Fire Alarm & Life Safety Manager
Position Summary
Our Client is seeking an experienced Fire Alarm & Life Safety Manager to lead the operational, technical, and financial performance of our fire alarm and life-safety department.
This position is responsible for fire alarm, Emergency Responder Radio Communication Systems (ERRCS/BDA), Area of Refuge (AoR), and other life-safety systems provided by Beacon. The manager will oversee departmental financials, estimating, project execution, service, inspections, technical compliance, customer satisfaction, and personnel development.
The ideal candidate combines strong technical knowledge with the financial and operational discipline required to build a safe, profitable, and growing life-safety business.
Key Responsibilities
Department Leadership
- Lead the daily operations of fire alarm and life-safety department.
- Establish departmental goals, priorities, staffing plans, and operating procedures.
- Coordinate resources across sales, estimating, project management, service, inspection, and field operations.
- Recruit, train, mentor, and develop technicians, programmers, inspectors, estimators, and project personnel.
- Maintain a culture centered on safety, accountability, technical excellence, urgency, and customer service.
- Identify opportunities to expand Beacon's fire alarm and life-safety capabilities throughout Middle Tennessee.
Financial Performance
- Assume responsibility for the department's financial performance, including revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, backlog, cash flow, and profitability.
- Develop annual departmental budgets, forecasts, revenue goals, gross-margin targets, and staffing plans.
- Review job-cost performance, labor productivity, material costs, committed costs, billing status, and projected cost at completion.
- Participate in monthly financial and work-in-progress reviews with executive leadership.
- Maintain accurate revenue and margin forecasts based on backlog, project schedules, service demand, and available resources.
- Monitor labor utilization, overtime, rework, warranty costs, and other drivers of departmental profitability.
- Ensure project managers and field leaders understand job budgets, labor allowances, purchasing requirements, and financial expectations.
- Identify financial risks early and implement corrective actions.
- Support timely and accurate billing, change-order management, collections, and project closeout.
- Establish and maintain appropriate pricing, labor rates, margin standards, and service-rate structures.
- Grow recurring revenue through inspections, testing, monitoring, preventive maintenance, and service agreements.
- Evaluate investments in personnel, training, equipment, inventory, software, and manufacturer partnerships based on expected financial and operational returns.
Fire Alarm Systems
- Provide technical oversight for fire alarm design, installation, programming, testing, inspection, service, and system modernization.
- Review drawings, specifications, code requirements, sequences of operation, battery calculations, voltage-drop calculations, and product selections.
- Support system programming, commissioning, troubleshooting, and final acceptance when required.
- Coordinate fire alarm interfaces with sprinkler systems, elevators, smoke control, HVAC, access control, emergency power, and other building systems.
- Ensure systems comply with NFPA 72, applicable building and fire codes, local amendments, contract documents, and manufacturer requirements.
- Maintain strong working relationships with Authorities Having Jurisdiction, engineers, contractors, manufacturers, and end users.
- Lead inspection preparation and assist with resolving deficiencies, code questions, or system-performance issues.
- Provide technical leadership for Notifier systems; direct Notifier experience is strongly preferred.
ERRCS/BDA and Area of Refuge Systems
- Oversee the estimating, design coordination, installation, commissioning, testing, inspection, and maintenance of ERRCS/BDA systems.
- Review RF surveys, heat maps, donor antenna placement, distributed antenna systems, pathway survivability, grounding, monitoring, annunciation, and testing requirements.
- Coordinate with RF designers, engineers, manufacturers, commissioning providers, public-safety radio representatives, and Authorities Having Jurisdiction.
- Ensure ERRCS/BDA work complies with NFPA 72, NFPA 1225, IFC, local amendments, FCC requirements, and jurisdiction-specific public-safety radio standards.
- Manage permitting, acceptance testing, documentation, annual inspection, and recertification requirements.
- Oversee Area of Refuge systems, including design coordination, installation, testing, signage, monitoring, system interfaces, and ongoing service.
Other Life-Safety Systems
Provide leadership and operational oversight for additional life-safety systems within Beacon's capabilities, which may include:
- Emergency communication and mass-notification systems.
- Voice evacuation systems.
- Firefighter telephone systems.
- Elevator emergency communication systems.
- Emergency and code-required two-way communication systems.
- Detection systems for smoke, heat, carbon monoxide, and other hazards.
- Fire alarm monitoring and cellular communication pathways.
- Fire extinguisher inspection and related compliance services.
- Integrated life-safety system testing.
- Other code-required communication, notification, detection, and monitoring systems.
The manager will evaluate new life-safety offerings and determine the training, licensing, staffing, manufacturer relationships, financial investment, and operational processes required to deliver them successfully.
Estimating and Preconstruction
- Support or oversee estimating, scope development, takeoffs, labor planning, equipment selection, and proposal review.
- Confirm that estimates include appropriate labor, material, programming, testing, permitting, inspection, documentation, and project-management requirements.
- Review major opportunities for scope completeness, technical compliance, commercial risk, and margin.
- Identify exclusions, assumptions, alternates, subcontracted work, and customer responsibilities.
- Support sales personnel during customer meetings, design discussions, and technical presentations.
- Maintain consistency between estimated scope, sold scope, project handoff, and field execution.
Project and Service Management
- Review project handoffs, submittals, schedules, procurement plans, labor budgets, and closeout requirements.
- Monitor project progress, schedule performance, labor usage, financial results, and customer communication.
- Ensure changes in scope are documented, priced, authorized, and billed.
- Provide leadership for escalated service issues, system outages, inspection deficiencies, and customer concerns.
- Ensure service requests and deficiencies are addressed promptly and communicated clearly.
- Build predictable inspection, preventive-maintenance, monitoring, and service-agreement programs.
- Ensure complete project records, including permits, test reports, inspection records, as-built drawings, programming files, warranties, and closeout documents.
Quality, Safety, and Compliance
- Ensure all work meets standards, contract requirements, manufacturer requirements, and applicable codes.
- Maintain required company and employee licenses, manufacturer certifications, continuing education, and training records.
- Conduct or assign field quality reviews and verify that deficiencies are corrected promptly.
- Establish consistent standards for installation, labeling, programming, testing, commissioning, inspection, and documentation.
- Reduce callbacks, rework, warranty costs, failed inspections, and preventable system issues.
- Promote safe work practices and ensure compliance with customer safety requirements.
Required Qualifications
- NICET Level III certification in Fire Alarm Systems.
- At least seven years of progressive fire alarm or life-safety industry experience.
- Demonstrated experience leading technicians, projects, or a fire alarm and life-safety department.
- Experience managing departmental or project-level financial performance.
- Strong working knowledge of NFPA 72 and applicable fire, building, and life-safety codes.
- Experience with system design review, programming, commissioning, testing, inspection, service, and troubleshooting.
- Ability to interpret construction drawings, specifications, riser diagrams, sequences of operation, and technical documentation.
- Understanding of budgeting, forecasting, job costing, gross margin, labor productivity, change management, and work-in-progress reporting.
- Strong leadership, organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to communicate effectively with customers, employees, engineers, contractors, manufacturers, inspectors, and Authorities Having Jurisdiction.
- Valid driver's license and ability to travel throughout Middle Tennessee as required.
Preferred Qualifications
- Notifier factory training, certification, programming, or commissioning experience.
- Experience with Client CLSS and connected life-safety technologies.
- Experience with ERRCS/BDA systems, including RF surveys, design coordination, commissioning, testing, and annual inspections.
- Experience with Client Fiplex or comparable ERRCS/BDA platforms.
- Experience with Area of Refuge and other emergency communication systems.
- NICET Level IV certification or demonstrated progress toward Level IV.
- Familiarity with Tennessee licensing requirements and Middle Tennessee jurisdictions.
- Experience developing recurring inspection, monitoring, maintenance, and service revenue.
- Experience managing a departmental budget or profit-and-loss statement.
Success Measures
Success in this position will be measured by:
- Achievement of departmental revenue, gross-margin, operating-income, and cash-flow goals.
- Accurate financial forecasting and proactive management of financial risks.
- Safe, code-compliant, and high-quality installations.
- Successful system commissioning and first-pass inspections.
- Effective labor planning, productivity, and field utilization.
- Timely project completion, billing, and closeout.
- Reduction of rework, warranty costs, failed inspections, and preventable service issues.
- Growth in inspections, monitoring, preventive maintenance, and recurring service revenue.
- Development and retention of qualified fire alarm and life-safety personnel.
- Strong customer relationships and timely resolution of customer concerns.