The California Conservation Corps (CCC) is the oldest and largest conservation corps in the country, hiring young people 18-25 for environmental work and emergency disaster response. It provides training and education for at-risk young adults while they work on conservation and service projects that benefit the community. The CCC, a department in the cabinet-level Natural Resources Agency, clears trails, plants trees, helps fight fires, participates in oil spill cleanups, assists search-and-rescue operations, works on energy auditing and retrofitting projects, and performs myriad tasks to benefit the environment. Education and career development are keys to the program, allowing CCC members to earn a high school diploma or GED if they don’t have one, while learning new skills and gaining invaluable experience. 

About Us (CCC website)

It was all about jobs. President Franklin Roosevelt, upon taking office in 1933 during the Depression, approved several measures in his first 100 days that were meant to kick start the New Deal, including a program that would become known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. The plan was to enlist a peacetime army of unemployed young men, give them jobs and turn them loose defending the nation’s natural resources and building its infrastructure. The program was one of Roosevelt’s most popular and lasted until 1942. 

The California program is modeled after it.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Conservation Corps into law in 1976, envisioning it as “a combination Jesuit seminary, Israeli kibbutz, and Marine Corps boot camp.”  Brown’s choice for director, Boyd “Buck” Horner, established the first three CCC field locations at Camp Radford in the San Bernardino Mountains, San Luis Obispo and Escondido during his brief two years as director. The second director, LeRoy Chatfield, opened 18 centers in 18 months, while formulating the corps’ first project guidelines and work goals. He developed corpsmember and staff classifications and oversaw design of the CCC uniforms and logo.

Seven of the early CCC centers were focused on firefighting, and from 1976-1980  corpsmembers fought 315 fires, including the 1977 Sycamore Canyon Fire in Santa Barbara. 

Its third director was the irrepressible B.T. Collins, a former Green Beret who lost two limbs in Vietnam and coined the CCC’s motto: “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions . . . and more!” Collins was appointed by Brown in 1979 and later became his chief of staff.

Governor George Deukmejian made the CCC a permanent department under the California Resource Agency by eliminating its sunset clause in 1983. The program flourished during Director Bud Sheble’s eight–year tenure, as he consolidated various centers, opened new non-resident facilities for corpsmembers and created the CCC Foundation in 1988.  The foundation is a non-profit organization that secures grants and other funding for qualified corpsmembers and graduates while providing support for  corps projects.

As the CCC grew, it inspired the creation of similar state organizations across the country and local, urban counterparts in California. The first of these local corps (LCCs) started in counties north of San Francisco in 1982, coordinating their activities with the CCC, but maintaining their own governance structure. Eventually, 13 of these groups would band together in 1993 to form the California Local Conservation Corps (CALCC) and the CCC would help fund their activities.

The CCC began participating in international exchanges in 1983 when it sent members to British Columbia while hosting Canadian youths in California. Three years later, the corps did a similar swap with Great Britain, followed by an exchange with Australia in 1988. A 1990 exchange with the Soviet Union was followed by a 1994 swap with Mexico. Exchanges with Australia and Siberia were active as of 2011.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, faced with a huge budget deficit, attempted to eliminate the CCC in 2009, but failed.

That same year, the CCC began outreach to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It partnered with Veterans Green Jobs, a nonprofit organization aimed at transitioning veterans into meaningful and sustainable employment. The CCC inaugurated a pilot program that put together work crews of veterans and sent them into the backcountry on conservation missions.

About Us (CCC website)

A Brief History (CCC website)

CCC Brief History (Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy)

Fires (CCC website)

Veterans Discover Allure of Jobs in Western Wilderness (by Felicity Barringer, New York Times)

Officials Take to the Woods to View CCC (by Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times)

Our History and Legislation (National & Community Service)

The California Conservation Corps trains, educates and employs a cost-effective labor force of young adults that is utilized by more than 250 nonprofit, state, local and federal agencies tackling 900 environmentally-related projects annually. More than 110,000 young people have participated in the CCC since its creation in 1976.

Their motto is, “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions . . . and more!”

Corpsmembers participate in projects focusing mostly on outdoor activities ranging from landscaping to trail building, as well as emergency response. The CCC aims to improve the state’s natural resources and create awareness and appreciation for the environment among its participants.

Its activities include: the Salmon Restoration Program, the Statewide Trails Program (in partnership with California State Parks), the EnergySmart Jobs Program, several AmeriCorps Programs, the Backcountry Trails Program and International Work Exchange Programs. 

The CCC hires California residents 18-25 who are not on probation or parole to work fulltime for minimum wage. Applicants of all income and education levels are welcome, and minorities are a majority of corps workers. Male participants outnumber women almost three to one. Corpsmembers receive health benefits, as well as vacation time and sick leave. They are asked to work for one year, although most serve about nine months, and have the option of living at home or in onsite residential centers with rent deducted from their pay.

Approximately 3,000 corps members are hired each year to work in California, as well as be part of exchange programs internationally. The Conservation Corps operates 27 facilities, seven of which are residential. Participants have built more than 9,000 miles of backcountry trails, planted 20 million trees and spent more than 11 million hours improving parks and recreation areas. CCC members have also devoted 9.3 million hours responding to emergencies—including fires, earthquakes, oil spills, floods and storms.

The program focuses on vocational training and career development during service in an effort to enhance opportunities after workers leave the program. Members may work toward a high school diploma or GED during their service, as well as take community college courses. All participants receive career development training and are required to complete a conservation awareness class. The CCC sponsors two scholarship programs.

Typical projects include 10-15 selected corps members who are trained to be stronger workers and community citizens through their service. Participants receive vocational training for cooking, office work and vehicle maintenance as part of the onsite training. Established laborers with a good record may work on select special programs such as the Australian Work Exchange, where they travel and work for nine weeks in several cities and territories in Australia.

The CCC began working with the Veterans Green Jobs in 2009, a nonprofit organization aimed at helping move veterans into meaningful and sustainable-focused employment.

The CCC also administers millions of dollars in bond funds which it distributes through grants to 13 Local Conservation Corps (LCCs) that employ 1,200 young adults in California. Most of the local corps are affiliated with charter schools, allowing participants lacking high school degrees to obtain them, and those with degrees a chance to sharpen skills. 

Joining the CCC—Frequently Asked Questions (CCC website)

A Few Facts and Stats About the CCC (CCC website)

The CCC had an operating budget of around $89 million in 2011-12. About 40% of its money came from reimbursements for corps project work. Another 38% came from the state General Fund and most of the rest was money from the sale of state bonds.

The CCC budget pays for its work and training program, focusing on four areas: natural resource work; emergency response; corpsmember education; and corpsmember development and training. 

The corps administers millions of dollars in bond money, the largest allocation being $45 million from Proposition 84—the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006. It is using $25 million for projects to improve public safety and restore watersheds, streams and rivers.   

About $20 million of the bond money is made available, via grants, to Local Conservation Corps (LCCs) throughout the state. These independent local groups—there are 13 in the state—use the money for acquisition and development of facilities, and projects similar to those of the CCC.

Top 10 Contractors: The California Conservation Corps reported at the end of 2012 that its largest contractors for the year were:

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Proposition 84 (CCC website)

Mission Erosion

From its inception, the Conservation Corps has had a dual role. It’s a good, cheap source of labor for work on services for the community. And it provides worker training and education to often troubled youth, albeit at minimum wage. However, in its 2009 evaluation of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to disband the CCC, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) asserted that the corps was no longer taking care of its corpsmembers:

“In recent years, this primary mission has eroded, with significant reductions in the amount of time spent on training and the number of corpsmembers receiving their high school graduation equivalent,” the LAO said. The report blamed the budget-cutting loss of General Fund money for shifting the focus to activities that generate reimbursement revenues, “many of which are not education—or training—oriented.” Revenue generating activities include picking up highway trash and staffing fire camps during emergencies.

The Legislative Analyst felt so strongly about the level of erosion that he built his case for eliminating the corps around it.

Governor’s Proposal to Eliminate the Conservation Corps (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Problems with Grant Money

The Conservation Corps administers millions of dollars of bond money, splitting the funds with local conservation corps (LCCs) via grants. (LCCs are programs run by nonprofit entities that have local missions similar to the CCC.) Proposition 12 in 2000 allocated $12.5 million to the corps; Prop. 40 in 2002 provided $20 million; and Prop. 84 was good for $45 million in 2006. The money is doled out over a period of years.

Taking note of the $45 million about to come the corps’ way from Prop. 84, the State Controller issued a report in 2007 that warned of  “significant control deficiencies and oversight lapses” in its doling out of Prop. 40 local assistance grants. The investigators couldn’t tell if the money was misspent because they often couldn’t tell exactly how it was spent.  

The review by the Controller was prompted by a complaint from a vendor who said he regularly received duplicate payments from the CCC or no payment at all. The ensuing investigation only included handling of Prop. 40 money.

The CCC conceded every point made by the Controller, but blamed budget cuts in 2000-01 for a 50% slash in its headquarters staff that resulted in a major scaling back of bond administration. They promised to do better with Prop. 84 money.

The Controller was partially constrained in its investigation because of a parallel probe being conducted by the Department of Finance, which included a look at how the CCC handled both Prop. 12 and Prop. 40 money.

The Finance department found no problems with way the corps awarded grants to LCCs, but, like the Controller, found insufficient monitoring of the programs afterward. Although the awards themselves were legitimate, the grant agreements were generally found to be somewhat lacking. The “language had vague scopes of work, lacked detailed budgets, and did not contain verbiage related to the project’s long-term maintenance.” You can’t monitor progress toward reaching a goal if you don’t define the goal with sufficient detail.

In its response, the CCC said it was “pleased” to hear it was “in compliance with applicable legal requirements and established criteria” in awarding bond funds and promised to do better on monitoring in the future.

Proposition 40 Grants to Local Conservation Corps (State Controller) (pdf)

Audit of Bond Funds: California Conservation Corps Propositions 12 and 40 (Department of Finance) (pdf)

Proposition 84 (CCC website)

Corps Evaded Competitive Bidding

In July 2007, the Conservation Corps split its purchase of uniforms for corpsmembers into three separate orders to avoid competitive bidding on a $110,400 purchase. The state Bureau of State Audits discovered the deception in 2009 and further investigation turned up at least two other instances of improper purchases.

The auditor said the improprieties occurred at several levels within the corps, including the employee who made the purchase, the manager who approved it and the headquarters staff managers who processed it.

The corps acknowledged the actions and sent corrective memos to all involved, while promising to strengthen its purchasing procedures and educating its staff about the law. 

Investigations of Improper Activities by State Employees (State Auditor) (pdf)

A Stimulating Idea—Expand the CCC

With California dealing with some of the highest unemployment in the nation, 11.3 percent in early 2012, and joblessness reaching Depression-era numbers, economists suggest New Deal infrastructure reforms could improve the economy and put more people back to work. The California Conservation Corps is an example of how to put people back to work and continue to expand skill sets.

More than 3,000 corps members are hired annually, with hundreds of names on a waitlist to obtain positions each year. Additionally many of the participants begin the program having been previously unemployed or homeless.

The conservation corps programs not only create direct jobs instead of contract work, but also lasting public benefit works that improve cities across the state. President Barack Obama argued for short-term direct employment that has long-term benefits to the national investment, although Congress rejected his American Jobs Act in October 2011.

Government Jobs Could Fix Unemployment Crisis, Some Suggest (by Matt Sledge, Huffington Post)

This Week in History: March 18- March 24, 1933. The Civilian Conservation Corps (The Schiller Institute)

California Unemployment Falls to 11.1 Percent as Payrolls Grow (by Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times)

Schwarzenegger Rotten to the Corps?

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed eliminating the CCC in 2009 as a cost-saving measure during a budget crisis. He was unsuccessful.

Good Idea. Whack It.

Schwarzenegger’s plan was to shift some of the corps’ funding to the Local Conservation Corps, thereby preserving the CCC’s mission, while saving the state millions of dollars. His argument that one of the CCC’s principal aims—educating and training young adults—had substantially eroded was supported by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO).

The analyst said that budget cuts in previous years had forced the corps to focus its resources on projects that generated reimbursement revenues, rather than education and training. The result was far fewer corpsmembers receiving their high school graduation equivalent. Instead of sitting in classrooms and studying, corpsmembers were picking up trash on the highways for CalTrans.

Education is just one of the supposed benefits of the program. The CCC is often regarded as a source of cheap labor for other state agencies and nonprofit organizations that provide critical community services. But the LAO said that wasn’t necessarily the case and cited the potential loss of CCC staffing of fire camps for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The Analyst said Cal Fire estimated that it could hire local labor through contractors at no extra cost. A second low-cost option, the Analyst said, was contracting with local governments at a flat reimbursement rate.

The state would hang on to its capital investments in the CCC—it has 27 residential and nonresidential facilities—by transferring them to other agencies, and phase out plans to build more.

Grant programs that utilize millions of dollars from bond sales could be redirected, thus mitigating the loss of the corps.

Administration spokespeople emphasized that the shifting of functions was not an abandonment of the state’s responsibility for dealing with emergencies. “We are still going to fight fires and we are going to keep people safe,” said Sandy Cooney, a spokesperson for the CCC’s parent, the Natural Resources Agency. “No one is being critical of the CCC, but we've got a $42 billion deficit and we've got to make decisions about where we can try to save money. The CCC is an expensive operation.”

The move by Schwarzenegger was in keeping with his administration’s emphasis on volunteerism as a policy alternative to more expensive programs. The governor had signed an executive order in 2008 establishing California Volunteers, a cabinet-level state office that manages programs and initiatives aimed at getting citizens involved in service.

California Conservation Corps Could Disappear in Budget Cuts (by Kimberly Ross, The Record Searchlight)

California Work Program for Young Is Threatened (by Malia Wollan, New York Times)

Governor’s Proposal to Eliminate the Conservation Corps (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Budget Cuts Target California Conservation Corps (by John Howard, Capitol Weekly)

Bad Idea. Save the CCC

The CCC is the country’s largest conservation corps and has been a model for local and state endeavors across the country for 35 years. Thousands of at-risk youth have received an education or training that put them on a productive path in life. It has taught them the value of hard work and moral principles that serve them and society well.

The corps mirrors the activities of arguably the most popular and successful New Deal social program of the 1930s, which not only benefited its participants but led to conservation projects that provided service to the community at large.

The list of corps accomplishments over the years is impressive. 110,000 participants. 20 million trees planted. 1.6 million hours of fish habitat improvement work. 9,205 miles of backcountry trails built. 11 million hours of work improving rural and urban parks and recreation areas. 9.3 million hours of emergency response in nearly every major California natural disaster since 1976.

And the work is being done for minimum wage. Perhaps it can be done cheaper, but some would argue that pushing for sub minimum wage compensation for any workers might not be in society’s best interest.

The CCC does not have a big budget. Schwarzenegger was grappling with what looked like a $42 billion budget shortfall, and gutting an agency for savings estimated at around $16 million. Some would argue that even that saving was illusory.

The California Conservation Corps Foundation ran its own numbers and found abundant cost savings in 2008. “It’s a case of simply doing the math,” said foundation board member Barbara O’Connor. Corpsmembers contributed 622,000 hours of fire response work at a cost of $11.2 million, she said. It would have cost $32.7 million if non-CCC personnel were used. O’Connor is director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento.

CCC work for the state—which included the Department of Transportation, the Department of Water Resources and the Tahoe Conservancy—would have cost $17.4 million; the corps did it for $7.1 million, O’Connor said.

“It’s indisputable—closing the CCC will not save money,” foundation President Cindy Laubacher said.

Schwarzenegger’s plan to shift funds to local conservation corps ignores the fact that the 13 local groups are primarily urban outfits, while the CCC is very active in rural areas. The CCC’s work is especially pivotal there before, during and after natural disasters like fires and flooding. Relocating funding would not assist local cities, small community recreation areas or provide jobs for community organizers on the same scale as the CCC.  Research shows that agencies that received community service from corps members reported most projects would not have been accomplished without the CCC.

Fact Sheet (Save-the-CCC)

The Relevancy of the California Conservation Corps For 2011 (by former Employment Development Department Director Michael Bernick, Fox & Hounds)

Locals Rally Behind Conservation Corps (by John Driscoll and Thadeus Greenson,  Times-Standard)

CCC Saves Taxpayers Millions in 2008 (California Conservation Corps Foundation)

Youth Corps: Promising Strategies for Young People and Their Communities (JoAnn Jastrzab, John Blomquist, Julie Masker and Larry Orr, ABT Associates) (pdf)

David Muraki, 2007-2015

Lucia Becerra, 2007 (acting)

H. Wesley “Wes” Pratt, 1999-2007

Al Aramburu, 1992-1999

Bud Sheble, 1983-1991. Sheble created the CCC Foundation, which offers financial and organizational support to the corps.

Jack Dugan, 1981-1983

B.T Collins, 1979-1981. A former Green Beret who lost an arm and a leg in Vietnam, Collins coined the CCC motto, “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions . . . and more!” and received international attention for the work of the program. Although he was a conservative Republican, the popular politician worked for politicians on both sides of the aisle. Collins was chief of staff to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown from 1981-83 and chief deputy to Republican state Treasurer Tom Hayes from 1989-91. He won an Assembly seat in a 1991 special election and was re-elected a year later. He died of a heart attack in 1993 at the age of 52.

LeRoy Chatfield, 1977-1979. Chatfield opened 18 centers in only 18 months, and developed the CCC’s current classification method and project guidelines. Chatfield also created the logo, uniform and statewide work goals.

Boyd (Buck) Horner, 1976-1977