Environmental Response Specialist

About Leading Edge

Leading Edge Environmental and Emergency Services is a small, fast-moving environmental and emergency response company based in Lacey, Washington. We respond to oil and hazardous materials spills, support incidents in the field and command post, fly drones for data collection and situational awareness, deliver hazmat and safety training, and build practical technology tools that make spill response smarter, easier, and better.

The Role

We're hiring a Project Manager to own the planning, execution, and delivery of projects across one or more of the domains listed below. You don't need deep expertise in all of them. We're looking for someone who is strong in at least one or two, while being smart, hungry, and self motivated enough to want to learn it all.

Project Domains

1. Spill Management

Overview: Work in a spill management team delivering incident management assistance to OSRO's, regulators, and facilities. We operate a lean ICS system, with digital tools enabling small teams to be able to do a lot. There's tons of space here to learn and grow, but the most successful team members will be able to adapt on the fly and build systems in place to meet the unique needs of the incident.

Relevant skills/experience:

• Oil or hazardous materials spill response, cleanup, and/or contingency planning
• Familiarity with the Incident Command System (ICS) and Geographic Response Plans (GRPs)
• High level ICS experience preferred, especially in oil or hazardous materials response. Fire experience is useful but does not directly translate.
• Experience working with regulators, responsible parties, or oil spill response organizations
• Strong public speaking skills
• IS 100, 200, 700, 800
• ICS 300
• Any additional ICS training or position qualifications are great.

2. Small Boat Operations

Overview: Leading Edge is soon to be expanding to limited marine services intended to supplement OSRO response capabilities. Think boat launched drones, ROV's, shoreline mapping, and shuttling SCAT teams around. We just got our hands on a 24' landing craft and will be building a custom platform for marine services. You'd be the lead vessel operator and program owner for marine related services.

Relevant skills/experience:

• Small boat handling experience, preferably including landing craft within rivers and the Puget Sound.
• Washington Boaters Card at a minimum, formal vessel handling certifications and licensure is a huge bonus.
• Experience with vessel maintenance, trailer handling, and general vessel logistics.
• Understanding of marine spill response techniques including boom and skimmer deployment.
• Aluminum welding, electrical, and general mechanical aptitude is a bonus.

3. Drone Operations

Overview: We use drones a lot. Our fleet consists of around a dozen different aircraft, from M4TD's and Avata 360's to an M400. We use DJI exclusively, but will likely be adopting an NDAA/Blue aircraft in the near future. Our goal is always to match our outputs to what the client actually needs. That means you need to have a solid understanding on not just aircraft handling and flight safety, but also how to create a variety of drone products. Photographs, videos, panoramas, orthomosaics, gaussian splats, 3d meshes, livestreams, observation reports, measurements, terrain profiles, and GIS products all have their place on a response. Our pilots need to understand how to produce a variety of products, when to produce them, and generally need to be able to match the right product with the right situation.

Relevant experience:

• FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate
• Experience with enterprise drone systems
• An understanding of drone deliverables, and experience creating and sharing them.
• Absolute commitment to safety with experience navigating complex airspace and requesting FAA emergency waivers.
• A creative mind that is always wondering how to do more with the tools we have.

4. Hazmat and Safety Training

Overview: We started this business around a core of HAZWOPER training. We continue to provide training services and have custom curriculums for HAZWOPER 8hr, 16hr upgrade, 24hr, and 40 hour courses, plus confined space entry, aerial observation of oil on water, and our own ICS 300 course. We custom build a lot of material and are a training provider for HSI's first aid/CPR/AED and BLS training.

Relevant skills/experience:

• Experience teaching adults is mandatory, as is being good at it and, most importantly, enjoying it.
• Train-the-trainer in something relevant, documented teaching experience, teaching certificates, OSHA outreach trainer card, or some other formal adult education training.
• A deep understanding of the topics you'll be teaching.
• The ability to create new materials, adapt materials for a customer, or at least get really good at the materials we have.

5. Technology Integrations for Spill Response

Overview: We have a reputation for integrating technology into spill response, and that's intentional. We have a suite of digital tools and methods for collecting and sharing data with our customers on a response. We use software such as ArcGIS, Nova, ESChat, Make, Jotform/Survey123, and Google Workspace tools to collect and share data. It's very common for us to establish simple processes on a response for check-in, resource ordering, recon observations, data handling, or just sharing pictures from the field to the command post. Every tool we use or build is a little different because every response is a little different.

Relevant experience:

• Building lightweight apps, dashboards, scripts, or automations to solve operational problems.
• Experience using and integrating AI tools where appropriate.
• Google Workspace automation (Apps Script, Sheets) or similar low-code platforms.
• Experience with GIS tools such as ArcGIS, and the ability to set up simple experience dashboard and manage data within the Esri ecosystem.
• An ability to integrate basic hardware such as Starlinks and cameras into a response is great.
• Experience with radios is a huge plus.

General Qualifications

Required

• 3 years in environmental services, emergency response, marine operations, field services, or similar related industry
• Demonstrated strength in at least one of the five domains above
• Strong written and verbal communication, comfortable in front of clients and with field crews alike
• Organized, self-directed, and comfortable with ambiguity — you build structure where none exists
• Proficiency with Google Workspace and general comfort learning new software
• Valid driver's license and willingness to travel to job sites, regularly on short notice for up to 14 days at a time

Preferred

• Experience in two or more of the domains above
• TWIC
• HAZWOPER 40 Hour
• College degrees related to any of the above domains are helpful but not mandatory

Why Leading Edge

• Meaningful work protecting the environment and the communities that depend on it
• We get to see and do cool things in (sometimes) interesting places
• A small team where your decisions matter and you see the results directly. We are agile and eager to invest in our people and services
• Exposure to a variety of professional experiences — marine, aviation, hazmat, training, and technology — in one job

Compensation ranges from $70,000/year to $140,000/year dependent upon experience.