Service Technician Academy Program Manager

Assess the current state of the Academy: inventory existing certifications, content, OEM training, informal on-the-job training, and training infrastructure across Operating Groups and brands for each technology area; identify coverage gaps, rigor gaps, and scalability constraints honestly. The Service Technician Academy Program Manager owns the strategy, structure, and delivery of Flow Control Group's Service Technician Academy: the formal development program for field service and shop technicians, delivered through four technology academies: Air Compression, Pump, Valve, and Automation.

About Us:

Flow Control Group (FCG) is a leading provider of fluid handling, process, and industrial automation solutions across North America. We are a 100% employee-owned organization made up of over 3,000 team members and 115+ entrepreneurial brands, each empowered to think big, move fast, and bring innovative ideas to life.

At FCG, we believe in the power of partnership and entrepreneurship. We work collaboratively across our brands to drive growth, unlock new opportunities, and deliver real impact for our customers, combining local expertise with national strength.

Visit our Website: flowcontrolgroup.com

Job Description:

Role Overview

The Service Technician Academy Program Manager owns the strategy, structure, and delivery of Flow Control Group's Service Technician Academy: the formal development program for field service and shop technicians, delivered through four technology academies: Air Compression, Pump, Valve, and Automation. This role coordinates the internal facilitators who deliver the program, identifies and prepares new facilitators, and manages the logistics of training delivery. It works closely with the establishment of FCG's hands-on training lab in Houston, Texas, where in-person training is piloted, audited, and delivered. The role inherits a partially built program and starts with an honest assessment of what exists and what needs to be built. The output within the first 12 months is a credible, scalable, multi-level pathway in each technology academy, a ready bench of internal facilitators, a lab-based training model that is operating in Houston, and measurable readiness, retention, and service quality outcomes.

Position Overview

Field service technicians are FCG's most visible workforce. Their technical competence determines whether we work safely, retain service contracts, earn referrals, and deliver on the customer promise. As FCG grows its service business, technician capacity is becoming a constraint: experienced technicians are retiring, skilled trades talent is scarce, and much of what our best technicians know has never been written down.

The Service Technician Academy is how FCG builds technician talent deliberately rather than competing for it on the open market. It is organized into four technology academies (Air Compression, Pump, Valve, and Automation), each with its own technical content, certifications, and OEM relationships, and all sharing one set of standards, levels, and measures. Every technician is trained, assessed, and certified to perform safely and effectively before representing the company at a customer site, and has a visible path from apprentice to master technician and into lead or supervisory roles.

The Academy is taught by FCG's own experts. This role owns the facilitator model: finding experienced technicians and SMEs who can teach, preparing them to deliver content well, and coordinating the schedules, locations, equipment, and participants that make each session run. The Houston hands-on training lab is the center of in-person delivery, and this role is the Academy's primary partner in standing it up and the owner of how training is piloted, audited, and delivered there.

Key Responsibilities

Program Strategy & Governance

• Assess the current state of the Academy: inventory existing certifications, content, OEM training, informal on-the-job training, and training infrastructure across Operating Groups and brands for each technology area; identify coverage gaps, rigor gaps, and scalability constraints honestly
• Build the Academy operating model: enrollment criteria, completion standards, records management, and an escalation process for technicians not meeting competency requirements
• Define which standards are enterprise-wide and which are executed locally by Operating Groups and Technology Groups, so the Academy scales without removing brand-level ownership of service delivery
• Develop the annual Academy plan: cohort calendar by technology academy, capacity, locations, and investment priorities, and present it to the VP, Workforce Development and service operations leadership
• Build and maintain the business case for the Academy, including the relationship between structured training and technician turnover, time to productivity, and service quality

Technology Academies: Air Compression, Pump, Valve, and Automation

• Oversee four technology academies under one Academy framework, ensuring each has a defined audience, technical scope, curriculum map, hands-on requirements, and certification path
• Design a consistent multi-level pathway within each academy (new hire, certified service technician, journeyman, and master technician designations) with clear competency requirements, hands-on assessment gates, and defined advancement criteria
• Define what each level requires in each technology: what a technician must know, must be able to demonstrate, and must have performed in the field before advancing
• Partner with technology and service leaders in each area to set technical priorities, validate content, and confirm that academy standards reflect real field requirements
• Identify cross-training opportunities between academies (for example pump and valve, or automation across all three mechanical paths) so technicians can broaden their value to customers
• Build a structured onboarding and first 90 days experience that gets new technicians safe and productive faster, and a lead technician and supervisory on-ramp in partnership with the Leadership Academy Program Manager
• Publish the technician career pathway for each academy so technicians and managers can see progression criteria and next steps

Facilitator Identification, Readiness & Coordination

• Serve as the coordinator of all Academy facilitators across the four technology academies
• Identify internal technicians, service leaders, and SMEs with the technical depth and credibility to teach, in partnership with service leadership and Operating Group leaders
• Prepare facilitators to deliver: run train-the-trainer sessions, conduct facilitator certification or teach-backs before first delivery, and provide facilitator guides, lesson plans, and assessment tools
• Observe and coach facilitators during delivery; use participant feedback and assessment results to improve facilitation quality and address gaps
• Build facilitator capacity plans so each academy has enough ready facilitators, including backups, to meet the cohort calendar without over-relying on a few experts
• Partner with service leaders to secure facilitator time and establish recognition for technicians who teach

Training Delivery Logistics

• Manage the logistics of every Academy session: scheduling, facilitator assignments, participant enrollment, travel coordination, room and lab reservations, equipment and materials, and pre-work
• Coordinate delivery calendars across the four academies, service regions, and the Houston lab to balance participant availability with field service demands
• Maintain accurate attendance, completion, and assessment records in FCG University and the Academy tracking system
• Evaluate and implement regional, mobile, or virtual delivery options for content that does not require the Houston lab, so technicians in distant markets can progress without unnecessary travel

Houston Hands-On Training Lab

• Partner closely with facilities, operations, and technology leaders on the establishment of the Houston hands-on training lab, representing Academy requirements for layout, equipment, demonstration units, tools, and safety
• Define lab equipment and training station needs for each technology academy (air compression, pump, valve, and automation) based on curriculum and assessment requirements
• Pilot new in-person trainings in the lab before broader rollout, and refine content, timing, and hands-on exercises based on pilot results
• Audit and review in-person trainings on a regular cadence for technical accuracy, safety, facilitator quality, and participant outcomes
• Establish lab operating standards: scheduling, safety protocols, equipment maintenance, inventory, and readiness checks before each session
• Build the model for how the Houston lab can be replicated or supplemented regionally as the Academy scales

Certification & Compliance Management

• Own technician certification tracking across all four academies: internal Academy credentials, OEM factory authorizations, OSHA safety certifications, EPA requirements where applicable, and industry credentials (NCCER, ISA CCST, IFPS, or equivalent per technology)
• Maintain a certification dashboard, in partnership with HR Analytics, that tracks current certifications, upcoming expirations, and compliance gaps by technician, academy, region, Operating Group, and role
• Develop and enforce recertification schedules aligned with manufacturer requirements, regulatory mandates, and company policy

OEM, Supplier & Pipeline Partnerships

• Serve as the primary liaison to OEM and manufacturer training programs for each technology area: coordinate factory training, seat allocations, and supplier-led instruction, and integrate OEM content with FCG-specific context
• Partner with Talent Acquisition on technician sourcing and with technical schools and apprenticeship programs to create entry routes into each academy
• Evaluate and, where it adds value, register apprenticeship programs with the U.S. Department of Labor or state apprenticeship agencies

Knowledge Capture

• Identify senior technicians who hold critical, undocumented expertise in each technology area, and prioritize capture based on business continuity and customer impact
• Partner with the Instructional Designer to capture that expertise through structured interviews, recorded lab and field walkthroughs, and AI-assisted capture, then convert it into job aids, troubleshooting guides, and curriculum
• Assign content owners and maintenance cycles so captured knowledge stays accurate after experts move or retire

Workforce Readiness & Performance Analytics

• Track program measures by academy: enrollment, completion by level, time to readiness, placement, and 12- and 24-month retention of participants
• Track facilitator measures: number of ready facilitators per academy, delivery quality, and participant feedback
• Track service outcome measures: first-time fix rate, callback rate, safety incident frequency, and customer satisfaction, connecting training to field results
• Report Academy performance quarterly to the VP, Workforce Development and service operations leadership, feeding the quarterly workforce intelligence reviews and Talent Ascension cycle
• Identify high-potential technicians for advanced development, lead roles, facilitator roles, supervisory progression, and succession slates, and provide readiness evidence into Talent Review calibration

Qualifications

Required

• 5 to 8 years in technical training, workforce development, or field service operations in an industrial environment
• Direct background in at least one of the Academy technology areas (air compression, pumps, valves, or industrial automation) or a closely related industrial service trade, with the ability to work credibly across all four
• Experience managing a structured technical training or apprenticeship program, including multi-level certification tracking and compliance reporting
• Experience identifying, preparing, and coordinating internal instructors or SMEs, and running multiple cohorts, locations, and equipment needs on schedule
• Comfort with workforce data: able to track, analyze, and present certification status, completion trends, retention, and training ROI to service operations and HR leadership
• Ability to be based in Houston, TX, or to travel to Houston frequently

Preferred

• Active or lapsed trade certification or licensure (instrumentation technician, millwright, industrial mechanic, journeyman electrician, or equivalent)
• Experience helping design, launch, or operate a hands-on technical training center or lab
• Train-the-trainer or facilitation certification (ATD, CPTD, or comparable)
• Familiarity with NCCER, ISA (CCST), IFPS, or similar industrial credentialing frameworks
• Experience with OEM factory training programs for compressors, pumps, valves, or automation products
• Experience building or managing DOL-registered or state-registered apprenticeship programs

Core Competencies

• Technical credibility: Earns trust from experienced technicians in all four technologies through real trade knowledge and field vocabulary
• Facilitator developer: Spots the experts who can teach, prepares them to teach well, and builds a bench deep enough that the Academy does not depend on a few people
• Logistics mastery: Keeps many moving parts (cohorts, facilitators, lab time, equipment, travel) coordinated so every session starts ready and runs on schedule
• Safety orientation: Treats safety compliance and technical accuracy as the non-negotiable foundation of every training session and every lab activity
• Program builder: Steps into a partially constructed program, assesses what works, and builds a rigorous foundation that scales across four technologies and a distributed workforce

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Why Build a Career with Us?

 

Everyone’s an Owner of the Company Because every team member contributes to Flow Control Group’s success, employees share in that success through a broad-based ownership program available across our portfolio companies.

 

Competitive Benefits Enjoy a comprehensive benefits package that includes Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, competitive 401(k) matching, paid time off, holidays, parental leave, wellness resources, and employee referral programs.

 

The Climb Financial Program Your financial wellbeing matters. Through Flow Control Group’s Climb Financial Program, employees have access to tools and resources designed to support both immediate needs and long-term goals. Programs may include emergency assistance funds, earned wage access, financial coaching, low-cost loan options, retirement planning resources, and opportunities to build long-term wealth through employee ownership.

 

Training & Development FCG University is available to all employees, offering access to more than 80,000 learning courses to help you build new skills and advance your career.

 

Career Growth Opportunities With a growing network of brands across North America, Flow Control Group provides opportunities for advancement, cross-functional experience, mentorship, and professional development in a supportive environment where your contributions make an impact.

 

Equal Opportunity Employer Flow Control Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or any other legally protected status.