Department of Civil Service

Description:

Travel with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) to explore fascinating paths to fulfill your potential. NYSDOT Region 1 seeks a sharp, motivated individual interested in transportation project process and historic preservation to assist the Regional Cultural Resources Coordinator with project reviews.

NYSDOT Region 1, based in Albany, serves an immensely varied landscape, including the cities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs, and Glens Falls, the greater Capital Region, and the counties and communities surrounding the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, from the southern Adirondacks to the northern Catskill mountains. The Region 1 Design Group's mission is to produce complete, correct, constructible and maintainable project designs to ensure safe, efficient, balanced, and environmentally-sound highways and bridges in the Region's eight counties.

State and federal environmental regulations require that environmental considerations are addressed in transportation decision-making, plans and programs, including compliance with the Federal and State Historic Preservation Acts. As a member of the Region 1 Design Group's Landscape Architecture & Environmental Services Unit, the Intern will assist the Regional Cultural Resources Coordinator in identifying historic properties within proposed highway or bridge project areas, and evaluating the potential impact of highway projects on historic properties. Ideally, the Intern shall gain an understanding of the Federal and State Historic Preservation Acts' process as applied to highway and bridge projects. Intern shall also gain understanding of the interactions required between NYSDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, the State Historic Preservation Office, Local Municipalities, and Native American Tribal Nations during the project development process.

Tasks may include, but are not limited to:
* Review project descriptions and proposed construction limits as provided by designers or consultants.
* Perform cultural resources screenings: research project area using historic maps, online resources, record plans, historic bridge inventory, and site visit to determine if historic properties or archaeological resources are within or adjacent to project area.
* Draft responses regarding screening results to designers or consultants using templates.
* Read Cultural Resource Survey Reports (CRS) prepared for specific projects. Using relevant information from the CRS and project description, summarize the project's proposed impact to historic properties.
* Draft correspondence to outside agencies and project stakeholders, using templates.
* Maintain cultural resources paper files, electronic files, and project tracking database.
* Inventory and archive cultural resources files for completed projects.
* Draft the cultural resources portion of meeting presentations using PowerPoint.
* Attend meetings and prepare meeting minutes.

Skills:

Writting

Research

Microsoft Office Suite

Analysis and Synthesis of data

Internship Areas: Agriculture, Engineering, Environmental Conservation, Planning/Analysis/Research