Fort Mitchell native accepted into competitive U.S. Presidential Management Fellows program

BY HALEY PARNELL | LINK nky REPORTER

Growing up without cable, Brandt Coleman found entertainment by watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, frequent visits to the Cincinnati History Museum, and walking next door to his grandma’s house to hear her stories about his grandpa’s time in Germany during World War ll.

Those combined formative experiences, Coleman said, sparked his interest in history and later, his interest in heritage management and archaeology. Today, Coleman is four months into the Presidential Management Fellows program, also known as the PMF—a competitive two-year program that helps match graduate students with federal opportunities.

The PMF class of 2022, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, had 1,100 finalists, the largest class of finalists in history out of roughly 8,000 applicants.

The program operates in a six-month rotation through different positions within the fellowship, and at the end, candidates have the chance to convert to working in a government agency.

Coleman’s current course is as a special uses administrator in U.S. Forest Service in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California.

He works with communication sites on land, like cell phone towers, utility lines, and water lines. There is also a recreational side where he works with recreational residents and different activities that might happen on the land, such as charity runs.

“There’s never a dull day in special uses,” Coleman said. “We get to do a lot of public engagement and talk with people about their proposals and how the public sees us administering their lands.”

Coleman said he is most interested in the rotation that will allow him to work in archaeology or heritage management.

His background is in heritage management, drawing on practices like cultural conservation, restoration, museology, archaeology, and history to protect cultural heritage.

Coleman is a Beechwood High School graduate who attended the University of Louisville, where he did an individualized major in anthropology and geoscience. He also attended the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where he got his master’s in Global

Change Ecology.

“I liked that it was an interdisciplinary program (in Germany) where I felt like I could learn a lot of different facets about global change, ecology, and climate change,” Coleman said.

He visited Germany following his college graduation, which also sparked his interest in studying there.

“I had traveled to Germany with my mother when I graduated high school,” Coleman said. “My family heritage is German. And my grandpa fought in World War ll in Germany, and he always talked about how much he loved the country despite the conditions that he was in.”

He then received another master’s from the University College Dublin in world her- itage management and conservation from the College of Archaeology and Anthropology. Coleman said he thought Ireland was a great place to learn archaeology because of its heritage sites.

He said these experiences helped him get into the PMF program. He was able to learn in other cultures, which made him more open to different ideas and perspectives on how to do things.

He also had to conduct his thesis in Germany at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A lot of the latter half of the program in Germany and the entire program in Ireland was during COVID-19,” Coleman said. “I conducted my thesis research in Germany, which was in person during COVID-19 restrictions. So, I think that made me very adaptable.”

Aside from his experiences, he said he also had to submit an application, letters of recommendation, resumes, transcripts, and take a personality quiz.

When the program ends, Coleman said he hopes to convert to a position that works with heritage management or archaeology, though he said he had yet to give much thought to where he wants to work.

“I’m really just looking into how much I can learn,” Coleman said. “How can I get better at my job? So, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I’m really just thinking about how I can improve myself and how I can help the forest.”