NRCS Boot Camp: Perspective and Retrospective
 

Actually the boot camp concept is not new for NRCS. It origins lie in the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930’s where NRCS conservationists – then called the Soil Conservation Service or SCS – supervised conservation work at 800 camps nationwide. The CCC was abolished in 1942, but the boot camp concept lived on at four SCS regional training centers located in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Texas, and Oregon. In the mid 1960’s, these regional training centers became technical training centers and the field training abandoned. NRCS hung onto the boot camp idea however, various States established their own training based on the old SCS regional training center concept.

More recently however, we realized that emerging needs and trends in the past two farm bills, called for a national, uniform approach to the boot camp concept. Conservation boot camps could provide a unified, nationally-driven training forum to give new employees training in planning, designing, and implementing conservation practices and in agency operations.

We also could see that one third of NRCS workforce would be eligible to retire over the next five years. In addition, the conservation compliance emphasis of the 1996 farm bill required NRCS district staff to spend more time developing conservation plans and less time providing conservation technical assistance to landowners. We wanted to avoid a “cultural divide” between conservation-oriented, pre-1996 farm bill employees and program-driven, post-1996 farm bill employees. These factors clearly spelled out the need for a common agency vision to give new employees the basic skills required by new technology, an understanding of core agency mission requirements, and the training necessary to handle the NRCS workload.

NRCS boot camps are the result of NRCS efforts to address these needs and concerns. A large measure of credit goes to NRCS Deputy Chief for Science and Technology Larry Clark and NRCS Deputy Chief for Strategic Planning and Accountability Kathy Gugulis who both played a major role in developing of this training. Larry and Kathy understood that boot camps afforded NRCS a historic opportunity.

Through this training we will be to better able to serve customers, protect our natural resources, improve the agency by investing in new employees early in their careers, and develop employee skills while instilling in them a sense of mission and camaraderie. The professional value boot camp to NRCS is obvious. But the personal reflections we heard from the participants in the Shepherdstown pilot reveal another side of the experience.

Participants may have differed on how the boot camp should be set-up, however they all agreed that learning was not limited to technical lessons, but also included valuable interaction with agency leaders. They told us that boot camps provide opportunities to develop meaningful friendships and a peer network. They gained an understanding the agency “big picture” that they otherwise might never have seen. They said they learned how their disciplines interacted with others within the framework of the agency’s conservation work.

On a more personal level, these boot camps are an essential part of new employee training and work experience. As was said earlier, we want to avoid a “cultural divide” in the agency workforce. A divide between those who look at program process and bottom line numbers – which in an era of increased accountability, congressional and public scrutiny, and voluntary compliance definitely has its place – and those who go out in the field and get their hands dirty. The NRCS folks who help get conservation on the ground. Boot camp participants represent a combination of both sides of that conservation equation.

The future of this agency will continue to see record levels of funding for conservation or what Chief Knight has called a Golden Age of Conservation. The immediate future for NRCS, of course, is the next farm bill. The 2007 farm bill will be the key to sustaining the Golden Age of Conservation. And it’s looking more and more like conservation will take a more prominent role in the next farm bill, even more so than in 2002. And there is growing support for a shift from commodity – or production-based agricultural policy to a stewardship-based policy.

The agency is on the right track with our boot camps and what new employees will take back with them when they return to their jobs. And even as important as the next farm bill will be in shaping the future of this agency, there is something more important. The real future of NRCS lies in its new employees being successful. The real future of NRCS lies in the contributions that they will be making in the years ahead.
Your contact is Fred Jacobs, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 202-720-4772.

NRCS Conservation "Boot Camp" - Comprehensive Training for New Field Employees
Conservation “Boot Camp” meets a number of challenges for the 21st Century NRCS workforce. DOWNLOAD and watch this exciting presentation and hear directly from the Chief, “Boot Camp” participants, and instructors. This is not your everyday, standard MSPower Point!

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BootCamp2005
 

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