A freeze on seasonal hiring at the Forest Service is making for a busy summer at the Great Basin Institute, a nonprofit group tasked with helping the agency manage forests in the West.
The GBI, based in Reno, Nevada, is advertising for jobs managing timber sales and other summer activities that would normally be filled by direct Forest Service hires.
The hiring spree illustrates the chronic need for forest technicians and others whose work on national forests picks up in summer — a requirement that’s only grown with the Forest Service’s decision last year to suspend hiring for seasonal jobs not directly tied to wildfire. Organizations like the GBI that routinely work on national forests say they can’t bring on enough people to meet all the demand.
CEO Peter Woodruff told POLITICO’s E&E News that some of his group’s hiring would have occurred anyway through long-term partnerships already in place with the Forest Service. And while the hiring freeze predated the Trump administration, deep steep staff reductions directed by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency have added to the strain, he said.
