crew member

natural resource technician

americorps member

corps member

youth leader

Conservation-Corps-Minnesota-&-Iowa

CCMI is a great experience, let me start with that. It's the grandbaby child of the CCC and is no doubt...far less. There are a lot of ups and downs. We helped to transplant 9000 trees! We were getting poisoned from the chemicals we were spraying. We received fire/first aid/chainsaw/trailering/tree inspection training! We spent a month hand pulling weeds. The comradery is wonderful, I made so many friends. The pay is not survivable if this is your only income (roughly $7/hr). There is no typical day of work, but a fallback was definitely to be spraying chemical without PPE. Our project host lied to us saying Glyphosate and Triclopyr were basically non-toxic. Meanwhile the technicians sprayed chemicals that were showcased in Silent Spring. I thought society was better than this stupidity. We sprayed our planting site that took us months to do, killing our native trees we had JUST planted. All straight down the drain cause Bayer is making billions off this and the technicians here just blindly go along with it. The specialists and technicians at 3 Rivers Forestry (where our crew was stationed) just...kinda didn't get the whole modern conservation thing and we were just supposed to shut up about it. It felt more like we were working for a recreational company. I made friends, well, because of the 10 hour shifts of being out in the field together.
A little disclaimer: I'm more upset with The 3 Rivers Park District purposely buying into a broken system, but I'm also disappointed in the CCMI that they turn a blind eye cause they can't afford it. They're broke af. 
If you are not worried about money, want to reeeeally get to know what buckthorn looks like, use a chainsaw (oh, also why the fck were we cutting down 70 yr old beautiful cedar trees?) and maybe get to plant a tree or two that will survive...this is a happy to place to work. Seriously, I liked my experience because of the people. This is a good experience if you are young and don't know what to do with your life.

The Conservation Corps requires hard work, long hours, and the ability to cooperate and coordinate with others even after a week of mosquito bites and cramming into a truck that smells like curry. 

That said, if you're a person who can get along even with difficult people; if fighting through thistles to get your chainsaw under a snag sound like a good time; and if you're not afraid of mudslides, tick bites, and herbicide going down your back then the Corps is for you. Because the experience is worth it. 

The work is outdoors and very rewarding, and you will gain incredible hands-on experience in conservation, leadership, teamwork, and technical skills. You may make relationships with supervisors, crew, and project hosts that lead to future jobs, or give you a better idea of what you might like to do. 

You get 3 day weekends, prescription safety glasses are offered if you wear contacts or glasses, the management is wonderful, and the projects have real impact. 

The most enjoyable part of this job for me was watching crew members power through their physical and emotional limitations to get the job done well, seeing them apply new knowledge to solve real-world problems, and pulling off my Corps boots at the end of the day knowing that we made a difference.

This can be a fun job and will keep you on your toes. The jobs you do vary by location and time of year. Sometimes work will be changed at the last minute, usually due to weather. Week (or more) long camping trips while working local parks is likely. How often you camp will vary by crew and season. These can be fun if you like your crew, but there is no camper, it's tenting. This isn't a job for germophobes, anyone who isn't reasonably physically fit, or anyone who can't live without electricity/internet access. There are times when your phone may die because there is simply nowhere to charge it. You will go to the bathroom in the woods on a regular basis, guaranteed. However, despite the job title basically being "invasive plant killer," it's rewarding to see a prairie in the process of restoration, a rare flower, an unexpected animal encounter, or a crew come together as unlikely friends. You will have miserable days, but somehow it will often be kinda fun anyway. Plus, the promise of an education bonus towards student loans at the end is a nice little motivation!

Corpsmembers are essentially cheap labor for a project host. We were rarely given proper or working equipment for jobs. On herbicide jobs working with toxic chemicals we were told multiple times to “make it work” with broken equipment. Our trailer lights didn’t work and were not fixed for most of the year. 

Volunteers in the field specialist position yelled at crew members and mocked them constantly. The Fergus manager told us that the tampons in the med kits were not for women to use but for “puncture wounds”. We were told not to take breaks (we were technically allotted two 15-minute breaks) in our ten-hour days to make project hosts happy.

It’s difficult and rewarding work but the structure of management is so warped that I repeatedly felt that our work didn’t matter. Project hosts were often frustrated at our lack of working equipment. Our regional staff often spun this frustration as a result of a lack of work ethic among crew-members. This isn’t true, I worked with a crew of dedicated, enthusiastic, hard-working people. I don’t recommend the Conservation Corps. Instead of making connections in natural resources we just were caught in a frustrating cycle of bad equipment and poor management.

It's important to learn general practices, terminology, and your own limits if you want to get into the Conservation field. CCMI ensures you're well-trained, and prepared, for common conservation tasks such as chainsawing, backpack spraying, rain-garden building, brush clearing, prescribed burning, and trail maintenance. The job training and requirements stay the same but the types of projects differ with the location, and sometimes requires that the Crew Member be willing to travel and live with their Crew for the four-day week. In Minnesota it's often possible to respond to wildfire , and there are opportunities to respond to disasters.
I feel well prepared for any kind of outdoor work, I know my limits, and have exceeded my expectations.

The Conservation Corps taught me I have a lot more potential then I realized.  If you want to learn how to do something the best way is to engage it hands-on.  It also taught me a lot about socializing with a large group of peers and about smaller group dynamics when it came to every day interactions with your fellow crew members.  This could bring about the hardest part of the job, being forced to deal with another member who has a poor attitude.  However it showed me that I could still perform to my best and sometimes even ease the tension.  The best part of the job is being able to enjoy the different regions of the state, from the bluffs and valleys SE Minnesota to the large expanse of woods in the northern parts of the state.

The job is not limited to what you do during the typical work week (but there is a lot of variety even in that). There are education days, volunteer opportunities, possible disaster relief deployments; anyone can find something they enjoy doing. And if you don't find something you're passionate about, you can serve as little as one term (1yr, 6months, 3months) and still gain skills that are applicable to any kind of job: communication, community engagement, volunteering, certifications, etc etc. I have already recommended this job to some friends who I know haven't found a career or job that they enjoy.

Need minimal experience to get this job, and they are pretty eager to hire anyone who is able-bodied and willing to work physical job. Pay is not great (in fact it is terrible), but did get lots of certifications and learned lots of new things. Very physically-demanding job but they are pretty chill and let you have breaks when you need them. If you are just looking for a summer job or a job for a certain time where you just need the experience, this is the job. Would not rely on this job for survivable income though.

A Crew position with CCMI should definitely be viewed as a step toward a longer term goal - there isn't much room for growth as it is aimed at recruiting young members and offering experience.
The pay and time off structure is pretty poor as it is an AmeriCorps position. 
That said, its awesome to work outdoors every day, and the project hosts we work with are a great resource for finding out more about the conservation industry. The staff is very understanding and super to work with. They are even willing to work with you on things like extra time off, but feel very limited in their ability by AmeriCorps policy.

Normally when i worked it was mostly outdoor . i would roughly work 6-8 hours every other day. i liked my job but, i felt i could of done better. my co-workers were awesome, i made friends and i still keep in touch with them till this day. i already knew a lot of things about my job considering i grew up with a landscaping company my family owned. so when i worked for conservation corps, i knew what i had to do and knew how to get the job done fast and quickly. the hardest part about my job was when people in different groups didn't want to corporate with us. And of course the cold days. the most enjoyable part of my job was because i enjoyed it.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Crew member 22 salaries reported	$2,334 per month
Natural resource technician 11 salaries reported	$2,250 per month
Americorps member 1 salary reported	$2,450 per month
Corps member 2 salaries reported	$16.50 per hour
Youth leader 2 salaries reported	$2,400 per month

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