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Summary Incumbent serves as full staff to the Veterinary Medical Officer and is delegated authority to act for him/her in matters not requiring professional veterinary training. The incumbent must have extensive experience, training, accreditation, and specialized knowledge in many areas to meet the demands of the position and must be cognizant of the importance of experimental animals and their care to biomedical research and be familiar with all regulations governing the use of animals in research. Responsibilities This is a bargaining unit position. Areas of Consideration for all Other Positions: 1st - Permanent VA employees of the Ralph H. Johnson VA Health Care System 2nd - Permanent VA employees 3rd - All other Status eligibles (veterans preference applies) VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package: VA Total Rewards Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm Compressed/Flexible Schedule: Not Available Telework: Not Available Duty Location Status: Will work from a VA owned or leased space Position Description Title/PD#: Supervisory Biological Laboratory Technician (Animal)/ PD002030 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required Physical Demands: Work is conducted in a laboratory setting. The incumbent directs and monitors activities in the animal research facility including supervising VMU technicians, cage wash staff, scheduling research projects, room assignments, work schedules, technical procedures, preparing and delivering training courses, and performing duties of a highly skilled animal technologist. The work requires manual dexterity and technical skill and ability to work on a variety of projects efficiently and effectively. A portion of the incumbents time (approximately 60%) is devoted to management activities in an office setting. Work can require long periods of standing and/or walking as well as long periods of sitting. Duties in the facility necessitate the ability to lift loads up to 50 lbs, pushing, pulling, bending, stretching, and restraining fractious animals. Supervisory Probationary Statement: Applicants selected for this position may be required to serve a one-year supervisory probationary period. Failure to successfully complete the supervisory probationary period will result in the employee being reassigned to a position in the agency of no lower grade and pay than the one the employee left to accept the supervisory or managerial position. Major Duties: Laboratory animal care; husbandry procedures, equipment maintenance procedures and biological and radiological safety procedures. Receives and preforms physical examinations of animal subjects and daily animal care and reporting. Plans, organizes, supervises, controls, and evaluates the day-to-day operational procedures program of the animal research facility including determining and assigning priority of work of subordinate employees; ensuring that assignments are properly preformed, scheduling and coordinating activities and animal study spaces among the VMU and other research personnel using the research facilities. Personnel Management and Training; provide employee training, employee reporting and health and safety procedures. Requirements Conditions of Employment Qualifications To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/03/2024. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-08. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. Provide a copy of your last or most recent SF-50, "Notification of Personnel Action" to indicate your current federal status. You must also submit additional SF-50(s) to clearly demonstrate one year time-in-grade as required in the announcement. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate that you possess one year time-in-grade. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one year time-in-grade. Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. AND Selective Placement Factor: This position includes a skill, knowledge, ability or other worker characteristic basic to -and essential for- satisfactory performance of the job. Selective Placement Factors are a prerequisite to appointment and represent minimum requirements for a position. Applicants who do not meet it are ineligible for further consideration. Evidence of the Selective Placement Factor must be reflected in your resume. The Selective Placement Factor for this position is: : Advanced training and experience as a lead and/or supervisor with the ability to perform various day to day duties and responsibilities in an animal research center such as; animal husbandry procedures, biomedical research, and all applicable regulations governing the use of animals in research. AND You may qualify based on your education/experience/combination as described below. A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. Individual Occupational Requirements: Specialized Experience (for positions at GS-4 and above): Experience must have been related to the work of the position for which application is made. The specialized experience required for some positions in this series is normally work performed in a controlled environment. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include: Research activity or control program work. Nursery work that required the growing and maintenance of plants in a controlled environment. Work comparable to that with a large dairy farm where production records, animal environment, and sanitary conditions were kept in accordance with modern dairy practice. Farming experience that was not performed in a controlled environment, or experience as a laborer who was not responsible for planning and scheduling his/her own work, but only performed assigned tasks, would not qualify as specialized experience. Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-08 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience is defined as; Experience performing animal husbandry procedures; maintaining and operating animal surgical room equipment to include sterilizing and cleaning equipment; performing day to day procedures in support of an animal research program. OR Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have 2 full years of graduate education or a master's degree meets the requirements for GS-9. OR Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond two full years of graduate education. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Administration & Management Animal Husbandry Teaching Others Per Office of Personnel Management General Schedule Qualification Policies, federal employees are assumed to have gained experience by performing duties and responsibilities appropriate for their official series and grade level as described in their position description. Experience that would not normally be part of the employee's position is creditable when documented by satisfactory evidence (e.g., a memorandum from the manager, human resources director, or official documentation such as SF-52, SF-50 documenting an official detail/assignments, or other comparable documentation). The documentation must indicate whether the employee performed the duties full time or, if part-time, the percentage of times the employee performed the additional duties. To receive credit for experience in your resume that is not within the official series and grade level of your position, you must provide official documentation of such experience as indicated above. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit OPM's web site at http://www.opm.gov/qualifications/standards/indexes/alph-ndx.asp. Education PLEASE NOTE: Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications (particularly positions with a positive education requirement). Therefore, applicants must report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Applicants can verify accreditation at the following website: http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html. All education claimed by applicants will be verified by the appointing agency accordingly. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. Additional Information The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced VA competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be well-qualified, applicants must possess experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position including all selective factors if applicable, and must be proficient in most of the requirements of the job. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website which can be found at https://www.opm.gov/. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. Pursuant to VHA Directive 1193.01, VHA health care personnel (HCP) are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 subject to such accommodations as required by law (i.e., medical, religious or pregnancy). VHA HCPs do not include remote workers who only infrequently enter VHA locations. If selected, you will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and submit documentation of proof of vaccination before your start date. The agency will provide additional information regarding what information or documentation will be needed and how you can request a legally required accommodation from this requirement using the reasonable accommodation process. If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.