• Dates: May 11-22, 2026
• Location: Klickitat County, WA 
• Application timing: Applications are expected to open in January
• More info and registration when available: mtadamsstewards.org/columbia-gorge-trex
• Contact: Emery Cowan - Prescribed Fire Coordinator: 303-931-9332, emery@mtadamsstewards.org

• Send staff to attend as participants. CGTREX is an immersive, peer-to-peer learning opportunity with live fire training, guest speakers, field trips, and more. Positions are available for participants with or without NWCG qualifications.
• Partner with CGTREX to implement a prescribed burn on lands you manage. See the attached one-pager about what you can expect as a "burn unit host." If you're interested, please let Mt. Adams Resource Stewards know.

• Standard Minimum Wage: $15.05 per hour
• Portland Metro Minimum Wage: $16.30 per hour
• Non-Urban Minimum Wage: $14.05 per hour

• All forest contractors should complete the survey—road contractors, truckers, thinners, firefighters, tree planters, loggers, equipment mechanics, forest consultants, scalers, cruisers, surveyors, rock producers, service providers in-forest, and others.
• Please respond, even if you don’t have employees. Don’t be left out!

Your input directly informs future statewide efforts to strengthen workforce development programs, secure funding for training and recruitment, and advocate for policies that support loggers and all forest contractors.

Do the survey NOW!  Responding about your business should be easy!

Take the Survey

Make your voice heard—your insights really matter!

As a committee member, you’ll:
🔹 Provide insights on critical safety messages for students.
🔹 Ensure accuracy in safety protocols and logging operations.
🔹 Meet a few times over the next 4-6 months to provide guidance.

Your expertise will help shape the next generation of loggers while reinforcing safety as a top priority. Interested in making an impact? Sign up today!

👉 Join the Advisory Committee: Click here to apply

For more information, reach out to our Forest Policy Manager, Amanda Sullivan-Astor.

You can reach out to Michele Fritch for more information and/or to submit your registration form.

cell: 480.252.1456 | email: mfritch@ccsd.k12.or.us

• College Scholarship – Supporting forestry production degrees, this program builds future leaders in the forest sector. Applications are due April 1 each year. AOL member company owner and employee family-members get preference points! Up to $1500 available per year.

  Training Program Scholarship – Applications available year-round for certifications, such as CDL, drone licenses, or other education programs. Perfect for upskilling employees to meet new industry requirements, and to develop and improve employee retention. Up to $1500 available to AOL member companies to help offset employee training costs.

All major Oregon employers are fair game to be invited to the survey. However, the state is interested in oversampling employers connected to healthcare, information technology, semiconductor manufacturing, construction, wood products, transportation, and childcare.

Paid Leave Oregon, is actively working to prevent and identify fraudulent claims. There are Oregon Employment Department systems and procedures in-place to stop and prevent fraud, which are constantly being updated. Every single application to Paid Leave Oregon goes through the agency’s identity verification, which is an essential part of the fraud prevention and customer protection process for employers and employees.

If you have information about fraudulent claims, please report it.  The more information you can give, the more it will help the investigation. Confidentiality laws prevent Paid Leave Oregon from sharing the results of any investigation, but all information given will be investigated.  

Any citizen who wants to report possible fraud can do so through the Paid Leave fraud web page. The web page also has some helpful tips on how people can protect themselves from identity theft.

Employers ARE Required to:

• Post the Model Notice Poster by Jan. 1, 2023 at each work site and provide a copy to any remote employees. 
• Pay the employer contribution. An employer needs to pay a contribution, if it has 25 or more employees
• Withhold, report, and submit your employees’ contributions. You need to withhold contributions from your employees’ wages and submit employee contributions on your Oregon Combined Payroll Tax Report, whether you are a small employer (fewer than 25 employees) or large employer (25 or more employees)
• Give eligible employees time off. You must give your employees paid time off if they are approved for leave by Paid Leave Oregon
• Hold your employee’s job and role. If your employee has worked for you for more than 90 consecutive days, you must give them their job and position back, if the position still exists when they return from leave
• Employers are required to maintain existing health benefits for an employee receiving paid leave benefits until the employee’s paid leave ends or the employee returns to work after taking their leave. The employer can require that the employee pays their share of health premiums while on leave.

Employers ARE Required to:

• Post the Model Notice Poster by Jan. 1, 2023 at each work site and provide a copy to any remote employees. 
• Pay the employer contribution. An employer needs to pay a contribution, if it has 25 or more employees
• Withhold, report, and submit your employees’ contributions. You need to withhold contributions from your employees’ wages and submit employee contributions on your Oregon Combined Payroll Tax Report, whether you are a small employer (fewer than 25 employees) or large employer (25 or more employees)
• Give eligible employees time off. You must give your employees paid time off if they are approved for leave by Paid Leave Oregon
• Hold your employee’s job and role. If your employee has worked for you for more than 90 consecutive days, you must give them their job and position back, if the position still exists when they return from leave
• Employers are required to maintain existing health benefits for an employee receiving paid leave benefits until the employee’s paid leave ends or the employee returns to work after taking their leave. The employer can require that the employee pays their share of health premiums while on leave.

In years to come, builders predict that attracting skilled labor will remain a key objective.  Despite 2023 weakening, NAHB reports the US housing market remains underbuilt and will require additional labor and materials to construct future inventory demand.  

While a recession may slow home building near-term, the ultimate solution for a US labor shortage will not be found in a slowing economy.  Resolving the shortage of labor—in construction, forestry, and transportation—must be answered by employers competing for limited workers.

Stiff competition between trade sectors for skilled workers will be led by values appealing to young generations, such as improved: career promotion, workplace benefits, training, rewarding work, wages, and recruiting incentives.  

Recaptured labor participation in forest trades and construction can happen by bringing to rural occupations more outside workers who are dissatisfied with their current work, more who are unemployed, those who are under-employed, and those youth/students uncertain about their future.

AOL has begun efforts with coalition partners to address the deepening labor challenges.  Much work is ahead to shape a growing future.

• What is AOL doing to better support contractor businesses navigate today’s labor challenges?
  
• Complete wage survey in July
• Grow coalition partnerships to advocate new solutions
• Grow employer connections to workers at website Career Center
• New workforce program, manager tackles career development
• New contractor services program, manager offers new service
• Expand safety & health resources for forest work
• Speak about sustained workforce with agencies
• Lobby for business-friendly labor & economic policy
• Shift scholarships to trades education emphasis
• Invest in youth programs by Friends of Paul Bunyan Foundation
• Refocus OPL education for individuals and supervisors

The forest sector directly employs over 62,000 people in Oregon, in all 36 counties.  Forests offer many career paths, such as: equipment operator, technology service, timber measurement, commercial truck driver, outdoors work, heavy equipment mechanic, logger, engineer, production supervisor, millwright, forester, biologist, and more.

Forest careers in technology, operations, transportation and forest products are some of Oregon’s most fascinating and rewarding!  Work-life in rural forest communities is a desirable place to make a living and raise a family.  The average annual wage of these occupations was $68,200 in 2021, 7% more than the $64,000 statewide average wage.

Oregon Forest Resources Institute supports Oregon’s future forestry occupations, through K-12 education programs, community colleges and universities.  Learn more about forest careers, and how to “Find Your Path”, at: https://learnforests.org/all-resources

We know the value of the work we do, and at AOL we are working to develop programming to support getting you access to the workers you need.  In January (2023) this article "The Happiest, Least Stressful, Most Meaningful Jobs in America" was published in the Washington Post, and it highlights what we know, that we LOVE our work. 

We are working to develop ways to share opportunities to work in the woods. 
Help us help you, by posting your jobs on our career center.

*The number of employees is calculated based on the average number of employees employed by an employer during each of any 20 workweeks in the calendar or fiscal year immediately preceding the year in which an employee's sick time is to be taken. 

Paid Leave Oregon – Update

•  Employers must provide notice to employees about Paid Leave Oregon at the time of hire and each time the policy or procedure changes. 
• The notice must be in the language that the employer typically uses to communicate with employees.
• Employers must display the paid leave notice in each building or worksite in an area that is accessible to and regularly frequented by employees. Employers must provide notice to remote-work employees by hand delivery, electronic delivery, or regular mail upon the employee’s hire or assignment to remote work.
• Payroll contributions began 1/1/23
• Benefits begin 9/3/23

  Notice Poster Download available in 12 languages