OUTREACH NOTICE
Region 10, Tongass National Forest
Presale Forester GS-460-7/9
Duty Station:
Thorne Bay, AK.
The Tongass National Forest is currently outreaching for qualified individuals for a Term – Presale Forester, GS-0460-7/9 position with duty stations in Thorne Bay, Alaska. If you meet the qualifications and are interested in being considered for this term position, please complete the outreach response form located below and return it to nwreynolds@fs.fed.us by close of business January 26, 2016. For additional information on this position, please contact:
Nicholas Reynolds
Timber Management Assistant
USDA Forest Service
Tongass National Forest
Thorne Bay Ranger District
907-828-3236 (office)
907-828-3309 (fax)
nwreynolds@fs.fed.us
Position Title: Presale Forester, GS-0460-7/9
Tour of Duty: Full time 40 hrs. per week. This temporary position is for 13 month and may be extended up to four years.
Duty Station: Thorne Bay, AK (Temporary Government Housing may be available).
GS-460-7, Description of Primary Position Duties
Under guidance from a higher graded employee, performs some or all of the following duties:
Evaluates and analyzes the project sale folder information and conducts a preliminary field reconnaissance. Assembles and reviews the timber sales contract package. Determines, plans and arranges for the resources needed to complete the layout of sales. Identifies and verifies the land status and environmental constraints affecting layout of the proposed project on the ground. Reviews, compiles and analyzes field data.
Completes environmental assessment reports and environmental impact statements.
Prepares and ensures quality of documentation such as detailed maps, timber sale appraisals, timber sales write up, advertisements, prospectus, and sample contracts for the sale. Arranges for interviews of prospective purchasers and explains contract clauses, road development, and cutting practices.
Monitors and oversees cruising and marking of timber and prepares general logging plans and verifies logging system settings. Utilizing appropriate document, determines sale boundaries, proper location of logging roads, acceptable marking and cutting methods, stumpage prices, and the requirements for brush disposal, erosion control, and stand improvement. Prepares a summary of all records acceptable for final appraisal, sale contract preparation, and subsequent timber management activities.
Work assignments and extended travel to other Tongass units will be required to complete forest timber sale priorities in timber sale preparation during the field season from April through October. Travel may consist of two 8-day trips per month to remote field camps with subsistence provided or to temporary duty stations with per diem.
GS-460-9 Description of Primary Position Duties:
Timber Sales Preparation Evaluates and analyzes the project sale folder information and conducts a preliminary field reconnaissance. Assembles and reviews the timber sales contract package. Determines, plans and arranges for the resources needed to complete the layout of sales. Identifies and verifies the land status and environmental constraints affecting layout of the proposed project on the ground. Reviews, compiles and analyzes field data. Completes environmental assessment reports and environmental impact statements. Prepares and ensures quality of documentation such as detailed maps, timber sale appraisals, timber sales write up, advertisements, prospectus, and sample contracts for the sale. Arranges for interviews of prospective purchasers and explains contract clauses, road development, and cutting practices. Monitors and oversees cruising and marking of timber and prepares general logging plans and verifies logging system settings. Utilizing appropriate document, determines sale boundaries, proper location of logging roads, acceptable marking and cutting methods, stumpage prices, and the requirements for brush disposal, erosion control, and stand improvement. Prepares a summary of all records acceptable for final appraisal, sale contract preparation, and subsequent timber management activities.
Work assignments and extended travel to other Tongass units will be required to complete forest timber sale priorities in timber sale preparation during the field season from April through October. Travel may consist of two 8-day trips per month to remote field camps with subsistence provided or to temporary duty stations with per diem.
Tongass National Forest Information:
The Tongass National Forest was established in 1902 and covers nearly 17 million acres in Southeast Alaska. It is the nation’s largest National Forest. The Tongass stretches nearly 500 miles from its boundary with the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the north, to the Canadian boundary in the south. It is a forest of islands including the Alexander Archipelago, and the mainland. The unique forest landscapes of the Tongass vary dramatically in topographic relief and include a mosaic of forest, peat lands, steep rocky areas, glaciated mountains and other non-forested lands.
Alaska’s magnificent scenery, vast forests, and abundant natural resources match the size of the forest. The Tongass makes up ninety percent of Southeast Alaska and is a land of glaciers, mountains, waterways and thousands of islands separated by straits and channels. The islands and mainland create 11,000 miles of shoreline where regal mountains rise from the tidewater to overlook a mostly undeveloped and isolated landscape. The geography of the Alexander Archipelago presents a transportation challenge and most of the Tongass is isolated from the continental road system. You will find yourself boating or flying in a floatplane to most field locations. Visitors arrive by cruise ship, ferry or commercial airplane.
The Tongass’s complicated, and sometimes sensitive, mission of multiple-use resource management often puts it in the national spotlight. Ten District Rangers, seven Forest Staff Officers and the Forest Supervisor and Deputy are members of a dynamic professional leadership team that is dedicated to the ecological sustainability of our public lands in Southeast Alaska. The Supervisors Office is located in Ketchikan with satellite SO’s in Petersburg and Sitka.
TNF Public Website: http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/tongass/
LIVING AND WORKING ON THE CRAIG AND THORNE BAY RANGER DISTRICTS
DUTY STATION
The duty station for this position is Thorne Bay office. All staff groups for Craig and Thorne Bay Ranger Districts are zoned, serving all of Prince of Wales Island. The Timber Planning and Timber Operations Staff Officers are supervised from and stationed in Thorne Bay, but subordinate employees are currently stationed in both the communities of Thorne Bay and Craig. Employees are required to travel to and from each office as needed to meet assigned tasks, and work in an interdisciplinary setting. During field season, good communication and coordination with colleagues stationed in neighboring offices is required for optimum efficiency when traveling to the field.
THE WORK
The Craig and Thorne Bay Ranger Districts are challenging and interesting places to work. They are busy places with many customers coming to the office or contacting us by phone. Since most fieldwork is done during the long light-filled days of summer, there is a strenuous pace of work and production during the field season. However, employees are busy throughout the year with a variety of work. National resource management politics are felt at the district level and the issues surrounding them are part of the daily workload.
The Districts and the Tongass National Forest are currently moving toward an organization for the future as they transition to changing needs over time. A smaller workforce and greater use of contractors and partners is one option that is being implemented, as well as recent efforts to zone all programs on the Island. Nearly all Prince of Wales program areas and employees are zoned and employees work cooperatively on both Districts. In this organization, Craig RD has about 25 permanent employees, 5-10 temporary employees and 3-6 YCC enrollees and volunteers. Thorne Bay has approximately 35 permanent employees and 10-20 temporary employees. The zone encompasses a little over two million acres, which support a wide and interesting variety of programs on the districts including fish and wildlife, subsistence, watershed restoration, mining, state and native land selections, tribal government relations, recreation, special forest products, silviculture and timber activities.
The recreation program is growing as more tourists discover Prince of Wales Island. Northern Prince of Wales Island contains world-class caves and karst landscape, which attract attention from the international caving community, archeologists, and paleontologists. The Prince of Wales districts are an international leader in karst management through an ecosystem approach. Forest management and silviculture are large and active program areas, with young growth management in past harvest areas, growing in effort, interest and opportunities. The districts have a very large fish and wildlife program, focused on implementation, monitoring and restoration at the landscape scale. Much coordination with timber and road construction occurs through the wildlife and fisheries programs as well as basin surveys and fish pass monitoring, and both the Timber and Fish and Wildlife programs receive extra attention from numerous stakeholders, some of which are working with the districts under formal partnerships. The lands program in Alaska is unique, due to state selection of land to form new communities, as well as remaining entitlements from the public land-base established in previous and various acts of Congress.
ADMINISTATIVE SITES
The Craig District administrative site is about 15 years old and is located in downtown Craig, on the west side of the island. The compound consists of an office building, a warehouse, a 10-person bunkhouse, and an 8-plex government housing unit consisting of one and two bedroom apartments. Less than 50 percent of the district employees live in government housing. Employees currently pay about $550 per month + utilities to rent a 2-bedroom apartment in the 8-plex. Housing opportunities in the community are limited and can be expensive. Daycare is not available on the Forest Service compound, but may be found in the community.
The Thorne Bay District administrative site, completed in 1985, is located in Thorne Bay, on the eastern side of the island. The compound consists of an office building, a warehouse, a 28-person bunkhouse, and 20 government housing units consisting of one and two bedroom apartments, and three bedroom duplexes. Approximately 50 percent of the district employees live in government housing. Employees currently pay about $780 per month to rent a 3-bedroom duplex. Housing opportunities in the community are limited and range widely in price. Agency sponsored daycare is typically available on the Thorne Bay District compound. Please check with us if you are interested in day care. The Forest Service compound on the unit is like a small community and employees are neighbors as well as coworkers.
The Districts operate small out-camps for employees as needed during the field season, but increasingly, work is based from the extensive road system on the island, reducing the need for long-term camp use. Most employees travel daily to the field in Forest Service trucks as well as by boat, helicopter and float plane, but occasional overnight trips are required. Given our rugged landscape and unique transportation requirements – Safety comes first and foremost!
THE ISLAND(S)
Prince of Wales Island (POW) is the largest island in southeast Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, at 2,231 square miles or 1,427,659 acres. It measures approximately 130 miles from north to south and is about 40 miles wide at its widest and three miles at its narrowest. There are thousands of miles of coastline. To the west of Prince of Wales Island, but also part of the POW Zone, are hundreds of smaller islands. These include Kosciusko, Marble, Tuxekan, Heceta, the Maurelles, Baker, Lulu, Dall, Suemez, Sukkwan, Long, and the Barrier Islands to mention but a few. Southeast Alaska is certainly a land of islands and the POW zone encompasses islands of every description.
LOCAL ENVIRONMENT
Prince of Wales Island is located in southeastern Alaska, 40 air miles west of Ketchikan. Southeastern Alaska is not the Alaska of igloos and snowshoes. Because of the influence of the Japanese Current, the climate is moderate, with summertime temperatures in the 60’s and most winter days at 35 to 40 degrees, rarely reaching into the teens. Snowfall is light, but it is not dry country. The lush ferns and foliage carpeting the forest floor are the result of 100 or more inches of rainfall annually. The most pleasant months generally fall between May and September. The land is heavily forested with Sitka spruce, hemlock and cedar. The emerald green slopes of the island drop off abruptly into the waters of the Inside Passage and provide some of the most breathtaking scenery in all of the United States. Day length changes with the seasons from 18 hours of daylight in the summer to 18 hours of darkness in the winter.
Sitka black-tailed deer, black bear, wolves, and bald eagles make this coastal rain forest their home. The abundance of silver, pink, chum and sockeye salmon makes the island streams a fisherman’s paradise. Spring and fall steelhead runs add to the excitement. Crab, clams, halibut, and other seafood are available in the waters surrounding the island. Waters are also populated by whales, seals, sea lions and porpoise.
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
The permanent population of POW is approximately 5,000. The economic emphases in the area include: timber related occupations, commercial fishing, tourism and lodges, federal highways development, government, health care and construction. Seasonal workers and visitors add to the population in summer months. Nine year-round communities (Whale Pass, Coffman Cove, Naukati, Thorne Bay, Kasaan, Klawock, Craig, Hydaburg, and Hollis) on POW are connected by the road system. Port Protection and Point Baker, located on the northwest corner of POW are not connected to the road system. Edna Bay is located off the road system on the southwestern tip of Kosciusko Island. A scattering of float houses, remote cabins and other small developments on private lands account for a small fraction of the population.
Four of the island’s communities, Klawock, Craig, Kasaan, and Hydaburg, are the sites of traditional Alaskan Native (Haida in the south and Tlingit in the north) villages. A tribal government exists in each of these communities and represents tribal members. The Districts work productively with these Native Villages and their leaders, as part of our heritage program.
Craig, the largest community on POW with a population of about 1,200 is located on the island’s west coast at the western terminus of the island’s first paved highway. Administrative offices and housing for the Craig Ranger District are located in Craig. The town, historically a local center of the commercial fishing industry, sports a nearly-full service grocery store, four restaurants, two banks, a public library, several motels and lodges, bed and breakfasts, various other stores (hardware, sporting goods, etc.), and seven churches covering a variety of denominations. Craig has a new high school complex, a well-established middle and elementary school, and a medical clinic. There is no movie theater, but there is an independent cable company and a video rental store. Craig has a community fitness center with a 25-meter indoor pool, a weight room, treadmills, and a sauna. Craig is located at a point and is essentially surrounded by salt water, which makes for some spectacular scenery. Because there are numerous outer islands off the coast of Prince of Wales, Craig is somewhat protected from the “big” water of the open Pacific, and there are ample boating opportunities.
Seven miles north of Craig is the community of Klawock, a traditional Tlingit community of about 800 people, which also supports a K-12 school adjacent to the city totem park, a full-service grocery store, and a health clinic, an auto shop or two, and a couple resort/lodges.
Thorne Bay, on POW’s east coast, is about 40 miles northeast of Craig by paved road. It has a population of about 600. Over the past 50 years the town has grown from a Forest Service administrative site and logging camp to a small community. Thorne Bay, like many southeast Alaskan communities, is in the process of adjusting to a changing and diversifying economy. Thorne Bay is not a full-service community but does have a contract post office located inside a small convenience store, a new well-stocked grocery store, a sporting goods business, a liquor store, a gasoline station, several bed and breakfast establishments, several churches and two resorts. The Thorne Bay School serves K-12 and has excellent recreational facilities. The community supports the headquarters for the Southeast Islands School District.
Information about Prince of Wales Island, its communities and the surrounding environment can be found by visiting, www.fs.fed.us/r10/tongass/districts/pow/index.shtml, www.princeofwalescoc.org, or http://thornebay-ak.gov/ .
FAMILY NEED AND SPOUSAL PLACEMENT
Limited employment opportunities exist for spouses both within and outside the Forest Service. In private industry, the few opportunities that exist are primarily in the construction, the logging trades, fishing related industries, the local school, city government, healthcare, home businesses and in various small businesses within the community.
It is our experience that employees are usually happier in this setting if he/she and family members enjoy activities popular in a remote Southeast Alaska location. Rain and darkness in the spring, fall and winter provide excellent opportunities for craft work, carving, reading, painting, and other hobbies. Your life will be in a close-knit community where your life out of the office feels, and is, slower than life in the “lower 48.” Employees have been happiest on Prince of Wales when their family was happy.
LOCALITY PAY
The cost of living in Alaska is high. Locality pay is now available for Alaska. The current pay table is available on the OPM website at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/
OPPORTUNITIES
Transportation to and from Prince of Wales is by floatplane or ferry. There is daily ferry service from Hollis to Ketchikan and back. The ferry terminal is 34 miles by paved road from Craig, and 63 miles from Thorne Bay. There is also floatplane and runway based small plane services with daily flights to Ketchikan or for charter.
POW Island is the most heavily roaded area in Southeast Alaska. Over 1,000 miles of publicly accessible roads open up two-thirds of the island to travelers and local residents for recreation, subsistence and other uses. With the majority of roads being a result of logging activity, many are shot-rock or gravel construction. However paved roads now connect the larger communities of Craig, Klawock, Thorne Bay, Coffman Cove, and Hydaburg.
The outdoor recreational opportunities include fishing, boating, canoeing, wildlife photography, big game and waterfowl hunting, hiking, camping, sightseeing, beachcombing, road based trips, cross-country skiing and much more. Many residents spend the majority of their leisure time on or near the water.
The changing economy of POW and the local communities and the diverse cultural and ethnic mix of the population provide a challenging and exciting range of possibilities for resource managers on and around the National Forest. Forest Service staff and specialists are working extensively with city, tribal, agency, and other partners. It’s an exciting time in Southeast Alaska!
OUTREACH NOTICE FORM
Tongass National Forest
Presale Forester, GS-460-7/9
Thorne Bay, Alaska
Position Title/Series/Grade:
Term, Presale Forester, GS-0460-7/9
Duty Station:
Thorne Bay, Alaska.
The Tongass National Forest is seeking qualified individuals for a Term – Presale Forester, GS-0460-7/9 position. Please complete and submit the outreach notice form located below and an updated and current resume to nwreynolds@fs.fed.us by January 26, 2016.
NAME: _____________________________________________________________________
EMAIL ADDRESS:
MAILING ADDRESS: ________________________________________________________
TELEPHONE NUMBER: ________________________________________________________
AGENCY EMPLOYED WITH (if a federal employee): ___USFS ___BLM __OTHER ________
CURRENT APPOINTMENT: ____PERMANENT _____ TEMPORARY _____TERM ____ OTHER
CURRENT REGION/FOREST/DISTRICT:_____________________ _____________________
CURRENT SERIES AND GRADE:__________________________________________________
CURRENT POSITION TITLE:_____________________________________________________
EDUCATION:_________________________________________________________________
IF NOT A CURRENT PERMANENT (CAREER OR CAREER CONDITIONAL) EMPLOYEE, ARE YOU ELIGIBLE TO BE HIRED UNDER ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SPECIAL AUTHORITIES:
______ PERSON WITH DISABILITIES
______ VETERANS READJUSTMENT
______ DISABLED VETERANS W/30% COMPENSABLE DISABILITY
______ VETERANS EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ACT OF 1998
______ FORMER PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER
______ PATHWAYS PROGRAM (FOR CURRENT STUDENTS AND RECENT GRADUATES)
______ OTHER ____________________________________________________________
How did you learn of this vacancy? ______________________________________________
Thank you for your interest in our Vacancy
USDA Forest Service is an Equal Employment Opportunity Provider & Employer