Department: Department of Agriculture
Location(s): La Grande, Oregon
Salary Range: $72832 - $108738 Per Year
Job Summary: The position is located on a USDA Forest Service Unit within the Pacific Northwest Region, Region 6. Serves as an assistant to the Forest Aviation Officer in directing the complex aviation management program of the Fire & Aviation Operations on Forest Service unit(s). Incumbent provides leadership, coordination, and direction to aerial projects and fire management activities. See ADDITIONAL INFORMATION section below for Regional contact.
Major Duties:
Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Transcripts must be provided for qualifications based on education. Provide course descriptions as necessary. Specialized Experience Requirement: For the GW-09: You must have one-year specialized experience equivalent to the GW-07 in the Federal service OR a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B. or J.D., if related; OR an appropriate combination of specialized experience and education (only graduate education in excess of 18 semester hours may be used to qualify applicants for this grade level). Examples of Specialized Experience are: Administrative processing of flight clearances; limited advice to pilots on geographic locations of assignments and related weather conditions; and support duties such as posting and announcing plane arrivals and departures, tracking automated flight following system, maintaining passenger and cargo manifest records, and maintaining flight requests. Applies technical knowledge to mobilize numerous personnel with supporting supplies, equipment, aircraft, and services on short notice in order to effectively and efficiently suppress wildfires. For the GW-11: You must have one-year specialized experience equivalent to the GW-09 in the Federal service; OR a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., if related; OR an appropriate combination of specialized experience and graduate level education (beyond what is required for a master's degree, i.e., more than 36 semester hours leading to a Ph.D.). Examples of Specialized Experience are: Directing the dispatching, coordinating and scheduling of agency and contract aircraft, equipment, and personnel and other resources for wildland fire management. Develops Aviation planning documents to include operating plans, safety management systems, airspace management plans etc. Creating and maintaining a GACC Tactical Aviation Report for briefing regional operations group. Coordinating Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR) and Notices to Airman (NOTAM) with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). SELECTIVE PLACEMENT FACTORS: Applicant must possess a current and valid FAA remote Pilot Certificate. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. FIREFIGHTER RETIREMENT COVERAGE: This is a secondary position covered under the special retirement provisions of 5 USC 8336(c) for the Civil Service Retirement System and of 5 USC 8412(d) for the Federal Employees Retirement System. To receive consideration for this position, you must provide updated required documents and meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of this announcement.
How to Apply: Please view Tips for Applicants - a guide to the Forest Service application process. Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (7:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Mountain Time Zone, Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.
Application Deadline: 2026-01-22