

What You’ll Bring

• Certificate or degree in forestry, ecology, natural resource management, or other applicable field, or three years equivalent experience of professional work mapping and marking timber or fuels units for treatment
• Forestry and fuels knowledge and related field experience
• Experience using Geographic Information Systems and field-based applications such as Avenza or Survey123
• Project coordination experience working with multiple contracts and deliverables at one time.
• Experience with disseminating scientific and complex project information to the public
• Proficiency in tracking deliverables and report writing
• Clear verbal and written communication skills, with an emphasis on concise, technical writing
• Ability to work both independently and with a team
• Leadership skills and self-direction
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills
• Effective knowledge of common software applications
• Valid driver’s license

Additional Desired Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in forestry, land or natural resource management, ecology, or other applicable field, or five years of relevant work experience
• FFT2 Fire qualification, Basic Faller (FAL3) chainsaw certification
• Experience using partnerships to leverage resources and funding to accomplish cross boundary projects
• Experience writing proposals and building budgets
• Proficiency in project budget tracking
• Forestry experience in Southwest forest ecosystems
• Certificate or professional experience with Geographic Information Systems, including database creation and maintenance, data analysis, and creation of online interactive maps.
• Conversational Spanish