The goal of the SCA/USFWS Trails Inventory program is to provide the Fish and Wildlife Service with a comprehensive and accurate inventory of all trails on USFWS sites across the country. This is certainly an ambitious project as there are over 600 USFWS sites nationwide. This project will take us to every corner of the country, to high mountains and low deserts through bayous and fjords. We are all extremely excited for this opportunity as it provides the chance to perform an important service to the USFWS, expand our own knowledge and expertise, and experience many different parts of the country for the first time.
Alex Olsen, Technology Coordinator and Data Manager
SCA is not new to Alex- In fact, he worked in the Seattle regional office of SCA from 2000-2004 with high school students and their crew leaders from all over the country. Before that, he worked with a similar program to SCA in northwest Colorado called the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, and before that the nonprofit Green Mountain Club in Vermont. Throughout his twenty years of professional outdoor experience, he has led ten trail crews, supervised four backcountry trail programs in Colorado, and managed several programs during his 5 years at SCA. In the spring of 2004, he left the SCA Seattle office to return to school and start a second career in formal secondary education- and, after finishing his Masters in Teaching Program at the University of Washington, taught American Lit and Creative Writing in a Seattle-area high school for three years. During the summer breaks in his studies in grad school, he returned to the field to lead an SCA high school crew in Haleakala National Park and then another SCA crew in the White Mountains National Recreation Area north of Fairbanks, Alaska. He has spent the rest of the summers (and any other time he could get away) traveling internationally- including South America, Vietnam, Nepal, Mexico, China, and Europe. Most recently, Alex led a Conservation Corps Crew in Mt. Rainier National Park in the fall of 2009, and then moved to SCA’s Boise office to become the Program Manager of Eastern Corps Programming for the 2010 field season. Currently, he serves as the Technology Coordinator for the SCA/FWS Trail Inventory Program, also based in the Boise Office.
