Rural System's

Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management

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Notes on Becoming a Professional within a Profession

Characteristics of a profession:

• Is a vocation - more than a "job"
• Devoted to people
• Aware of public image
• Has status
• Is organized as a society
• Functions as a unit
• Strives to be respectable
• Strives to be respected.

Characteristics of the professional (any field):

1. Ability and skills to deal with technical aspects of work
2. Ability to deal with people
3. Displays tolerance and understanding
4. Recognizes personal group bias
5. Possesses tact
6. Maintains flexibility (groups)
7. Has communication skills
8. Engages in self-analysis and criticism
9. Is dedicated to the field
10. Is Prone to help others (displays altruism)
11. Does the best possible job with the resources available
12. Is in constant professional development
13. Maintains appearance and behavior appropriate to each occasion
14. Understands the culture of the agency or corporation.

Elementary Criteria for selecting and graduating from an adequate wildlife graduate program and studies (these once depicted as fence boundaries), not in ranked order
1. Grad school oriented
2. Employability via accreditation SAFas a forester (or other accreditation)
3. University and state approval
4. More than 3 wildlife-oriented faculty in a department or budgeted program
5. Quality faculty doing teaching and research resulting in publications
6. Few students per faculty
7. Qualified courses available
8. 200 hours study required
9. College oriented
10. Rooms and spaces available
11. Classes can be scheduled
12. Quarter system
13. Diversity of courses for students of different interests
14. Adequate library
15. List no more 400 level (senior)courses than necessary so they are available for graduate credit
16. High % transfers in 1st 2 years
17. Well grounded in basics
18. Meet civil service requirements
19. Large number of current students working on well-funded projects

Other suggestions:

• Dress conventionally. Never risk losing a contact or contract because of your dress. Maintain a clean, well-groomed appearance. Lose a contract because of aversion to your appearance and you no longer have a job.
• Use good grammar, spoken as well as written.
• Display good manners.
• Shake hands firmly.
• Maintain eye contacts and follow the conversation ball.
• Remember and use peoples' names.
• Respond to clients' objectives, within the law.
• Write letters with acceptable format.

Time is money. Every hour spent costs someone money. If you are not as productive as someone else in the same hour, it is rational for a supervisor to replace you or train you, or provide an incentive or threat. Effective faunal resource managers listen, are cooperative, and communicate.

They are "objectives oriented" and can, on average, improve management by using (privately, secretly, or otherwise) a "systems approach"

They are learning, curious.

They are cost-effective (vs. "cheap").

Network - write to people, call people, go to meetings, go to conferences, sporting goods shows and farm equipment shows

• Don't drink alcohol there; get a half a ginger-ale to fit in - dangers of spilling are too great for you to look like a goof.
• Don't eat. You can't meet and shake hands while eating.
• Hand out business cards
• Repeat people's names to try to help you remember them; take notes soon

Build an address file.

Study body language; be sure your's communicates what you intend:

• open arms and hands - openness and honesty
• folded arms - negative, a barrier
• furrowed brow - questioning, probably disapproval
• lopsided smile - insincere
• eyes that do not "smile with the mouth" - insincere, danger
• pupils dialate with smile - happy
• pupils constricting - danger
• concentration on upper body - tense but want to appear relaxed
• legs or feet crossed or tense - insure or insecure

Assignment

See Capper Units on Evaluating Effective Meetings and Control over Working Time.

Work independently. Complete and turn in the following on or before the next class meeting. Show your work. Make the results readable and meaningful to you if read 10 years from now.

***

Calculate the number of working years needed for a wildlifer to visit and observe every 1.1 million cells of a geographic information system (27 acres each) in Virginia. Allow them to reach and stay in each cell for only one hour.

First estimate the hours in a "working year." This is only 8 hours per day, minus 52 weekends, 16 holidays, and 5 days of vacation. (To calculate quickly, standardize calculations and allow for class comparisons, assume 40 40-hours weeks in a year.)

How many hours should each cell be observed for some named relevant project? How large a staff is needed to complete the job in 2, 5, 10 years? Is the work feasible? What percentage would be an acceptable sample? Is normal random sampling appropriate?

Relate in a paragraph your observations made above to statistical confidence and managerial risk.

***

Assume a salary of $18,000 per year. You get 70% of that as "take-home" pay. You work 40 hours/work; 2 week vacation, 10 days holidays. You take 2 30-minute breaks per day. What is the worth of 1 hours of work in take-home pay equivalents?

Your employees come to work 10 minutes late, leave 10 minutes early; take 70 minutes for lunch and 40 minutes for each coffee break. What are the lost hours and money per employee? In an average agency with 300 employees? (Assume $18,000 is their average salary).

***

How many actual hours of work per year do you (or anyone) have to significantly improve wildland resource management?

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Last revision January 18, 2004.