Terraform the desert. Why, fertile ground is valuable.
Use Enlisted National Guard Service people's 1 weekend a month to clear brush from forrested regions prone to forest fires.
Clearing the brush by means of bag, pulley system, and zip line; expresses the need for critical thinking and logistics to move brush to an extraction location. Solid field prep experience.
Move the brush from these regions and dump in desert locations where mountainous regions are present.
Create a "humidifier" on higher elevation to produce clouds of high density and moisture to drop onto the transplanted vegetation, and allow the sun and heat to decompose the material to create soil where there was none. (material needs to be compacted for efficiency and worked on the back end, government subsidized farms)