Head of Operations & Business Management

Making Life Better through devotion to our world-class employees and delivering innovative solutions for our customers. As a 100% employee-owned company for over 70 years, our experts bring integrity, accountability, and innovation to everything we do. Our culture fosters collaboration, growth, and shared success—creating meaningful work while building the networks that connect communities and power the future.

We are seeking a Permitting Operations Manager who is accountable for the overall strategy, execution, and performance of the Permitting function. This role leads end‑to‑end permitting operations across multiple projects and customers, ensuring permit packages are accurate, compliant, timely, and financially sound. The Manager owns departmental workflows, capacity planning, subcontractor strategy, quality controls, and performance outcomes while serving as a key partner to Engineering, Operations, Business Development, and customers. This position is responsible for building a scalable, data driven permitting organization that supports both current delivery and long-term growth objectives.

Own and lead the day‑to‑day and strategic execution of permitting operations, ensuring accurate, compliant permit packages are produced and submitted on time across all projects.
Establish, document, and enforce standardized workflows, quality controls, and production expectations for in‑house teams and subcontractors.
Ensure permitting milestones align with project schedules, customer SLAs, and contractual commitments.
Identify operational inefficiencies and implement process improvements that reduce cycle time, rework, and regulatory risk.
Leverage data, dashboards, and metrics to improve first‑pass approval rates, throughput, and overall department performance.
Maintain permitting processes and proactively address regulatory or compliance changes.
Own departmental resourcing and staffing strategies, including hiring, onboarding, and utilization of in‑house staff and subcontractors to align with workload demands and growth objectives.
Oversee department financial performance, supporting budgeting, tracking labor and subcontractor costs, improving margin performance through operational efficiencies, and ensuring work is executed within approved financial parameters.
Serve as a senior point of contact for key customers, providing transparent status updates, issue resolution, and escalation management.
Participate in regular client reviews, quality discussions, and performance governance forums.
Collaborate with Business Development to support proposals, including scope definition, resourcing strategies, schedules, and permitting risk assessments.
Conduct performance reviews, goal‑setting, and development planning aligned with departmental and company objectives.
Individuals in this role receive privileged access and are assigned specialized training at least once a year.
Perform other related duties assigned by management.

6+ years of progressive leadership experience in permitting operations across DOT, railroad, utilities, municipal, or similar environments.

• Bachelor’s or Associate degree in Engineering, Business, Communications, or related field preferred.
• 8+ years of management experience across diverse permitting processes preferred.
• Proven ability to lead managers, teams, and subcontractors in fast‑paced, high‑volume environments.
• Demonstrated success driving accountability, performance improvement, and change.
• Experience leveraging Power BI, Excel, or similar tools to monitor KPIs, capacity, quality, and financial performance.
• Strong leadership qualities to motivate, direct, and support survey crew members.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and project management software.
• Additional education or training in GIS, surveying technology, or related fields (preferred).
• Travel up to 20%