Crew Member Job Description
Full Time Position – 14.00-17.00
Bona Terra is a small family run urban landscape design, maintenance, and installation business that specializes in artistic installations, bay-friendly rain gardens, conservation planting, and careful maintenance. We prioritize organic, sustainable practices and protecting the local watershed. We are a creative group of artists, musicians, and writers, and support each other in those endeavors.
Crew members install rain gardens, conservation planting, and conduct landscape maintenance on residential properties. Usually working in teams of 2 or 3 people.
Bona Terra is focused on providing a safe and healthy work environment for crew members and the foreman. Our training and work guidelines help everyone work in a safe and productive work style that minimized risk of injury due to the work that we perform. We are always looking for and are interested in our employees ideas and point of views when considering safe work practices.
Applicants should be able to safely perform heavy lifting, pushing, pulling of various landscaping equipment and materials including, but not limited to, backpack blowers, large containers of mulch/plant material, and rototiller. Safely operate equipment with all necessary personal protective gear. Proper use of hand tools, shovels, pick axes, brooms, etc. Identify Miss Utility markings and participate in responsible digging. Provide information to crew leader or project foreman for tracking hours and materials. Keep work sites and home base neat and clean.
This is an entry-level green industry position. We have helped numerous employees advance their careers with people making moves from crew member/foreman/lead installer to designer in 4 years to moving on to habitat restoration, nursery operations, and non-profit stream/river/habitat restoration work after being with us for a number of years.
On average, with assistance from the team, you will be doing 100-150 installations per year that are approximately 50-200 square feet in size. This would allow you to grow your skills as an installer at a much more rapid pace than a typical green job, making it ideal for someone who would value gaining experience quickly. Other possible work includes, nursery work, doing hardscape installation, the farmers market booth, or doing salvaged wood milling.
Any experience in outdoor building, gardening and/or carpentry is a plus. Ability to read a scale drawing, understand cross-section designs and build according to a plan is also a plus.
Employees will be asked to:
Lift and carry up to 50 lbs.
Bend and kneel up to 4 hours a day.
Walk up to 8 miles a day, sometimes uphill and on uneven terrain, while carrying, pushing, or pulling equipment, materials, and debris.
Safely load and unload vehicles.
After training you will be able to:
On your own:
-Track and be responsible for personal hours.
-Know and use some scientific plant names and common names and be familiar with plant maintenance requirements and methods.
-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, is a plus but not required.
-Must be able to present and maintain a professional appearance and communicate with clients, and vendors in a courteous, clear and timely manner.
-Know how to install and maintain rain gardens and bayscapes, including downspout hook up, spillway, measuring berms, soil amendments, etc.
Employees are expected to maintain a positive attitude and respond to clients and co-workers with respect and kindness; continually increase knowledge about sustainable landscape practices, plant biology, taxonomy, propagation, conditions and maintenance, and/or study stonework, building.
This is outdoor residential contract work, so we work as much as we can in the spring, summer, and fall. Winter work (Jan-Feb) is weather dependent , we try to make up for it in the spring and fall. Pay will be negotiable, based on experience and previous employment. Time and a half is paid for any hours in the week over 40. You earn 1 hour sick leave per 87 hours worked.
Valid driver’s license and smart phone with data plan preferred.
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, religion, 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.
