Southwest Forestry and Fuels Coordinator

Forest Stewards Guild • Santa Fe, NM

3d • $28 - $31 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Forest Stewards Guild is hiring a full-time Forestry and Fuels Coordinator to support forest contractors and implement forest resilience projects on private and federal lands. This role builds upon the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership and the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) to promote forestry projects for small acreage and underserved landowners and build local contractor capacity.
We seek a dynamic and collaborative leader who is outgoing, personable, and skilled at connecting with individuals and groups. This role requires excellent listening skills and the ability to foster relationships with diverse partners and the public. The successful candidate will demonstrate a proactive approach and a genuine enthusiasm for working collaboratively to achieve shared goals.
The successful candidate will use their experience in project coordination, science communication, and ecological forestry to work with Guild staff, partners, and landowners to evaluate project needs, implement resilient forestry projects, conduct educational outreach, and facilitate contractor trainings, among other activities as project needs are identified. The Forestry and Fuels Coordinator will help fulfill the Guild’s mission of ecological forestry in the Southwest United States through landowner outreach, field surveys and project design, forest prescription and plan writing, and implementation oversight. Candidates should have strong project coordination skills, communication abilities, budget tracking experience, knowledge of dry fire-adapted forests, forestry training, and strategic thinking capabilities.

Requirements

• 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

Nice To Haves

• 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

Responsibilities

• 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.

Benefits

• Paid and sick leave is accrued hourly from the first day of employment
• 12 paid holidays per year
• Employer-sponsored comprehensive health and dental care coverage paid at 80%, 40% for spouse, partner, and dependents of regular, full-time employees on Guild health insurance plan.
• Short and long-term disability policies, accidental death/dismemberment, life insurance, and family leave are paid by the Guild.
• Flexible Spending Accounts.
• 403(b) retirement plan with a 5% employer match is available.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree