Invasive Plant Management Member -Southeast Invasive Plant Management Team - Kings Mountain Nat

Summary

American Conservation Experience, a nonprofit Conservation Corps, in partnership with Kings Mountain National Military Park is seeking one Invasive Plant Management Member to contribute to IPMT projects alongside NPS Staff.

For more information about ACE, please visit our website.

March 2026

16 weeks after start date

* a 16-week minimum commitment is required*

Kings Mountain National Military Park is in the heart of the Carolina Piedmont region. The park's 3,945 acres are largely dominated by mesic mixed hardwood forest and basic mesic forest. These types of forest receive or contain moderate amounts of moisture and have well-developed understory and shrub layers. They occur in moist portions of upland habitat, steep north-facing slopes, lower slopes, along ravines, high sections of outer floodplains and stream bottoms.

As a result, plant life is abundant in the park. So far, 1,084 species of vascular plants have been identified in the park. Kings Mountain National Military Park offers plenty to do for both the historian and the nature enthusiast alike.

One of the many ways the NPS is addressing invasive species is through the Invasive Plant Management Program. The program assists parks in preventing introductions of new species, reducing existing infestations, and restoring native plant communities and ecosystem functions.

In 2000, the NPS created the Invasive Plant Management Program that now supports 18 teams contributing in over 300 park units. Invasive Plant Management Teams (IPMT) are led by individuals with specialized knowledge and experience in invasive plant management.

Each field-based team operates over a wide geographic area and serves over a dozen parks to increase operational efficiency. The IPMT uses multiple strategies to create a work plan specific to the needs of the individual partner park. All treatment, control and restoration methods are reviewed and approved by the partner park and the NPS Integrated Pest Management Program.

The members will control non-native plants using both manual and chemical methods (75%), perform distribution mapping of non-native plants using GPS (10%), and assist with additional resource management field, GIS, and data management projects (15%).

This position is meant to facilitate professional development and promote exposure to land management and networking with professionals at various parks. This could include gaining experience in different conservation fields and shadowing different work groups. Interns will potentially receive training on many resource management aspects: herbicide safety and handling, truck and trailer driving, hand tool use, GIS skills, and see a variety of beautiful parks located in the Southeast.

The crew will be manually removing exotic invasive vegetation in both urban and rural NPS sites.

Schedule may vary, applicants are asked to be flexible.

Living Allowance: The ACE Member is expected to contribute ~40 hours/week and will receive a living allowance of $650/week to offset the costs of food and incidental expenses, dispersed bi-weekly.

Public Land Corps Hiring Authority: Members serving under this agreement may be eligible for a federal hiring authority upon completion of their term of service and 640 hours of service. If the duration of a PLC-eligible term is not long enough for Members to accrue 640 hours of service (~16 weeks), the total hours served at the completion of the term may be eligible to be combined with hours accrued from another PLC-eligible term to meet the 640 hours requirement.

PLC projects also include specific eligibility requirements such as age (You must be between the ages of 16 and 30. Some agencies also interpret these guidelines to include veterans up to age 35) and citizenship. Please contact ACE staff with questions about eligibility or view general eligibility information on our website.

Housing: Park Service housing may be available depending on applicants start date, applicant is expected to pay rent.

Provided Training/Orientation: ACE members will receive position specific training and an orientation…