Watershed Technician

Watershed Technician

The National Forest Foundation (NFF) is pleased to offer a regular, 2-Year term position that will support the implementation of watershed restoration and health projects across the National Forest System, with an initial focus on the Colorado River Basin.

As the official national partner to the US Forest Service (USFS), the National Forest Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1990. Today, the NFF advances forest resiliency, healthy watersheds and wildlife habitat, and recreation for all by working with communities and organizations across the country. The Foundation has grown significantly in the last few years in programmatic impact, revenue and support, and organizational capacity.

NFF leads with impact, deploying roughly 90% of its expenses towards projects and programs across the country's 193-million-acre National Forest System. NFF is forward-thinking and innovative, with ambitious strategies and goals to advance and prepare forests for a new economy.

The Watershed Technician reports to the Watershed Program Specialist and is a member of NFF's Enterprise Programs team. The incumbent is responsible for supporting work across three core areas: (1) watershed program metrics and data management; (2) back-end administrative support for NFF's Western Slope In-Lieu Fee (ILF) Program; and (3) technical support and project coordination for NFF Field Teams implementing watershed restoration projects across the Colorado River Basin and other priority watersheds.

The Watershed Technician will:

• Assist with maintaining program databases that track key watershed restoration project information such as locations, treatments, and outcomes, across the NFF watershed portfolio, supporting data integrity and quality control.
• Provide input and analysis to support the ongoing refinement of NFF's watershed impact metrics framework, in coordination with the Watershed Program Specialist and Enterprise Programs staff.
• Compile and help synthesize monitoring data from field teams and partners to support program reporting, grant deliverables, and internal learning products.
• Assist with preparing data summaries and visualizations that communicate program progress and outcomes to internal and external audiences.
• Help maintain spatial data layers in ArcGIS Online or similar platforms to support the tracking and assessment of watershed projects across the National Forest System.

• Maintain the Regulatory In-lieu Fee and Bank Information Tracking System (RIBITS) ledger for NFF's Western Slope In-Lieu Fee Program, including credit transactions, project tracking entries, and required updates.
• Support financial tracking and accounting for the ILF Program, including reconciliation of fee receipts, project expenditures, and credit balances, in coordination with the Watershed Program Specialist and NFF Finance team.
• Prepare draft annual reports, monitoring summaries, and other regulatory documentation required under the ILF Program Instrument and associated permit conditions, for review and finalization by the Watershed Program Specialist.
• Assist in the preparation of project-related documents such as contracts, scopes of work, and task orders, for consultants and contractors engaged on ILF projects, under the direction of the Watershed Program Specialist.
• Maintain organized program records, correspondence files, and project tracking systems to ensure accurate and auditable program administration.
• Track policy developments related to Section 404/401 wetland and waters permitting, mitigation banking, and ILF programs, and flag relevant updates for the Watershed Program Specialist.

NFF Field Teams hold primary ownership and day-to-day management of watershed restoration projects in their geographies. Consistent with NFF's Enterprise Programs framing, the Watershed Technician complements and strengthens field team expertise, adding subject matter capacity that helps field staff, advance technically rigorous watershed restoration work. Where NFF does not have a field team member in a given geography, the Technician may provide time-limited bridge capacity for direct project coordination, with the intent of transitioning…