Job Details
Description
Founded in 1936, the National Wildlife Federation has grown into America's largest and most trusted grassroots conservation organization with 52 state/territorial affiliates and more than six million members and supporters, including hunters, anglers, gardeners, birders, hikers, campers, paddlers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages and stripes. The mission of the National Wildlife Federation is to unite all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in our rapidly changing world. We advance this mission through programming focused on conserving wildlife, restoring habitats and waterways, expanding outdoor opportunities, connecting children with nature, advancing environmental justice, and addressing the causes and consequences of climate change.
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has a longstanding commitment to expanding opportunities for children, families, and communities to receive the benefits of time spent outdoors, developing lasting connections with the natural world. The vast majority of children in America spend most of their daily time indoors at child care centers, schools, parks, libraries, or at home. Time in nature-based environments offers lifelong benefits to rapidly developing bodies and brains, along with a greater inclination to become nature lovers and supporters as adults. Therefore, it is critical to advance the creation, activation and stewardship of high-quality outdoor spaces that become places where children, their caretakers, and families can engage with nature and the outdoors on a daily basis.
An initiative of NWF, Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) envisions a world where every young child experiences nature daily. Launched in 2017, ECHO has been working with communities throughout the United States to transform children’s daily environments by enhancing opportunities to engage meaningfully in nature. By providing a combination of thoughtful landscape design and professional development opportunities for early childhood professionals, ECHO employs a health equity model that improves access to the benefits of nature for the children and caregivers who face the greatest barriers.
To meet our mission, we are seeking a Senior Landscape Design Manager for Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) to oversee the application of this model through the Grow Outdoors South Carolina initiative. A joint effort of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention at the SC Department of Public Health (DPH) and ABC Quality at the SC Department of Social Services (DSS), Grow Outdoors South Carolina (GO SC), aims to transform early childhood outdoor spaces into naturalized environments that spark play and learning. The Senior Landscape Design Manager will provide leadership for the ECHO Grow Outdoors South Carolina multi-disciplinary education and design team to implement the program’s overarching initiatives.
The Senior Landscape Design Manager will report to NWF’s Senior Director of Design and Engagement, and will supervise the ECHO Grow Outdoors South Carolina design team, based in Columbia, South Carolina. This is a full-time, hybrid position (see definition below). The anticipated start date for this position is January 2025.
Principal Duties:
The primary focus of the Senior Landscape Design Manager will be to oversee the Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) Grow Outdoors South Carolina (GO SC) design team, consisting of landscape designers, in tasks related to engaging and training child care professionals and designing outdoor environments for young children to promote play, learning, and healthy development.
In this role, the Senior Landscape Design Manager will be expected to:
- Apply evidence-based, best-practice design principles for outdoor learning environments at child care facilities, and create developmentally appropriate, custom design solutions driven by the programmatic needs expressed through authentic engagement with programs and community members.
- Work collaboratively with the Senior Director of Design and Engagement and the Colorado-based ECHO team to align and refine design standards and systems to ensure efficiency and innovation.
- Develop participatory design processes and workflows to ensure that milestones are met according to project schedules and program and community expectations.
- Oversee design team staff in the creation of site base plans, schematic designs, planting plans, cost opinions, and phasing plans, coordinate with landscape contractors to implement phased construction projects and provide on-call technical assistance to programs.
The candidate should be able to communicate design concepts and ideas through hand sketching, graphics, and rendering skills, have a strong attention to detail, have excellent organizational skills, be flexible, and have strong technical skills (grading, construction knowledge). Candidates must be self-motivated, great communicators, and possess strong leadership qualities.
The Senior Landscape Design Manager will:
- Lead collaborative processes with Grow Outdoors South Carolina partners, and steering committee members, including representatives from the sponsoring state agencies (DPH and DSS).
- Establish design review protocols to ensure that deliverables conform with the quality improvement objectives of ABC Quality, South Carolina’s QRIS for participating child care programs.
- Lead team engagement with licensed child care programs to facilitate the creation of community-driven and informed design deliverables.
- Train and mentor ECHO Grow Outdoors South Carolina team members on best-practices for the design and development of naturalized outdoor play and learning environments for young children.
- Develop and maintain office systems and standards for ECHO design team collaboration across offices.
- Organize and conduct site visits in South Carolina with the design team to complete site analysis, site measurements and photo documentation.
- Plan and facilitate participatory design workshops.
- Support the delivery of trainings for educators and design professionals on design principles for children’s environments.
- Guide the maintenance and organization of archival systems for photographs and other design components.
- Ensure compliance with regulatory guidance, and other technical resources as applicable to children's environments in the South Carolina context.
- Design and implement effective strategies to ensure design team workflow efficiency.
- Provide on-site and on-call installation technical assistance to clients improving play environments.
- Promote Grow Outdoors South Carolina through presentations at conferences and events with support from the ECHO team.
- Form partnerships and collaborate with landscape contractors to implement projects at scale.
Education and Experience:
- Professional degree in landscape architecture, horticultural science, or related field.
- Registered landscape architect.
- 7 plus years of professional experience in a landscape architecture or design build firm, or related experience.
- Demonstrated training and experience in designing outdoor learning environments for young children and/or families.
- Working knowledge of child care licensing rules and regulations as they apply to the design of outdoor learning environments.
- Working knowledge of inclusive design principles, ADA guidelines, sustainable landscape design principles, native plants and landscape materials.
- Extensive experience managing complex projects and teams including adhering to budgets and meeting deadlines.
- Demonstrated ability to:
- Work collaboratively in a team environment and develop positive working relationships.
- Engage with a diverse range of people and bolster marginalized voices in your work.
- Communicate effectively across disciplines (e.g., educators, families, construction professionals).
- Listen and respond with empathy to others’ lived experiences that may be very different than your own.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, Land F/X, SketchUp, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign).
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- Growth mindset.
NWF Values:
Your actions are expected to reflect the staff values of the National Wildlife Federation: collaboration, mindfulness, empowerment, inclusivity, and mission focus. Your competencies should include:
- Being motivated by values of equity and responsibility to those most marginalized;
- Consistently bringing a high level of empathy and social skills to work and interpersonal interactions;
- Being committed to deepening an environmental justice approach in policy priorities, program development and partner engagement;
- Actively seeks feedback, direction, and guidance from all team members and keeps staff informed of decisions that impact them;
- Being dedicated to advancing NWF’s internal equity transformation and compelling partners and allies to incorporate equity into their work;
- Passion for and commitment to NWF's mission.
Application:
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Candidates should submit a cover letter and resume.
We strive to increase diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) in all elements of our work and with our partners to support the interdependent needs of wildlife and people in a rapidly changing world. We recruit, employ, train compensate, and promote regardless of race, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender individual), age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, genetic information, past, current, or prospective service in the uniformed services, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
