Assistant Vice President, Project Manager (Mission Critical/Data Centers)

This Opportunity

Great people. Great places. Great projects. kW Mission Critical Engineering, a WSP company, is a high-performance, fast-paced consulting engineering firm designing data centers and mission critical environments across the globe. We hire smart, responsive, team players to work in collaborative and mentoring office settings. Our mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, controls, telecommunications, and security building system designs keep many of the world’s top Fortune 100 financial, technology, enterprise, hyperscale, and colocation companies up and running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  

We work on innovative, award-winning, large-scale projects. We travel to construction sites to see our designs being built. As part of WSP, we are able to offer our employees increased professional development and career opportunities in addition to kW MCE’s office culture which is consistently recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work.”  Join our great people at our great places designing great projects. 

kW Mission Critical Engineering, a WSP company, is currently looking for an Assistant Vice President, Project Manager for our Milwaukee, WI office. In this role, you will lead a diverse group of engineers from project initiation through completion with minimal oversight. This includes regular communications and coordination with clients, managing expectations, writing, and managing proposals, creating change orders, composing budgets, invoicing and project closeout.  

Your Impact

• Lead multi-disciplinary teams of Engineers, Designers and other staff through completion of multiple simultaneous projects ranging from small to large with a wide range of complexities and requirements
• Independently prepare project work plans, proposals, and schedules, and obtain management/client approval  
• Lead and initiate regular communications with clients regarding project status and project quality, and proactively resolve issues
• Manage relationships with project stakeholders, including internal and external clients and vendors, regulatory authorities and technical agencies, and the public. This involves keeping the stakeholders informed of progress and issues in order to manage expectations on all project requirements and deliverables, and meet the project schedule
• Address change management matters promptly and professionally with clients and internal departments
• Maintain awareness of project budget maintenance, key performance indicators and forecasting
• Lead and manage business development initiatives including Requests for Qualifications and Requests for Proposals
• Compile a comprehensive and realistic scope of work, and prepare a complete and accurate fee estimate, in a format suitable for obtaining the required management approvals
• As Team Leader, provide mentoring, assistance, encouragement and motivation to team members and junior Project Managers
• Provide strong administrative and technical leadership for the project and maintain all project records and monitor correspondence  
• Schedule and facilitate all project meetings required to successfully coordinate work activity  
• Administer subconsultant agreements as assigned. Have thorough knowledge of the company's contracts and understanding of all parties involved.  
• Implement and manage the kW Quality Control Plan for each project  
• Proactively track and report workload management throughout the project  
• Manage client and subconsultant invoicing 

Who You Are

The ideal candidate has experience managing multiple projects simultaneously in an engineering consulting environment. Candidate thrives in an extremely fast-paced and ever-changing environment requiring flexibility, pivoting, and an open-minded approach and has experience working in a client-facing role requiring extensive communication and knowledge of costing, budgets, and scheduling and/or resourcing. 

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree  
• 10+ years of experience in Project and/or Program Management and experience on large, engineering and/or construction projects
• Experience leading multi-disciplinary teams of project professionals; concurrently managing issues, scope and quality while bringing projects to successful completion within the cost and time requirements
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, including experience making presentations to senior management  
• Exceptional interpersonal skills
• Ability to work well with people from many different disciplines with varying degrees of technical experience
• Clear, concise, and tactful communication with senior management, clients, peers and staff
• Strategic, conceptual analytical thinking and decision-making skills  
• Adaptability and flexibility including the ability to manage deadline pressure, ambiguity and change  
• Experience negotiating contract terms
• Proficiency with computer office productivity (i.e., MS Office) and project management software tools  
• Detail oriented with ability to manage multiple priorities and meet deadlines  
• Familiarity reading drawings and specifications  

Preferred Qualifications

• Project or Program Management Professional certification (i.e., PMP)
• Experience in an engineering consulting environment  
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, construction management, project management
• Experience in project planning, cost management and schedule management, and methods of analyzing and reporting project performance on financial and other KPIs  

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