Vice President of System Planning & Distribution Engineering

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative/ SMECO; Hughesville (MD); On-site; USD 162,000 - 226,000; Full time

Job summary

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) seeks a Vice President of System Planning & Distribution Engineering to safeguard reliability, safety, and regulatory compliance across planning, protection, and interconnection activities. You will lead system studies, GIS modeling, and project coordination from concept through closeout, interfacing with engineering, right-of-way, and construction teams.

The role requires an ABET‑accredited BS in engineering, Maryland PE licensure (or reciprocity

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in engineering from ABET-accredited college/university (required).
• Maryland Professional Engineer license or reciprocity (required within 1 year).
• 15+ years in engineering for electric utility or consulting firm (required).
• Experience with transmission, station, distribution design, protection, and power systems software.

Responsibilities

• Direct system planning and distribution engineering to ensure reliability, capacity margins, and safety.
• Oversee protection, sectionalizing, system studies, and interconnections.
• Coordinate customer interconnections and project management from concept to closeout.
• Oversee GIS modeling, mapping, and data exports for system planning and outage systems.
• Ensure compliance with NERC, PJM, PSC, NEC, and other regulations.

Skills

Leadership

Project management

Communication

Team coordination

Problem solving

Education

ABET-accredited BS in Engineering

Maryland PE license or reciprocity

CEM certification desired

Tools

Power systems software

GIS software

Engineering design software

Job description

Job Type: FULL TIME/EMPLOYEE

Location: Hughesville, MD 20637

End Date: Until Filled

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) has an immediate opening for a Vice President of System Planning & Distribution Engineering. This position ensures the Cooperative's electric system is configured, engineered, constructed, and operated in a manner that maintains normal and contingency facility capacity margins, operational flexibility, system reliability, and safety while meeting customer-member, PJM, PSC, and NERC reliability expectations. The Vice President oversees distribution system protection and sectionalizing practices, system studies, software model development, and electric system interconnections. This position provides leadership for customer-member initiated commercial service projects from initial concept through project closeout, including customer interaction, project management, documentation, coordination of distribution design activities, right-of-way acquisition, material readiness, permitting, construction coordination, billing, and project closeout processes. This position directs the preparation of engineering and design capital improvement projects, develops circuit protection and sectionalizing directives, prepares project scope documentation, and serves as the subject matter expert (SME) liaison for engineering, right-of-way, and construction project coordination activities that enhance the Cooperative's electric system.

The Vice President is responsible for directing the development of Cooperative electric system studies and reports, including Construction Work Plans (CWP), Electric System Plans (ESP), system loss studies, power flow studies, short circuit studies, protective coordination studies, sectionalizing studies, outage contingency studies, and motor start/flicker studies.

The position manages the coordination, evaluation, and approval of customer generation interconnection requests in compliance with NERC, PJM, PSC interconnection regulations, IEEE Standards, the National Electrical Code (NEC), and the best practices in industry.

The Vice President also oversees GIS modeling, mapping, and geomatics functions to ensure accurate electric system maps, schematics, diagrams, land base information, physical structure locations, and data exports that support Cooperative business modeling, outage management systems, and construction processes.

This position directs investigations related to electric system disturbances, including line and station power flows, equipment application, inspection and installation, circuit performance and configuration, system fault current values, line conductor characteristics, and radio frequency interference (RFI) issues.

Additional responsibilities include overseeing Cooperative standards, materials, contract administration, joint-use activities, material reconciliation, workflow closeout processes, and directing the preparation, verification, analysis, summarization, and dissemination of system-related information and reports for government agencies, industry organizations, and utility partners. The position ensures system planning and construction activities comply with NERC and Maryland Public Service Commission guidelines, maintains required records, and participates in NERC audits.

This position requires a Bachelor of Science degree from an ABET accredited engineering college or university in an engineering discipline is required, with some business administration, computer, management services, power systems engineering, and technical writing courses preferred. Registration as a Professional Engineer in the State of Maryland is essential. Candidates with registrations from states maintaining reciprocity with Maryland must obtain Maryland Registration within one year of employment. AEE Energy Manager Certification (CEM) or advanced graduate degree is desired

The candidate must have fifteen or more years of increasingly responsible experience in the engineering, construction, or operations department of an electric utility or engineering consulting firm, with supervision preferred. Proven familiarity with electric utility transmission, station, and distribution facility design, planning, construction, operations, maintenance, specifications, power systems software, and accounting / administrative principles and practices are required.

The starting salary range for this position is $162,100 - $226,400. SMECO offers an excellent benefits program including a 401(k) 6% dollar for dollar match and an additional 3% non-elective company contribution.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

SMECO champions a culture where people are valued and employee experience is driven by innovation, collaboration, inclusion, safety, and trust.

We expect employees to be honest, trustworthy, and operate with integrity. Discrimination and all unlawful harassment (including sexual harassment) in employment is not tolerated. We encourage success based on our individual merits and abilities without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or employment status. We support and obey laws that prohibit discrimination everywhere we do business. We fully consider all qualified applicants including those with a criminal history.