Full-time employment.
* flexible schedule. Work from home possibly 1 — 2 days per week.
15.00 — 18.00 per hour + mileage reimbursements, phone reimbursements,
health insurance benefit optional; overtime for work more than 40 hours per week, ½ hour paid lunch for a six hour work day minimum, because we do contract and outdoor work, it is sometimes necessary to work 9-10 hour days and/or weekends to meet deadlines (mostly avoidable by proper planning) in the high season.

 

You would be improving water quality challenges facing the Chesapeake Bay by impacting the District watershed, planting native plants, encouraging pollinators, learning about our green industry and helping clean up the environment. You would also serve as a steward to those clients unfamiliar with the benefits of rain gardens and bayscapes. You would be working with a Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional, and a certified installer of Interlocking Concrete Pavement. If your work is done ahead of schedule, you could learn more/be involved in portable saw milling, the native plant nursery, landscape construction and/or maintenance.

Bona Terra is a small family run urban landscape design, maintenance, and installation business that specializes in bay-friendly rain gardens, conservation planting, growing and selling native plants, artistic installations, and careful maintenance. We prioritize organic, sustainable practices and protecting the local watershed. This would be a good position for people looking to expand their knowledge on conservation landscape design, sustainable construction and installation, native plant horticulture, ecology, and local ecosystem composition. We are expanding our business to now include a nursery, and starting in 2020, farmers market booths. Our team is small and friendly, our goal is quality rather than quantity.

We contract with The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and the District Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) to install Rain Gardens and Bayscapes under the Riversmart Homes Program. These stormwater projects are designed and installed according to the DOEE requirements on residential properties that qualify for grants and rebate programs. As the designer you will have to operate within DOEE, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, and Bona Terra guidelines.

You will be using email to request client names, submit photographs, talk about projects, and finish invoicing etc. Your job will be to process client names and information, schedule and attend meetings with 5 – 7 homeowners on average per week for one-hour sessions each, take ‘before’ photographs and measurements, draw up designs and make plant lists for rain gardens or bayscapes and submit them to homeowners and the Alliance for approval. You will be responsible for communicating client preferences and issues with the Riversmart Installations Manager; and, ultimately, submitting invoices and photographs once projects are complete. This position is supported by two additional designers and an administrative manager whom you will frequently engage with throughout this process.

Your work will provide field work for up to two crews of two people each, 4- 5 days a week, for 10 months, with a weather dependent schedule in the winter. The crews will be managed in the field by the Riversmart Installations Manager, who will also be your partner on scheduling, buying, and supplies. You must be available for emergencies by phone or email any day that your crew is in the field.

On average, with assistance from the team, you will be doing 100-150 designs per year that are approximately 50-200 square feet in size. This would allow you to grow your skills as a designer at a much more rapid pace than a typical design job, making it ideal for someone who would value gaining experience quickly. You will be expected to do occasional plant inventory with the nursery manager, and field work is possible for those who desire to get out of the office. This could be in the nursery, with the garden installation crew, doing hardscape installation, at the farmers market booths or doing salvaged wood milling. It is essential for doing an above average job to understanding the workings of the crews who install your designs therefore applicants interested in field work after design obligations have been met will get favorable consideration.

We use Mac computers, QuickBooks, Excel, Word, Gmail, Pages, Google Drive & Calendar, Photoshop, Dropbox for most of our work. We are open to considering other affordable programs. Most designs are currently done on paper and scanned. You will be issued a work laptop and expected to care for it, maintain updates, etc.

Applicants will be evaluated based on qualifications, and the person with the most qualifications will be offered the job.

Ideally you will have:
A clean driving record and experience driving for five years or more, your own vehicle, we offer, at the max the IRS allows, mileage reimbursement, or bicycle is a plus but not required.
A smart phone with sufficient data plan, we offer a phone stipend, so that you can use it for navigation, taking before and after photos, and checking email regularly when at meetings or in the field.

After training you will be able to:

On your own:

-Track and be responsible for personal hours, mileage etc.
-Measure a site, create a scale drawing, cross-section drawing and design.
-Be able to calculate stormwater run-off and capacity, or learn easily to calculate stormwater run-off and capacity by using formulas.
-Be able to identify soil types and accurately assess amendments.
-Have a working assessment of water run-off and predictability.

-Know and use scientific plant names and understand rules for binomial nomenclature.
-Be familiar with native plants and be interested in learning and memorizing the scientific names of plants, growing conditions, maintenance, division, re-seeding and common name of all the native plants on Bona Terra’s native plant list.
-Be able to park legally and in challenging circumstances for example parallel parking on busy streets and in tight alleyways.

-Must be able to present and maintain a professional appearance and communicate with clients, and vendors in a courteous, clear and timely manner.

In coordination with our Crew leader and nursery manager:

-Be able to perform a perc test, or talk a client through the process of performing one, also with administrative manager.

-Be able to handle additional residential design and work, with the help of the installation foreman and upper management.
-Know how to install and maintain rain gardens and bayscapes, including downspout hook up, spillway, measuring berms, soil amendments, etc.

 

In coordination with our administrative manager:

Track and maintain files and paperwork.

We are a small tight-knit company and we work from a home office, you must be comfortable with a casual office environment, including a cat. We are an equal opportunities employer and will never deny someone employment based on sex, race, gender-identity, age, marital status, abilities, pregnancy, or other applicable characteristics of self-identity. Bona Terra is a safe space, meaning we do not tolerate any level of harassment in our workplace and we treat our co-workers with respect and take action when boundaries have been crossed. We trust and use the scientific method to obtain verifiable facts in which we use to operate our business.