Getting troops hands-on experience at home

CARBONDALE – Hard at work cutting trees near Carbondale, you would think the thick bushy brown beard stuck on Ross Schumaker’s face might be a bad idea.

“I collect a lot of food, [and] wood chips; I get a lot of things in my beard,” Schumaker said.

It might attract unwanted items, but he has good reason for sporting some substantial facial hair: he just got out of the Marines.

“I got out in November,” Schumaker said.

He is working alongside other veterans from the Army and Navy to help reduce wildfire danger along a 27-acre area near Carbondale that Ody Anderson with the Bureau of Land Management says is known for fires.

“It’s an area known for high fire activity, a couple of fires over 1,000 acres within two air miles of here,” Anderson said.

The group is based in Durango and taking part in a program that combines the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with a Denver group called Veterans Green Jobs.

Director of Veterans Development Garett Reppenhagen says it helps veterans transition into society by learning skills they can use to find jobs.

“Really get some hands-on training in the real environment,” Reppenhagen said.

In this case, the skills make these veterans wildland firefighters while moving them from the role of serving their country, to serving their communities.

“Helping these local communities defend themselves from forest fires if they happen,” Reppenhagen said.

It’s been a good match for Schumaker.

“We are a real tight knight group out here,” Schumaker said.

He is not only learning new skills, but gaining a flair for facial hair, two talents he hopes will serve him well as a civilian.

“November 1st in Durango, there is a beard contest that I plan on winning,” Schumaker said.

Amanda Herron is a Colorado Native born in Denver and raised in southwest Colorado. After graduating from Nucla High School in 2005 she attended Fort Lewis College where she received a BA in Tourism and Resort Management in 2009. In her free time she enjoys making picture collages, playing at the river, reading, playing and watching basketball and anything to do with the Denver Broncos! Prior to becoming the scheduler/dispatcher she served on the first Southwest Conservation Corps
crew as a Weatherization Technician.

About us: The Office of Surface Mining (OSM), Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) and AmeriCorps have partnered together to support State Regulatory Agencies (SRA) to carry out the requirements of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.  SCC will place 20 OSM AmeriCorps Regulatory Trainees with participating State Regulatory Agencies.  The Trainees will be engaged in national service activities including field work, environmental sampling, site monitoring, data analysis, program and applications development, and other appropriate regulatory service.

We currently have 20 AmeriCorps Regulatory Trainee positions available with State Regulatory Agencies (SRA), state locations still to be determined.  Possible SRA sites include: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, MT, ND, NM, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA ,WV and WY.  Trainee positions will start on a rolling basis between August 1 and September 20, 2010.

About the Program / Regulatory Trainee Benefits:

• One-year (12 month), full term of service
• Full AmeriCorps benefits including Segal AmeriCorps Education Award of $5,350 (pre-tax)
• Annual living allowance of $15,500
• Mentored by and work directly with voluntary State Regulatory Agency field personnel
• Professional development in the form of teamwork, communication, responsibility, understanding of SRA operations and other essential life skills
• Bi-Annual Training with the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team or the Western Hardrock Watershed Team, as appropriate

Eligibility to be an AmeriCorps Regulatory Trainee:

• Must be at least 18 years of age
• Must have completed no more than one year of prior AmeriCorps Service (No prior AmeriCorps experience is ok)
• Must possess or be working towards a B.A. /B.S. degree in a physical or natural sciences field (Biology, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Ecology, Engineering, Environmental Science/Studies, Forestry, Geology, Mechanical Engineering, Mining, Planning – Natural Resource emphasis, Political Science or related field)
• Strong oral and written communications skills
• Proficiency in Word, Excel, GPS usage, database management, and mapping are preferred
• Demonstrated ability to work cooperatively as part of a larger team
• Ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure
• Possession of a current valid driver’s license is required at the time of hire.  This work may require the use of manual and automatic four-wheel-drive vehicles during all times of the year, driving and field work in varying weather conditions, and solitary travel to somewhat remote areas
• Considerable physical activity may be required at some sites
• Some of the positions may require individuals capable of negotiating, and handling stressful situations in a diplomatic and non-adversarial manner
  • Regulatory Trainees will be required to submit quarterly reports and a final report during their year of service

Applications for OSM/AmeriCorps Regulatory Trainees are being accepted until filled, so apply today!  Please submit the OSM AC Regulatory Trainee Application form , your résumé, a cover letter (2pp max stating why you want this position), a writing sample (no more than 3 pages and of recent origin) and contact information for three (3) references (on application form). Electronic copies only will be accepted and incomplete applications will not be considered.

Submit complete Application packages to: trainee@sccorps.org

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact the OSM/AmeriCorps Regulatory Trainee Coordinator, Chris Lopez at 970-403-0140, or at trainee@sccorps.org

OSM AC Regulatory Trainee Application

View from the Little Dry Creek Trail (neither little nor dry)

There’s really only one way to describe life on a technical crew- it’s an adventure every day. One of my favorite instances of this happened on our hike out of the Gila National Forest  in New Mexico. We had about a 5 or 6 mile hike to the trailhead and our rig. The map showed the trail running along “Little Dry Creek” and crossing it a couple times. As it turned out, Little Dry Creek was neither little, nor dry. To make matters worse (and, ultimately, funnier), the map wasn’t on a large enough scale to show that the trail actually crossed Little Dry Creek twenty two times. We found ourselves carrying 50 or 60 pound packs and tools across what seemed to us to be a raging river, complete with whitewater rapids and waterfalls. The water was usually at least mid-calf deep and up to our mid-thighs a couple times. There was no chance of keeping your lower body dry and we all spent a lot of energy making sure we didn’t fall in and get our packs soaked. It was fitting that we would all end up waterlogged at the very end of the hitch. We spent the preceding week

Working through the haze

 living in clouds and dealing with daily afternoon storms that soaked all of our things. It was as if Gila wouldn’t let us get out of the wilderness anything less than soaked. It was a fairly miserable experience, but absolutely hilarious at the same time. Each time the trail led back across the stream, you just had to laugh. We reached the trailhead less than an hour after the last creek crossing and the creek certainly made for a memorable and entertaining hike to end the hitch.

It’s not your usual kids’ summer camp.

It’s children building and designing trails, restoring and improving wildlife habitats, improving area parks and learning skills from team building to outdoor living.

It’s also youngsters fishing on Grand Mesa, hiking over Colorado National Monument, doing projects at The Art Center and visiting area museums and dinosaur digs. And thrown in is an overnight camping trip to the Dominguez Escalante National Conservation Area.

It’s earning a $500 college scholarship from Americorps by completing 100 hours of volunteer service, and it costs nothing for the participants.

This is Learn and Serve America Summer of Service 2010, a program designed to encourage service-learning and inspire an appreciation of nature in children ages 11–14.

Funded by a $205,000 grant to the Southwest Conservation Corps, the program is designed to expand Youth Corps across the intermountain West. The three-year grant funds Learn and Serve experiences this year in four states for 410 kids. The program is funded for the next two summers.

Thirty Western Slope kids enrolled in the program for this summer’s two sessions through Mesa County Partner’s Western Colorado Conservation Corps.

The corps’ Learn and Serve America’s program involves a commitment from each child of eight hours a day, four days a week for four weeks. The program emphasizes three main goals — volunteerism, education and recreation — and brings the experience alive with a hands-on approach.

VOLUNTEERISM

On a recent Thursday, 20 middle school children donned junior-sized yellow hard hats in a parking area on Grand Mesa, grabbed their tools and trudged down a gravel path past Jumbo Lake.

Braced with bug spray against the onslaught of forest mosquitoes, one crew of 10 and two adult supervisors headed out to spread gravel on a path they were making wheelchair accessible. The other crew of 10 and two adult crew leaders took a different path to a rock bridge they were constructing across a small stream bed surrounded by wildflowers and aspen trees. Three went in search of large rocks to brace the bridge. Others fetched gravel, tamped it down and raked it even.

EDUCATION

Every so often, the two adult leaders paused the youngsters’ work for a few minutes of lessons.

A rock bar is designed to work better than a shovel when digging rocks, said education mentor Comfrey Jacobs as he held a shovel with a handle that had been broken in two by an ambitious worker.

The lessons continued: The rock bridge will let the water through when it rains because of the material with which it was being built. Can you see where the gravel surface is uneven, and how do we fix that?

RECREATION

In less than two hours, the kids finished the rock bridge and headed for Sunset Lake to rejoin the members of the other crew for lunch.

They spent the rest of the afternoon fishing and splashing in the frigid Grand Mesa water.

THE PARTICIPANTS

The children are very aware of the Americorps higher education awards they are earning as part of the program. Some dream big. Others are more practical.

Wrapped in a towel, 12-year-old Luken Blair sat on a warm rock in wet swim trunks after a chilly dip in Sunset Lake.

“I want to go to Notre Dame and hopefully play professional football,” Luken said through chattering teeth. A few moments later, he waded back into the water to rescue a floating baseball cap for a fellow crew member.

Morgyn Staats, 14, got up at 5:20 a.m. each day to ride with her mother from their Delta home to Grand Junction, where she met her Learn and Serve crew at 8 a.m.

“I usually don’t go outside. I’m an indoor person, but this is fun,” Morgyn said.

When she gets to college, Morgyn plans to major in architecture. “There’s a $500 scholarship, and at the college I go to I can get books and stuff,” she said. “I really want to go to the University of Arizona.”

Caleb Babcock, 11, said the program is a lot of hard work but he likes it.

The Independence Academy sixth-grader could have done without the insects, though. “The bugs — that’s the only bad part of being up here,” he said of Grand Mesa.

Even at his young age, Caleb has plans for his Americorps award. He wants to go to Mesa State College and become a video game designer.

Five days after their Grand Mesa trip, Caleb and his fellow crew members hiked to the summit of Opal Hill in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. The 10 youngsters surveyed the area and familiarized themselves with the terrain.

Once they returned to the corps’ office, they would design a snowshoe trail using their new knowledge.

But that would have to wait a few hours, until after they played a game of tag, created sun paintings on bandanas and chased grasshoppers through the brush.

Online:

Western Colorado Conservation Corps: http://www.wcccpartners.org.

Southwest Conservation Corps: http://www.sccorps.org.

Youth conservation corps across the country are turning down record numbers of applicants despite a surge in stimulus money that will let them put thousands of more kids to work in national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and other public lands this summer.

Youth conservation corps leaders say that with unemployment rates for teenagers ranging from 24 percent for whites to 38 percent for African Americans — they are being flooded with applications. High unemployment among college graduates and a renewed sense of voluntarism is also adding record numbers of applicants.

“Last year we turned down 2,000 and hired 600,” said Harry Buell, president and CEO of Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) in Durango, CO. “This year we are running even higher. There are about six applicants for every position. We are getting many more people coming to us to get one more thing on their resume and some money in their pocket.”

The SCC has so far received about $4.5 million in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or nearly enough to double its annual budget of $5 million. Its biggest source of funds has been the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has awarded it grants totaling $1.3 million to complete trail maintenance projects within the San Juan National Forest. That grant will employ 130 crew members for 18 to 24 months. In all, the SCC received six USDA grants in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009, worth $2.6 million, compared to none from the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI). From Sept. 30, 2009 to March 31, 2010, however, it received six DOI grants worth $275,000 from DOI.

Directors for a few of the larger youth conservation corps told OIA WebNews they expect stimulus funding to peak this summer as more DOI stimulus money finally reaches their coffers.

The DOI awarded 10 grants or contracts worth $2.6 million to the California Conservation Corps in the six months ended March 31, compared to 10 grants valued at $2.2 million for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2009. The Student Conservation Association (SCA), the nation’s only national youth conservation corps, expects to receive as much as $7 million in stimulus money this year, up from about $2 million last year, said Richard Wizansky, associate vice president of corporate relations. That will bring employment to 4,200 kids this year, up 250 from last year, when hiring grew by 300 thanks largely to ARRA, said Kevin Hamilton, vice president for marketing and communications with SCA.

SCA expects to grow another 15 percent in 2011 even as ARRA funding tapers off. That is because while individual donations have declined during the recession, corporations are donating more to programs aimed at engaging underrepresented urban youth in conservation and the outdoors. Sponsors include American Eagle Outfitters, REI and L.L. Bean. Last week, Deuter announced it had also made a cash donation to SCA. The company has donated or sold gear at deep discounts to SCA for years.

Finally, SCA is hopeful Congress will pass the Public Land Service Corps Act this year. OIA is supporting the bill, which would make it easier for the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and the Interior to establish and fund conservation programs that would prioritize the hiring of unemployed youth between ages 18-24, giving priority to those coming from underserved communities.

However, I’ve completely surprised myself- I really love the long hours and hard work of a day at SCC.  My crew has been working in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, making and maintaining the Continental Divide Trail, a hiking trail that extends fro Mexico to Canada.  Most of what I spend my day doing is digging up rocks and weeds, clearing brush, removing bushes and related tasks to clear out a passable trail.  It gives me time to think, white at the same time it feels really good to work hard and feel myself getting stronger from the work.  At SCC, the girls are expected to be-and are- as hard working and strong as the boys, though the crews are really supportive and understanding of each other.  It feels good to be making things with my hands and to be taken seriously for my strength- two things I wish more girls had the chance to experience, and makes me glad I joined SCC!

-Phoebe Neel, Corpsmember on Crew 120 out of SCC-Sonoran Desert

It is the embodiment of a second life. A life that one only understands if one has lived it. A life where cool mountain air wakes you instead of coffee. A life where complete strangers become your closest friends and sometimes family. A life where the days are long and the work is hard but the pay off is so much more then you would ever dream. Tail life is more then a job. It is a dream of how life could be or maybe how it was intended. Creating, fixing and beautifying trails to preserve the rest of the earth. Pushing your body to its limits only to find out that those are not its limits. Doing super happy fun time and hating it and then loving and missing it on your days off. You become a different person out in the field. Parts of you disappear. The scared and anxious you who was afraid of all things is now a strong and courageous person who only fears personal disappointment.

You can’t know or have an idea of trail life. You live it and feel it. Its something you experience and is different for everyone.

I love tail life. I miss trail life. I want to be out of the office.