The Clean Water Initiative Program (CWIP) seeks a creative and diplomatic problem solver to help update and oversee a clean water project verification and maintenance (V&M) program. The V&M program will provide the guidance, tools, training and quality controls to ensure CWIP-funded projects continue to perform; protecting public investment and accurately signaling our collective progress towards cleaner waters.
Position will report to the CWIP Grants Supervisor and may include occasional fieldwork and potential to telework. Job duties listed below will have an initial emphasis on the V&M program but also support other funding and capacity building initiatives that provide partners with resources to implement and sustain clean water projects. Weighting subject to change:
1. Technical Program Design: (~35%) Support CWIP in funding initiative design and implementation including assessing need, drafting policy or guidance materials, delivering tools and trainings, and crafting grantmaking approaches.
2. Technical Project Management: (~35%) Serve as a Technical Project Manager (TPM), drafting requests for proposals, agreements/amendments, ensuring progress and compliance with agreements and the Funding Policy, and approving deliverables and invoices. TPM workload is informed by collective CWIP TPM balance of duties.
3. Operational support: (~15%) Support CWIP funding program operations including Spending Plan and Funding Policy development, communications and trainings on program updates, agreement/amendment workload staging and monitoring, supporting external TPMs, and financial tracking and reporting. Work with a team to standardize and implement procedures in support of these efforts including establishing an adaptive management feedback loop to improve program design and operations.
4. Cross cutting team functions: (~15%) Support crosscutting CWIP team functions and priorities including: compliance with Vermont’s Environmental Justice Law (Act 154) and incorporation of environmental justice and equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) best practices in CWIP’s work; support of clean water project-related communications and annual reporting; and support of continuous improvement of clean water initiatives.
In addition to meeting the minimum qualifications, the ideal candidate will have:
• Strong ability to coordinate work among internal and external partners, including excellent meeting facilitation, negotiation, and interpersonal skills;
• Outstanding communication, presentation, and training skills;
• An ability to think strategically and to recognize interrelated issues with a holistic perspective;
• An interest in developing creative, adaptive, and inclusive policy and procedural solutions and performing continuous improvement;
• A desire to be a team player with the capacity to take initiative and work independently;
• Experience in budgeting, financial tracking, and/or project management;
• Excellent organizational, time management, and workload prioritization skills and strong attention to detail;
• Experience with Microsoft Suite; and
• Technical knowledge of diverse clean water project types and maintenance needs.
Cover letters and resumes requested. Early applicants may be interviewed prior to the close of this posting. Find the position posting on https://careers.vermont.gov/
In 2019 Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) Secretary Julie Moore invited 10 ANR staff members to form the Agency’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. The Committee is charged with establishing and actively fostering a culture of inclusivity at ANR by creating learning and discussion opportunities for staff interested in improving their cultural competency and creating a more welcoming and diverse work environment.
The Clean Water Initiative Program (CWIP) is thrilled to have access to the resources and expertise of this Agency-level committee to guide both our personal and cultural progress towards environmental justice, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (JEDI). Since 2020 CWIP has focused on increasing our JEDI competencies at the program level - starting with a draft JEDI workplan with the following goals: (1) to make this work transformative and not transactional, 2) to encourage humility and foster a learning and iterative approach, 3) to focus on process and improved engagement rather than a final product, and 4) to maintain a catalogue of opportunities to routinely revisit and advance when feasible.
To ground our team conversations, we researched, drafted, and dialogued over working definitions for equity, diversity, inclusion, environmental justice, underserved, underrepresented, marginalized and disadvantaged. At regularly scheduled meetings, with a rotating self-appointed facilitator, we use this common language to debrief lessons and reflections on podcasts, readings, and videos many of which are recommended by the ANR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. CWIP staff are also regularly encouraged to participate in available trainings which most recently have included:
1. Equity in Hiring and Employee Retention - Facilitated by the ANR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, as well as members from the Department of Human Resources (DHR) and Office of Racial Equity (ORE). This included five trainings: An Overview; Pre-recruitment Strategies; Anti-Bias in Interviewing; Creating a Welcoming Workplace Culture; and Key Learnings and Next Steps.
2. Virtual screening and debrief of Dr. Kendall Moore’s documentary film "Can We Talk? Difficult Conversations with Underrepresented People of Color: Sense of Belonging and Obstacles to STEM Fields.” Led by Catalina Martinez of NOAA and hosted by Lake Champlain Sea Grant - A trailer of the film can be viewed here:https://www.kendallmooredocfilms.com/can-we-talk
3. Department of Environmental Conservation - Water Investment Division’s Racial and Social Justice Workshop Series – This included three trainings led by the Transformative Teaching Collective: An Invitation to Dialogue; Racism, Whiteness and Environmental Justice (or Embodied Ecologies); and Transforming Conflicts & Envisioning Equity. Learn more about the Transformative Teaching Collective here: https://www.transformativeteaching.coop/
4. “Speaking Up Against Implicit Bias.” A training led by PowerPlay and Incluxion Works, and hosted by Lake Champlain Sea Grant. Learn more about the training here: https://speakingupworkshop.com/.
We recognize that this work involves retraining the way we think and is never ending. Continued progress on our JEDI competencies is one of six key strategies in our CWIP Strategic Plan. To date, much of our work has been centered on personal and cultural growth within our program of roughly 11 staff. As a governmental entity, however, CWIP also faces state and federal-level requirements that obligate us to address equity, environmental justice-focused and disadvantaged communities in our operations and programmatic design. While some of this progress awaits leadership guidance, CWIP strives to lead by example and seek out opportunities to integrate JEDI best practices into the nuts and bolts of our program-level systems. This includes integrating Environmental Justice-Focus community definitions into our grant prioritization framework, and exploring how capacity funding for clean water partners can grow network-wide competencies in JEDI.