Anonymous raised an interesting point about how people in the FS learn.
ACES is a mixed bag. The critical thing here is to allow employees the time to develop the expertise by attending training/reading the FS manual/reading the Forest Plan, etc. If you’re on a district that gets snowed out of the woods, that may not be too hard to do. But right now folks are being pressured to produce, not learn.
It seems to me that different kinds of positions have different ways of developing expertise. First, it seems like the FS should hire people who know something about the more concrete skills (not “leadership” or “partnering”) in the first place. Perhaps some of us old folks were lucky in that universities used to teach field and planning skills, at least in silviculture. Maybe universities still do. Given that the person knows about the topic generally, similarly to the engineering field, they still have to learn “this is how we do it here,” at this firm or agency.
I’m not sure that “how we do it here” comes from formal training or reading the Manual or the Forest Plan.
A common way of learning is called:
“Watch One, Do One, Teach One”
Watch One: Watching the process helps us gather data and learn the steps through observation
Do One: In the second step we apply the data with direct feedback and support from someone who has already done the process.
Teach One: Finally our knowledge and experiences are applied in helping others develop their skills. This step helps us gain deeper insight through supporting and gaining varied perspectives and questioning.
Of course, a person might be on a unit in which there is no one to watch, nor give support or feedback.
My own experience of project OJT was learning to do CEs. There was one expert on the NEPA staff in the WO, who had a full plate (the HFI CEs). We kept getting pressure from above to do something with the Limited Timber Harvest CE. We sat down with the expert and asked “what do you do first?” and step by step did the work, asking questions when we got stuck. So I’m thinking that for this sort of work, providing experts to assist is essential to production. It doesn’t take away from production, it reduces net floundering and flailing. On any team there is usually a good deal of interpersonal stuff that needs to be negotiated. Again, management training is good, but advice of a trusted person with experience in the FS is probably better.
Much earlier, I did learn via Tree Climbing courses at Dorena, so definitely classes have a place. So do well-designed national and regional trainings and workshops, sometimes as much for developing trusted peer networks as for the content of the workshop.
Then, for some resource experts, there are professional societies. In my experience, various members of FS leadership and Admins have blown hot and cold about these, especially, but not limited to, travel. Some of this has been due to concerns about production impacts on various individuals through time.
Back in 2021, I wrote a piece with suggestions for the Biden Admin as they were coming into office, including this quote from the Society of American Foresters:
Professional societies, like SAF, provide opportunities for federal employees to maintain professional competencies through in-person and virtual continuing educational opportunities, access to scientific journals, and engagement with professionals working in different disciplines across the country. In addition, professional societies also provide federal employees ample opportunities to test and hone leadership skills and give back to communities through service projects.
Recommendations
• We urge the Biden Administration to not only remove current barriers to attending scientific conferences and meetings, but also encourage and empower employees to actively participate in their professional societies.
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(1) What was your experience learning to do different kinds of work in the FS? How did you learn best?
(2) If your experience of ACES was suboptimal, what are your ideas for how they could improve?
(3) Are there specific disciplines or work activities that seem to have better structures for learning than others (e.g., fire?).
(4) For those still employed, where do you see the largest training gaps (looking at you and peers, employees, your supervisors) as you go about your work? If you had a sudden influx of training funds, who would get them and why?
Professional societies (SAF) were very helpful for me as a new forester. The local chapter was large and included state, federal, academic and private industry foresters. Sitting with folks at the monthly dinner/meeting was a great opportunity to ask questions and exchange information, especially on reforestation practices, since that was a major part of my job. While I was an SAF member, you don’t have to be a member to attend the meetings.
I think that FS employees who realize that the manual, handbooks, and forest plan exist and have something to say about their work are well on their way. The hard part is learning what is out of date, what additional info exists, and where to find answers when directives fall short.
The old FFA motto served me very well: “Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live and living to serve”!
I started as a grunt, marking timber, punching and planting trees, carrying a torch on Rx burns, fire suppression and cleaning toilets. Not the most glamorous of jobs for a Degree but it got the job done. As I moved up, the marking and cruising turned into Residual Value Appraisals and Environmental Assessment. Those were truly learned through trial and error, and man that red pen ran out of ink a few times, back in the day. Taking a timber beast and dropping him into a truly recreation focused environment helped introduce the other disciplines, as well as working in five Regions….
Leadership was a culmination of growing chickens for Tyson Foods, lots of individual leadership training and time. True story; I looked around at our so called leaders and thought, heck, I can do better than that! And so I did!