Lead Program Manager - Electric Grid & Substation Projects

Burns & McDonnell; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 145,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

ESOP

401(k) plan

Job summary

Burns & McDonnell in Columbus, OH seeks an experienced Project Manager for our program management track to lead cross-functional teams on substation, transmission, and telecom projects from inception to closeout. You will oversee 5-20 projects, manage schedules and budgets, and coordinate with clients and vendors to ensure on-time, on-budget delivery.

The role requires a bachelor’s in engineering or related field, 7+ years’ experience, and strong communication skills. Travel 15–25% is expected.

Qualifications

• Bachelor Degree in engineering, construction management or related degree from accredited program required.
• Minimum of seven years of experience in engineering design, project management or a relevant role required.
• Completion of P.E., PMP, MBA or comparable advanced degree strongly preferred.
• Excellent facilitation, collaboration, organization, and problem solving skills.
• Ability to thoughtfully and positively influence, lead and manage.
• Strong planning and analytical skills.
• E.I.T. or PE license strongly preferred.
• Must demonstrate superb oral and written communication skills, strong interpersonal skills, and the ability to clearly and effectively present complex information to all levels of employees, management, and clients.
• Demonstrated success in project management which includes proposal development, contract negotiations, project planning, team leadership, budgeting, schedule management, and client coordination.
• Proven ability to develop business and establish relationships with clients.

Responsibilities

• Lead a cross-functional team to execute substation, transmission line, and telecommunication projects from inception through design and construction to closeout.
• Oversee 5-20 projects concurrently of varying sizes ($100k-$50M) and voltages (4kV-765kV).
• Manage projects for schedule adherence identifying risks and requirements to successfully achieve a project’s in-service date.
• Navigate projects through client gate approval processes including presentations to senior and executive management as required by each client.
• Manage projects for financial adherence maintaining an accurate cost forecast reflecting committed and uncommitted costs for an estimate-at-completion.
• Coordinate craft labor resources with client approved vendors for construction, testing and other field activities.
• Provide regular status updates on projects by maintaining project data and routine reporting as well as meeting updates for clients.
• Lead project meetings with cost, schedule, real estate, environmental, construction and engineering resources to facilitate project execution.
• Develop a multi-year capital expenditure plan to support client’s replacement and betterment of electric transmission and distribution assets.
• Regular interface and coordination with project sponsor organizations to determine details of proposed plans and business justification.
• Ensure synergies across projects are incorporated into the portfolio of work to prevent scope from being duplicated or performed inefficiently.
• Monitor composition of client’s capital investment allocation to align with stated subsidiary investment targets for optimal rate of return.
• Engage with project sponsors to evaluate need-by date for realistic schedules and budgets.
• Assist with creation and compilation of rate filing support for federal and state filings.
• Review tabletop engineering estimates for accuracy and scope.
• Review project change requests (scope, In-service date, etc.) and reconcile with the existing and long-range portfolio of work.
• Interface with client’s accounting group to establish financial setup for projects.
• Create analyses & reports to assist the client in tracking, coordination, and execution of projects.
• Build baseline scopes, schedules, and budgets to be released to multiple client’s stakeholders.
• Responsible for development of substation and transmission project construction lifecycles with focus on outage efficiency and constructability.
• Manage multiple projects simultaneously while meeting specified deliverable dates and expectations.
• Analyze scoping and project documents to determine boundaries of required construction within substation and within electric grid.
• Conduct site walkdowns and project calls with project team as necessary to establish an achievable construction sequence with attainable outages.
• Analyze needed outages against adjacent outages scheduled in the area.
• Create initial outage sequence to communicate proposed construction lifecycle to project team.
• Coordinate with drafting resources to create engineering-caliber drawings that document the evolution of a project from present conditions to final state, and all needed incremental steps.

Job description

Burns & McDonnell in Columbus, OH seeks an experienced Project Manager for our program management track to lead cross-functional teams on substation, transmission, and telecom projects from inception to closeout. You will oversee 5-20 projects, manage schedules and budgets, and coordinate with clients and vendors to ensure on-time, on-budget delivery.

The role requires a bachelor’s in engineering or related field, 7+ years’ experience, and strong communication skills. Travel 15–25% is expected.