About

Our Mission:

American Conservation Experience (ACE) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing rewarding environmental service opportunities that harness the idealism and energy of a volunteer labor force to help restore America’s public lands. ACE is grounded in the philosophy that cooperative labor on meaningful conservation projects fosters cross-cultural understanding and operates on the belief that challenging volunteer service unites people of all backgrounds in common cause.

Year Founded

# of Participants

# of Project Sites Served

Our History

ACE Southwest

Founded in 2004 in Flagstaff, Arizona,  ACE was established as a local conservation corps, providing a range of service programs and opportunities for both American and international participants.

Over the years ACE continued to grow and expand its programming partnerships that include federal land management agencies and dozens of federal, state, municipal, and nonprofit partnerships. Currently ACE operates out of hubs in Flagstaff, AZ; Sacramento, CA; Ridgecrest, CA; Hurricane, UT and Asheville, NC along with a robust remote workforce located across the country.

To meet the needs of both partners and potential members beyond the original crew program, ACE  has added an individual placement program, Emerging Professionals in Conservation (EPIC) as well as programming focused on private lands.

As ACE approaches its twentieth anniversary in 2024, the organization stands as one of our nation’s premier conservation corps and provides opportunities for young adults in all fifty states and a number of territories. Over the years ACE has engaged thousands of young adults who have gained personal and professional skills and experience while completing needed conservation projects and having a true impact on America’s national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and other public lands.

ACE looks to the next twenty years and beyond to continue its commitment to building new generations of conservation stewards to provide critical protection of our fragile environmental ecosystems, preserve historic monuments and sites, and ensure sustainable access to our public lands.

I feel safe to say that ACE drastically changed my life. It took me in a whole new direction that I hadn’t even considered for myself. In college I studied Art Education and the thought never crossed my mind that one day I would be working in Zion National Park as a Wildland FireFighter. I didn’t really even know what that job was. Now I work with people who were once my project partners in Zion. I was told by both of the people in charge of hiring me for my two fire seasons that my work experience with the conservation corps was the main reason I was hired.
- Maria Rago, Former Crew Leader, ACE Mountain West

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