Wyoming Conservation Corps (WCC) will hold an Open House this Friday, Nov. 5 from 12 p.m. to 2 pm. The open house will be held at the Beta House located at 1615 Fraternity Row.
Students and faculty will have the opportunity to learn about programs offered by WCC and meet staff.
Applications for summer 2022 positions are currently open for both crew members and crew leaders.
Crew members will work on a variety of sites on Wyoming public land to complete projects including trail-clearing and wildlife friendly fence installation.
Crew members and leaders learn other skills including basic wilderness first aid, chainsaw training, and invasive species removal.
WCC also provides crew members a free Leadership in Natural Resources course.
“Those hard skills that we teach are really helpful for the next step in their careers,” Program Director Jim Fried said.
Fried also said that crew members build important conflict resolution skills and that he wants to build the same experience that he had as a crew member.
“The first two seasons were so influential on who I am as a person and what I value in conservation corps,” Fried said.
“I learned a lot about myself and the work I could get into,” junior Jami Oyster said.
Oyster was a crew member during summer 2021 and said, “I also learned to be more confident, how to build trails, and I even learned how to use microcharges to explode rocks.”
Oyster said one of the biggest challenges as a crew member was “living and working with the same people for ten days straight.” Crews live at the sites they are currently working at.
In 2021, crew members traveled to a variety of sites throughout Wyoming. One group worked on trail-building in the Pilot Hill Recreation Area near Laramie.
2022 sites include Grand Teton National Park and the Wind River Reservation.
WCC is run through the Haub School of Environment and Natural resources.
“We try to make good things happen in our wild and working lands,” Haub School Dean John Koprowski said. “If you’re in Wyoming you have a connection to the land- you enjoy big landscapes, and you may have a livelihood that’s based on the land.”
Through WCC, Koprowski argues that members can make a difference in the places that they live.
“It’s something we all pass on to the next generation. We wouldn’t have the Wyoming we have without that sense of stewardship,” Kopworski said.
