The Georgia Chapter is a leader in developing and implementing strategies to protect land and water, tackle climate change, provide food & water sustainably, and to build healthy cities. The Director of Field & Research (DFR) provides leadership, supervision, and support for landscape-based staff that are creating the enabling conditions for these strategies, as well as applying them at a scale that matters. The DFR leads field staff, provides technical and scientific support to all conservation staff and leads the development, coordination, and implementation of experimental designs, monitoring protocols, and other evaluative projects intended to ensure the efficacy of practice. The DFR prioritizes the communication of data and analysis, whether internal to the organization or externally through academic partnerships and scientific publication. The DFR will also serve as a participant in the chapter’s Climate Team focused on mitigation strategies. Location for position is preferably TNC’s Atlanta office, but other field locations are possible.
Program Delivery – Provides leadership support to Conservancy staff to help achieve conservation goals, including finding and engaging relevant capacity and experience from among staff throughout the organization. Monitoring & Communicating Success – Affords the chapter’s ability to assess progress towards its goals and adaptively manage projects through a science-based process and ensure results are conveyed to relevant internal and external audiences. Partnership Building – Develops and leverages effective partnerships with scientific and academic institutions to enhance Conservancy practices. Strategy Implementation – Serves as chapter’s point of contact for our natural climate solutions strategy, an initiative focused on the restoration and management of forests, grasslands and wetlands to mitigate climate change through increased carbon storage and avoided greenhouse gas emissions.
RESPONSIBILITIES & SCOPE
- Supervise program staff to develop and manage work plans and large project budgets.
- Support program objectives by working in a complex matrix organization environment.
- Secure funding from public and private sources to support field initiatives and monitoring programs.
- Manage grants, contracts and develop requests for proposals.
- Interpret guidelines, evaluate information and modify processes to adapt to changing circumstances for the program.
- Communicate a variety of information to staff and others, contributing to conservation projects and ensuring workflow.
- Provide training for internal and external colleagues on ecological and conservation scientific principles.
- Must work in variable weather conditions, at remote locations, in hazardous terrain and under physically demanding circumstances.
- Proven supervisory experience.
- Experience designing field experiments and monitoring protocols, and manipulating, analyzing and interpreting statistical or environmental data.
- Experience fundraising and/or writing grants and research proposals.
- Experience managing complex projects, including the financial aspects, and coordinating the work of peers and partners.
- Experience working and communicating with a wide diversity of people.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Master's Degree and four years of experience or PhD and one to three years of experience considered.
- Knowledge of the physiographic regions of Georgia.
- Strong knowledge of common software applications.
- Proven negotiation skills.
- Attention to detail.
- Training experience.
- Multi-language skills and multi-cultural or cross-cultural experience appreciated.