Vice President, Projects & Dam Safety

Job Description

Job Description

The Opportunity: 
Hydropower is the backbone of clean, reliable, dispatchable electricity in this country, and our fleet is one of its largest privately held platforms. We are deploying significant capital, modernizing critical infrastructure, and bringing new thinking to an industry that has not meaningfully changed how it works in decades. We are growing quickly, and the scale and complexity of our projects are growing with us.

This role exists because we refuse to accept that large infrastructure must move slowly, cost more than it should, or be run the way it has always been run. We need a leader who can deploy hundreds of millions of dollars of capital safely and faster than the industry believes is possible, hold an uncompromising line on safety, and build a team that reasons from first principles rather than from precedent.

If you are looking for a comfortable seat managing a steady-state portfolio, this is not it. This job is for those who want to build something hard, meaningful, and lasting. The problems are difficult, the pace is fast, the hours are long, and the financial and human stakes are high

Position Summary:
The Vice President of Major Projects & Dam Safety is an executive reporting directly to the CEO, accountable for two of the most consequential organizations in the company: the Projects / capital delivery organization and the Civil Engineering & Dam Safety organization.
You will own the safe, efficient, and rapid execution of the company’s capital program while serving as the executive ultimately accountable for the integrity of our dams and civil infrastructure. You will set strategy, deploy capital, drive execution, develop talent, and act as a principal advisor to the CEO and other executive leaders on infrastructure, risk, and growth.

This is a role for someone who can hold two ideas at once: move with velocity, and refuse to compromise on safety.

 

Responsibilities:

 

Strategic Leadership & Capital Deployment

• Own the company’s large-scale capital deployment, accountable for the outcomes, not just the process.
• Develop and execute long-term strategy for capital improvements, dam safety, civil asset management, and project delivery as the platform scales.
• Build a culture of first-principles thinking, extreme ownership, technical excellence, and continuous improvement where inherited assumptions about cost, schedule, and process are continuously challenged.
• Be a creator and driver of new tools, data, and technology across project management, civil engineering, and dam safety.
• Serve as a principal advisor to the CEO and executive team on infrastructure investment, risk, and capital planning.

Major Projects & Capital Delivery

• Provide executive leadership to the project organization delivering capital projects, major maintenance, and strategic initiatives across the fleet.
• Deliver projects safely, faster, and at lower installed cost than the industry norm through new technology, less dumb requirements, removing process friction and indecision but never by cutting quality or safety corners.
• Own portfolio prioritization, capital forecasting, resource planning, and project governance, and set consistent, high standards for execution methodology, controls, contracting, and risk management.
• Make sound decisions quickly with incomplete and uncertain information and create an environment where the team can do the same with confidence.
• Hold engineering consultants, contractors, and major vendors to clear, demanding performance expectations.
• Ensure lessons learned move rapidly back into how we deliver the next project.

Dam Safety & Civil Engineering

• Serve as the executive accountable for the company’s dam safety program and civil engineering activities across the hydroelectric fleet.
• Ensure full compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local dam safety regulations and industry standards, including FERC and state dam safety agencies.
• Oversee dam safety surveillance, inspections, Potential Failure Mode Analyses, instrumentation programs, Emergency Action Planning, risk assessments, and remediation initiatives.
• Hold an uncompromising standard on safety margins and factors of safety.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Present to Board of Directors, executive leaders, the company on strategy, status, and trajectory of programs.
• Partner closely with other executive leaders to prioritize investments that improve reliability, availability, productivity, and risk reduction.
• Coordinate with Regulatory and Legal teams on permitting, compliance obligations, and regulatory commitments.
• Partner with Finance on capital budgeting, forecasting, and financial performance management.

Building & Leading the Team

• Recruit, develop, and retain a highly accountable, high-performing technical and project organization.
• Set clear, demanding expectations and hold people accountable to them, while giving them the ownership to move with velocity.
• Build succession depth and organizational capability for a company that will be materially larger in a few years.
• Lead geographically dispersed teams.

How We Work:

 

These are the operating principles you will be expected to exude and instill in the team:

• First principles over precedent. “That’s how it’s always been done” is not a reason. We reason up from physics, cost, and fundamentals, not from precedent.
• Speed is the critical feature. We must compress timelines by eliminating waste, rework, and indecision, not by lowering standards.
• Safety is sacred. The safety of our employees, contractors, and public is paramount. We move fast everywhere else, precisely so we can be patient and exhaustive where it matters most.
• Extreme ownership. You own the outcome. Including the parts that were not your fault. Ultimate performance is what you will be measured against, not circumstance.
• Make the requirements less dumb. Every requirement, specification, and process is questioned and justified.
• Build the bench. The clearest signal of a strong leader here is the strength of the team they build.

Qualifications:

 

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related science discipline required; advanced degree and/or professional engineering licensure (PE) valued.

Experience

• 8+ years in a relevant, capital-intensive industry (utility / power, infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing, aerospace, defense, automotive, or heavy industrial).
• 5+ years leading multidisciplinary technical and project teams.
• Track record managing large capital portfolios and complex infrastructure projects.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through organizational complexity at speed, balancing technical, financial, operational, and regulatory demands.
• Infrastructure leadership experience is strongly preferred. An exceptional leader from an adjacent, safety-critical, high-stakes field will also be seriously considered.

Mindset

• Tenacious. You are driven by hard, meaningful problems, not by titles or comfort. This role demands long hours and intensity, this is part of building something that matters. Extraordinary results require extraordinary effort. 
• Curious. You learn a domain fast and reason from fundamentals. You ask why before you accept how.
• Agile. The world is changing faster today than it was yesterday, and it will change faster tomorrow.  Comfort with rapid change and priority shifts is critical.
• Optimistic. Facing tough challenges with optimism and bias towards action is critical.

Work Environment

• A mix of office and field environments across hydroelectric generation facilities and active construction sites.
• Regular travel to plant sites, projects, and meetings.
• Participation in emergency response activities for dam safety or major operational events as required.

The Impact

This role is central to the company’s growth and to the long-term safety, reliability, compliance, and sustainability of our hydroelectric fleet. Done well, the leader in this seat will help bring online enough clean, renewable generation to offset their own lifetime carbon footprint many times over and move the grid measurably toward a cleaner, more reliable

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