State Directors, the 340 Series, and the Lack of an Education Requirement

Fortunately a knowledgeable TSW reader was kind enough to fill me in on some key details related to the positions, the series, and the way SES positions are filled.  The latter is extremely byzantine, even for the federal government. Stay tuned for more details. This post is only about the 340 series and its history.

To begin, people have questioned why there is no education requirement.  It used to be, in the Old Days, that “line” positions such as District Rangers, Forest Supervisors, and Deputy and Regional Foresters were advertised in the 460 (forester) series.  I remember when I worked in Region 5, for example, in the 80’s, that we were required to do Consent Decree Action Plans (the Consent Decree had to do with the FS being required by the courts to hire more women)  or some such thing.  I wrote a proposal to allow administrative folks (mostly women at the time) to get line positions.  I also thought we could work with the universities to provide a “natural resources 101” field class for them.  I remember the Regional Office shutting me down with “you’ll raise their (administrative people’s) expectations.” Fast forward to today, and I am told that most line positions are advertised in the 340 Program Management series.

Anyway, point being that for awhile line positions were advertised in a variety of series, say 401 biology, 460 forestry, but maybe also 807 Landscape Architecture, 810 Civil Engineering and so on.  Some units even sent out pre-notices for interest, so they would know what combo of series to advertise in.  Then, for whatever reasons, folks started hiring district rangers from other places, like congressional offices, and Veterans who might not degrees in the fields traditionally hired by the Forest Service.  For example, in Region 2, Andrea Delgado was hired in from USDA to the Deputy Regional Forester slot (which I think is a line position) with a degree in international relations. Anyway, the point was to open up managerial positions to the broadest range of applicants.

One of the points of developing SES was that you could swap executives around among departments and agencies, because managing any organization is kind of the same thing. Perhaps this view was inherited from Corporate World.. if you’re a good executive at Chik-Fil-A you would be equally good at SpaceX. The USG corollary would be if you lead a bunch of scientists at NIH, you would be good at leading, say, the Rural Development staff at USDA.

Perhaps the same thinking informs the use of 340, and perhaps its lack of an education requirement. Managing is managing and you can learn by doing, I guess. I don’t suppose business schools and schools of public administration feel the same way, but that’s their battle. One little subagency (the FS) is way down the food chain from OPM.

Anyway that’s the history of 340 and the FS. If you go to OPM, these are Administrative and Management Positions