Director of Network Operations

Founded in 1986, St. Charles Community College (SCC) has a reputation as one of the best two-year colleges in the state of Missouri. SCC's service area includes a six-county region with a population exceeding 540,000. SCC's main campus, located in Cottleville, has won architectural awards for its innovative, contemporary design. The college's Dardenne Creek Campus features the Center for Healthy Living and the Field to Table Institute. Opening Fall 2025, the Innovation West Campus located in Wentzville features the Regional Workforce Innovation Center. With a focus on innovation, St. Charles Community College is a leader in delivering high-quality education in a state-of-the-art learning environment. The success of SCC is rooted in the mission of serving the community by "focusing on academic excellence, student success, workforce advancement, and life-long learning within a global society."

POSITION SUMMARY

The Director of Network Operations provides strategic and operational leadership for the institution's server and network infrastructure. This position oversees the administration, security, performance, availability, and lifecycle management of servers, networks, storage, identity services, backup systems, and related technologies. The Director develops and executes infrastructure strategies that align with the College's mission and technology roadmap while ensuring reliable, secure, and scalable technology services. The position serves as a strategic advisor to executive leadership on infrastructure investments, operational risk, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and emerging technologies. This position leads technical staff, establishes infrastructure standards and operating procedures, coordinates system implementations and upgrades, manages vendors and technology resources, and ensures the reliability, scalability, resilience, and continuity of critical technology services in support of institutional operations and priorities.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Direct the administration, maintenance, security, performance, and availability of network, server, storage, identity, backup, and related infrastructure services.
• Lead, supervise, develop, coach, mentor, and evaluate infrastructure staff through performance management, employee development, succession planning, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Establish and maintain infrastructure standards, operating procedures, service expectations, and technical documentation.
• Develop operational performance metrics, establish service-level expectations, monitor key performance indicators, and continuously improve infrastructure services.
• Monitor infrastructure capacity, reliability, and performance, and recommend improvements to support institutional needs.
• Oversee infrastructure installations, configurations, upgrades, migrations, maintenance, patching, and lifecycle replacement activities.
• Ensure effective backup, recovery, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities for critical infrastructure services.
• Coordinate infrastructure security, vulnerability remediation, access controls, system hardening, and incident response activities with executive leadership.
• Develop, implement, and maintain infrastructure governance, operational standards, security policies, and technology procedures consistent with institutional and regulatory requirements.
• Manage service disruptions, technical escalations, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions.
• Coordinate infrastructure projects and manage vendor relationships, contracts, licensing, maintenance agreements, and service-level expectations.
• Develop recommendations for infrastructure operating and capital budgets; participate in long-range technology planning, infrastructure roadmaps, lifecycle replacement strategies, and capital improvement planning.
• Provide operational updates and risk assessments, support after-hours maintenance and emergency response as needed, and perform other duties in support of institutional priorities.
• Serve as an escalation leader for complex infrastructure, network, endpoint, and security incidents; coordinate troubleshooting, root cause analysis, communication, remediation, and post-incident improvement activities.
• Evaluate current and emerging infrastructure technologies, including cloud services, automation, monitoring tools, AI-enabled productivity or operations tools, and security platforms and make recommendations in line with the College's needs and requirements.
• Comply with College policies and applicable legal and regulatory requirements pertaining to data privacy, security, records retention, and acceptable-use procedures.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND ABILITIES

• Strong knowledge of network, server, storage, identity, backup, virtualization, and related infrastructure technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and manage technical teams responsible for network operations, systems administration, and infrastructure support.
• Experience planning and overseeing infrastructure installations, upgrades, migrations, maintenance, lifecycle replacement, and capacity improvements.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure security, access controls, vulnerability remediation, system hardening, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
• Ability to manage complex technical incidents, evaluate risks, identify root causes, and implement effective corrective actions.
• Strong vendor-management, budgeting, project-management, organizational, and strategic-planning skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to explain technical information clearly to leadership, staff, vendors, and nontechnical stakeholders.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor's degree in information technology, computer science, management information systems, cybersecurity, or a related field.
• Minimum of five years of experience administering and supporting network, server, cloud, storage, identity, virtualization, backup, and related infrastructure technologies.
• Minimum of two years of supervisory or leadership experience directing technical staff, infrastructure operations, projects, vendors, or operational priorities.
• Experience managing infrastructure implementations, upgrades, migrations, security improvements, disaster recovery, and lifecycle replacement initiatives.
• Relevant professional certifications, such as Microsoft Azure Administrator, Cisco CCNA or CCNP, CISSP, CISM, or comparable infrastructure, cloud, networking, or cybersecurity certifications are preferred.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Network Administrators
• System Administrators
• Infrastructure Cable Technician