Vice President of System Planning & Distribution Engineering

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Inc.; Maryland; Hybrid; USD 162,000 - 226,000; Full time

Job summary

Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Inc. seeks a Vice President of System Planning & Distribution Engineering to lead engineering, protection, studies, and interconnections, ensuring reliability, safety, and compliance with NERC, PJM, and state regulations.

The role requires a BS in engineering from an ABET-accredited program, Maryland PE licensure, and 15+ years in electric utility engineering or consulting, with strong leadership and project management capabilities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from an ABET-accredited college or university.
• Maryland Professional Engineer (PE) license required; reciprocity with other states must obtain Maryland registration within one year of employment.
• 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in engineering, construction, or operations within electric utility or engineering consulting.
• Familiarity with electric utility transmission, station, and distribution design, planning, construction, operations, maintenance, and related software.

Responsibilities

• Direct system planning and distribution engineering to maintain reliability, capacity margins, and safety.
• Oversee system studies, protection, sectionalizing directives, interconnections, and software model development.
• Lead customer-driven project coordination from concept through closeout, including ROW, permitting, construction, and billing processes.
• Ensure compliance with NERC, PJM, PSC regulations, NEC, and Maryland PSC guidelines; prepare and maintain required records and reports.
• Serve as SME liaison for engineering, ROW, and construction coordination and support government agency and partner reporting.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Project management

Electrical utility knowledge

Education

ABET-accredited engineering degree

Maryland Professional Engineer (PE) license

AEE Energy Manager Certification (CEM) desired

Tools

Power systems software

Job description

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.

Notice of Equal Opportunity Employment

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.