OUTREACH
Kootenai National Forest
ENGINEERING
Maintenance Worker
WG-4749-8

The Northern Region (R1) Kootenai National Forest Engineering Staff will be filling a Maintenance Worker position located Troy, MT at the Three Rivers Ranger District.  The forest is seeking interested applicants (internal federal government and external).  This is a permanent fulltime position. 
The results of the outreach will help determine the area of consideration for the vacancy announcement.
Interested applicants are requested to respond utilizing the Employee Outreach Database.
For Forest Service applicants the database is located in ConnectHR.
For external applicants the database may be accessed by an internet search for FS Outreach or the following link https://fsoutreach.gdcii.com/Outreach.

Duties: 
The maintenance worker performs a variety of tasks involved in the upkeep of all buildings, grounds and related structures, fixtures, and utilities on the Forest. The duties are performed within the following trades: carpentry worker, electrical worker, plumbing worker, and air conditioning equipment mechanic. 

Carpentry Worker duties include repairing such items as warehouses, garages, residences, roofs, etc.  Assists higher graded employees in the remodeling of building interiors. Installs campground tables, barriers, simple small bridges, etc.  Installs doors, builds staircases, etc. Builds forms and pours concrete.

Electrical repair duties include troubleshooting electrical problems that occur.  Replaces circuit breakers, light fixtures, add additional receptacles and switches. Assists higher graded employees in the rewiring of old buildings. Repairs electric water heater elements, runs thin wall conduit, rigid conduit, PVC, and romex wiring.  

Plumbing Worker duties include repairing waterlines, installing toilets and lavatory fixtures, Installs electric and propane water heaters, repairs sewer lines, and snakes sewer lines.
HVAC duties occur in small to medium sized buildings and include replacing evaporative coolers, 
repairs to refrigerated cooling and heating units, installing thermostats for HVAC units, installing electric wall heaters and installing restroom ventilation fans.
Performs other duties as assigned.

A Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), and Montana Public Water System Operator license is required for these positions.  The incumbent will have 6 months to obtain this license from the negotiated start date and employee will be placed in the DOT random drug testing program.

At this time, this will be an individual vacancy announcement.  Interested applicants will need to monitor USAJOBS for the announcement.

Government housing may be available.

The Forest does not offer federal day care facilities.

Transfer of Station may be available for the position if filled through the internal announcements.  TOS will not be paid for applicants selected through the announcements open to the public

For more information regarding this position, please contact Heath Perrine at 406/827-0739 or email at hperrine@fs.fed.us.

ABOUT THE DISTRICT
The Three Rivers Ranger District is on the Kootenai National Forest in the northwestern corner of Montana, Region One of the Forest Service.  The Ranger Station is located in Troy, Montana, approximately 18 miles west of Libby, MT.  Troy has approximately 1,000 residents, with another 500 to 700 residents living outside the city limits.  

The Three Rivers Ranger District encompasses over 609,000 acres.  The District is bordered on the north by Canada and the west by Idaho.  Three Rivers has a strong resource management program with heavy workoads in vegetation management, fire, wildlife, recreation and watershed restoration.  During the peak of the summer there are approximately 100 employees working on the District.  

The District is located in the heart of the Cabinet/Yaak population of grizzly bears.  The US Fish and Wildlife Service has several bears tagged for radio tracking.  Much of the management on the District centers around the restoration of this threatened species.

There are numerous recreation opportunities in the area including: hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, rafting, camping, boating, skiing and snowmobiling. The town of Troy is at 1,700 feet in elevation, so the temperatures and climate tend to be moderate. Average high temperatures in the summer range from the mid 80’s to 90’s.  Low winter temperatures average 20 to 30 degrees. 

Troy, Montana is a full service community providing education from K through 12th grade, a medical clinic, several stores and restaurants, gas stations, a bowling alley, public library, movie theater, bank and credit union.  Troy also has an excellent city park, Roosevelt Park, which  has a soccer field, two baseball/softball fields, fishing pond, walking trail, boat ramp, skateboard area and picnic areas.  There is also an excellent walking path around the airstrip near the Ranger District. Government housing is not available.  Local housing prices are moderate, with a wide range from which to choose.  Rentals are scarce.  Libby, Montana is a larger community that hosts a full service hospital and specialty doctors and surgeons 18 miles to the east of Troy.  For out-of-town adventures and major shopping trips, Spokane, Washington (population 342,000), is a 150-mile drive to the west, Kalispell (population 14,223) is 110 miles east, and Missoula (population 57,053) is 200 miles to the southeast.

For more information on Troy go to www.cityoftroymontana.com

The Libby Valley has documented presence of Libby Amphibole as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency.  Interested applicants are urged to be aware of and research the possible hazards of amphibole to human health.  Cleanup and hazard mitigation operations are being conducted by the EPA.  Please contact the EPA (http://epa.gov/region8/superfund/libby/), the CARD (Center for Asbestos Related Disease:  http://www.libbyasbestos.org/), or the Libby District Ranger for more information.

ABOUT THE FOREST
The Kootenai National Forest (http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/kootenai) encompasses over 2.2 million acres of NFS lands.  The forest is located in the extreme northwest corner of Montana, including a small portion of northeast Idaho.  The forest is bordered on the north by British Columbia, Canada and on the west by Idaho. 

The Kootenai is truly a forest with multiple uses.  The vegetation management program is aimed at restoring and maintaining Northern Rockies fire dependent habitats.  The diversity of tree and other plant species is among the greatest in the Northwest.  Management and recovery of threatened and endangered species, such as grizzly bear, lynx, and bull trout emphasize the forest wildlife and fisheries programs.  
Other wildlife on the forest include gray wolf, wolverine, cougar, elk, moose, white-tailed and mule deet, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, bald and golden eagles and other species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.

INDIAN TRIBES
The Kootenai National Forest (KNF) encompasses lands that are part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Aboriginal Territory.  In the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855 the CSKT ceded over 22 million acres to the United States Government retaining 1.2 million acres for their own use that today is the Flathead Indian Reservation.  The Flathead Indian Reservation is approximately 85 miles southeast of the Kootenai National Forest.  The Tribes retain Treaty rights under the Hell Gate Treaty on federal lands such as the KNF.  These rights include hunting, gathering, digging plants and roots, fishing, and grazing on Kootenai National Forest lands.

The Kootenai National Forest holds many places in the natural environment that are important to the Kootenai people.  These are known as cultural sites and traditional cultural properties.   The relationship and bonds that Kootenai people have to these places were established before there was a Kootenai National Forest and the stories, place names and songs from these sites have been handed down from generation to generation. This is called a cultural landscape and is the basis for or essence of Kootenai identity and culture.