Project Manager,Sr

The Southwest Environmental Finance Center (Southwest EFC) is searching for up to two Sr Project Managers to join our team. The Southwest EFC manages a diverse and growing portfolio of projects that span multiple funding sources, geographic regions, and technical focus areas, including continuing education for water and wastewater operators, technical assistance and capacity development for rural, small and tribal communities, financial development, and emerging contaminants. This position is intended to support our Center Director and Project Directors by providing dedicated management of sub-tasks and integrated activities that span multiple projects and funding sources. The position does not include formal supervisory responsibility but will require coordination and communication across all staff members in the group (currently 23 staff). This position is project specific, and grant funded, but our intention is to renew staff term contracts annually pending continued funding and satisfactory performance.

Position duties will be organized around shared focus areas. With this ad we are seeking candidates to support two focus areas: technical assistance (TA) delivery and programmatic data management.

• Our vision for the TA delivery focus area includes serving as the single point of contact for incoming TA requests (which are received from a variety of sources), working with project directors to assign TA requests to the most appropriate project and technical staff to complete the work, tracking the progress, and following up with technical staff and sponsors as needed.
• Our vision for the programmatic data management focus area is to enhance and expand our deliverable tracking using the project management software Smartsheet. This involves working with SW EFC staff as well as staff at up to 12 partner organizations completing deliverables on multiple awards across the country.

This role will ensure consistency, efficiency, and alignment in how staff effort is allocated and services delivered as well as ensure that we manage increasing deliverable counts in a coordinated and high-quality manner. Both focus areas will require use of Smartsheet for project management, for that reason, a baseline familiarity with Smartsheet is a requirement.

We expect the effort required for focus area support to vary, and there will almost certainly be times that it will not be a full-time workload. Therefore, the chosen candidate will also be responsible for supporting Southwest EFC deliverables in an area of their expertise. Our deliverables include providing training and technical assistance (both of which span financial, technical, and managerial topics) as well as developing educational materials such as blogs, podcasts, and educational videos.

The final primary job duty will be to support Project Directors with sponsor required progress reporting, which requires gathering data from multiple sources, following up with project partners to ensure their reporting is up to date, and writing a first draft of the report. Progress reports are required to be submitted quarterly, and we currently have 10 multi-million-dollar awards with 1-12 subrecipients on each.

Ideal candidates will have experience keeping track of and organizing large sets of information being delivered from multiple sources, establishing timelines and goals based on a defined scope of work, and moving work forward. Previous experience with project management, federal regulations (particularly EPA), progress reporting, or financial experience within a higher education environment is highly desirable.

The Southwest EFC was created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) in 1992 to serve the states within EPA Region 6 (including NM, TX, AR, OK and LA). Since then, the Southwest EFC has greatly expanded its work to serve the entire country, including the five U.S. territories. While a background in environmental science or water resources is not needed to succeed in this position, an interest in learning is an important factor in growing into a successful contributor to our group. Understanding the work we do, and why it is important, will help the selected candidate identify areas where we can improve our processes and best support the continued success of our group.

Position Duties:

• Manage and lead the day-to-day operations of a large, multi-project priority area within the SW EFC (TA management or programmatic data management). Includes facilitating questions from subawardees in the assigned priority area.
• Provides expertise in one of the following areas to support SW EFC deliverables in supporting communities across the US: Financial, Technical, Managerial, or other areas that meet business needs. Please see our website for a list of services we offer, new topics that meet business needs are always considered.
• Progress reporting: Pull reportable data for assigned priority area from multiple sources for multiple projects and write first draft of report to support program managers with project reporting requirements (quarterly and final). The report content must meet EPA requirements. Strong writing skills are required.
• Support Smartsheet buildout, data entry, and improvements for current and future projects.
• Collaborate with a broad range of stakeholders, including project partners from subrecipient institutions, utility personnel (operators, managers, board members), community organizations, and local, tribal, state, and federal agencies, to ensure that deliverables are advanced in alignment with the project plan.
• Gathers facts, researches issues, analyzes potential solutions, compares alternatives in terms of cost, time, and availability of resources, and recommends a course of action.
• Evaluates projects for conformance to established goals and objectives.
• Perform miscellaneous job-related duties as assigned.