Please continue to share your RIF experiences in the comments on the previous post.
Today I’d like to start a discussion on “what makes centralization of resources or shared services work, in your experience?” This is also an opportunity to give a shout-out to services or people that work well as shared or centralized.
Shared Positions Across Districts and Forests
My very first job in the Forest Service was in 1979 as an Area Geneticist for the then-Forests Fremont, Winema, Ochoco and Deschutes in Region 6. The Forests shared an Area Ecologist, an Area Reforestation Specialist, and an Area Geneticist, and for awhile an Area Wood Utilization Specialist (yes, folks have been trying to do this for almost 50 years).
We were reviewed by the four Forest Supes at an annual meeting. There was much fighting over the time of Bill Hopkins (the ecologist) and little interest in my work (I think one of the Supes fell asleep during my presentation). Nevertheless, the accountability was pretty much in our face, at least annually. I think later there were area fire ecologists and Bill had an assistant.
At least one of the Forests in R-2, when I was Planning Director had cross-District shared NEPA teams. This seemed to work pretty well also, as far as I could tell.
I was thinking about the sharing concept because one forest I know recently hired a new position, a full-time GS-12 Tribal Coordinator, and I wondered whether that position might also be shared. Maybe sharing across forests is more common in some places than others. Region 6 still has Area Geneticists, and probably other area folks as well. These sharing arrangements generally seem to work, perhaps because if they don’t, the Forests have direct authority to fix things.
Centralized Services Above the Area Level
Well, we all know about Albuquerque and often use that as a point in discussion. As I recall, though, we got used to getting computer help from the Helpdesk, or whatever it was called and it turned out OK after a period of adjustment. Then there are centralized groups that always seemed successful to me (shout out to them!)… the Content Analysis Team, the Forest Management Service Center in Fort Collins, various Enterprise Teams and perhaps you have your own favorites. These are ones from off the top of my head.
What makes some of these centralized efforts successful and others not so much? What if Albuquerque is an outlier (granted, a long-term source of frustration, but still)?
So let’s develop some hypotheses for what makes a successful centralized service. Here are mine:
(1) A lead person who is knowledgeable and experienced in the work at hand, and you can talk to directly, and who gets work done, and tells you if it can’t be done in your timeframe. Good communication with knowledgeable person.
(2) Flexibility to do things the way they work best. Perhaps here is where centralized personnel falls down; they can’t solve problems because their boxes are so constrained by requirements.
In a way, RO engineers or special uses experts or minerals folks are also a centralized service. Their utility probably also depends on their expertise and how well their time is managed and prioritized. For example at the RO level, with RFs putting pressure on Regional Directors if Supes don’t like the priorities or performance and don’t get what they think is an adequate response from the Director.
So I guess shared services can work when there is clear communication and accountability, and perhaps a responsive back-up system for complaints. But I have to say for the Content Analysis Team, I never needed a backup, they gave me a timeline and followed it, and if there was a holdup, they had a good reason. I guess there’s an element of trust as well, and the importance of relationships with the lead person.
Perhaps this is a bit off the topic, but also in terms of expertise:
Experts in R&D
These folks are not centralized or shared, but they also serve to help folks in NFS and elsewhere. I think many are called on by forests for help and others not. For me, though I am not an employee, I’ve found forest economists to be both enormously helpful, and also fill a niche that much of academia has abandoned in search of currently faddish abstractions. Rumor has it that R&D is on the chopping block, but there is definitely a piece of that workforce that provides expertise to NFS, as well as private landowners and Tribes. Often Experimental Forests provide a long-term perspective that extramural research funding can’t achieve. Probably the people involved in these ideas don’t know the lack of utility provided by much research funded by other agencies. Science of the scientists, by the scientists, for the scientists. The best thing IMHO to save bucks would be for each agency to take the lead in some areas and reduce duplication across agencies. Of course, that would lead to great wailing and gnashing of teeth and claims of anti-science by more powerful folks than those who stand to lose out by reduction in FSR&D funding. Perhaps that’s worth another post.
I worked in state and private forestry in r5 RO for many years. I think the Forest Health staff always worked well as a shared service model with expertise in the RO augmenting service area pathologists and entomologists spread in four areas around the region.
Absolutely!!!! I too always had great success with Forest Health folks. And they are seldom self-promoting or in the public eye, so hat’s off to them! Thank you all for the work you do!!
Two examples. First, I was a shared resource as a public affairs specialist with two agencies, BLM field office and a national forest. One challenge – a good challenge – was understanding both agencies policies and cultures. The bigger issue is that the public affairs specialist is a full time position for the national forest and the BLM field office coverage was an add-on to an already full work-load. I did a lot of work for free. Then a controversial situation arose where the BLM state office was at odds with the USFS regional office concerning the reasons for deferment of an O&G lease sale on NFS lands with BLM subsurface jurisdiction. The deferment was clearly tied to a BLM issue, but the state office didn’t want to admit it. The forest wanted to tell the truth. I was in the middle as I had to talk to the media. Also, I wanted to tell the truth as I believe we should tell our own bad news. So what did we do? Well, we blamed the re-introduction of lynx of course, which was a piece of the issue, but really a subset of the primary issue.
Second example is all positive. I supervised a volunteer coordinator who worked for both the BLM and USFS through an agreement with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado. This may not exactly meet the intent of your question as the person technically was a VOC employee. It worked well since volunteer work on BLM land was best done during the shoulder seasons and on the forest during the summer and early autumn.
That sounds like a tough job, making both agencies happy! I wish the rec industry would fund a volunteer coordinator on every forest. We keep hearing how much federal lands recreation contributes to the economy..
From what I could find online, corporations provide VOC with 20% of their annual funding, while government agencies provide 30%. It would be nice to see the corporations number increase. Interestingly, one of the biggest donors is Chevron. Osprey, Patagonia, Vasque, REI… none of them were on the list of donors providing more than $5,000. Beer businesses provided more funding than outdoor gear companies.
Of course Mike beer companies are not foolish. Look at all of the beer cans in the out-of-doors.
Shopping at the out-of-doors clothing companies, who now specialize in urban wear, focus on the clientele that never travel beyond “where the sidewalk ends” (Shel Silverstein)