Moving from transportation to trees, our third presenter at the Advisory Council Meeting talked about efforts to establish a Forest Training Operations Center, key to efforts to thin and restore our forests and reduce the instances of wildfires in our region.
Han-Sup Han, Director of Forest Operations and Biomass Utilization at ERI, said the main challenge for contractors working to thin forests in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico is a lack of skilled workers. Contractors often do in-house training because external options are rarely available.
The Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI) has a goal of treating 50,000 acres of forests each year. In 2017, 4FRI was only able to treat just 12,450 acres with its crew of about 222 full-time equivalent position. Han noted that indicates contractors would need closer to 800 to 1,000 FTEs to meet the annual goals.
The solution would be a Forest Operations Training Center, ideally at Camp Navajo, that would focus on teaching people to be forest machine operators, truck drivers, and repair and maintenance professionals.
A two-year $350,000 federal grant was secured last year to create plans for a center, including writing a curriculum. The next step is a grant proposal that will likely be submitted next month to the federal Economic Development Administration to fund the center for three years.
If it is successful, the center would start offering programming next year. Han said organizers have some communities in mind for recruiting, such as displaced coal mining workers, retired or returning veterans, Native Americans and high schoolers looking for an alternative to traditional post-secondary education.
Han noted that the effort is a true collaborative effort, with partners including the NAU Schools of Forestry, Coconino Community College, the USDA Forest Service, State of Arizona, Coconino County, Northern Arizona Council of Government, the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership, equipment manufacturers and ECoNA.
From the next generation of buses, to a program that would accelerate repairing our forests, to understanding that transportation systems must include pedestrians and bicyclists, our region is perfecting that balance that allows both the environment and our local economy to thrive.
