Program Manager - ref. j66429203
- Location: Richmond, California
- Program: Clean Water
- Type: Full-time
- Experience Level: Senior
- Position Type: Permanent
- Salary: $120,600-$175,875
- Posted: February 2, 2025
- First review of applications: Feb 23, 2025
- Application closing date: position open until filled
The San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) is seeking a Program Manager (PM) to co-lead a Nutrient Management Strategy as part of our Clean Water Program.
This work has major implications for nutrient management in the Bay. It will influence the region’s 37 wastewater treatment agencies in both the immediate and extended future, and will directly inform multi-billion-dollar investments in wastewater treatment.
The primary role will be to provide co-management oversight for a team investigating nutrient biogeochemistry, ecosystem function, and water quality in San Francisco Bay (SFB) as part of the SFB Nutrient Management Strategy (NMS). The NMS science program, based at SFEI, is a multi-year science program studying the impacts of nutrient loads to SFB and evaluating potential management options.The NMS is a collaborative initiative comprised of stakeholders representing regulators and the regulated community. It operates under a chartered governance structure to set NMS science priorities.
This team, comprised of SFEI staff and regional collaborators, pursues NMS research priorities through a range of approaches, including long-term monitoring (ship-based and moored sensors), targeted field studies, data analysis and synthesis, and numerical modeling.Key NMS stakeholders include the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board), which is the regulatory agency responsible for water quality management in the region, and the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (BACWA), a joint powers agency whose members are the municipal wastewater agencies in the region, as well as the US EPA, S.F. Baykeeper, and other state and federal agencies.
The Program Manager is responsible for overall NMS program management (75%), and provides management support for ongoing and new science projects (25%). The PM will work closely with the Lead Scientist of the NMS who directs the program’s scientific research program.
The PM will have the primary role in managing the overall operations—including the budget, schedule, and quality management. The duties, detailed on the follow pages, include:
- Stakeholder engagement and program development;
- Integrating stakeholder input into multi-year science planning;
- Strategic planning;
- Budget development and tracking of all deliverables to ensure they are completed on schedule;
- Reporting to Regional Water Board, BACWA, and other entities.
Typical duties will include:
Program Oversight and Management- Developing and implementing program and project tracking systems so deliverables are produced on time and on budget.
- Supervising senior science staff, leading and motivating project team members, facilitating team meetings.
- Tracking various incoming budget streams, including percent spent and percent complete, identifying variances, analyzing the causes of discrepancies, reporting findings to relevant stakeholders, proposing corrective actions to stay within budget parameters, and updating budget tracking systems with new financial data.
- Communicating expenditures and revenue through meetings, emails, and written annual reports to explain how funds were spent and what was accomplished.
- Recalibrating project and program elements when necessary due to challenges encountered by the team, new information, or external factors (such as onset of a new algae bloom, etc.), to maintain budget and schedule. Manage changes to project scope and communicating to stakeholders about changing deadlines with rationale for change and proposing new timelines.
- Reporting on program and project progress to the NMS Steering Committee and Planning Subcomittee. Providing written and verbal updates to the Steering Committee members at all Steering Committee meetings.
- Facilitating NMS Steering Committee and stakeholder meetings. Presenting synthesized information and recommendations on science direction to inform management questions.
- Co-developing detailed yearly workplans with the NMS Steering Committee.
- Proactively addressing concerns and resolving external conflicts with stakeholders.
- Communication, including development of a yearly update report on important findings and how findings inform management questions, and communication on the direction and priorities of the program to stakeholders and report on dollars spent.
- Distilling complex science research into simplified verbal and written communication materials.
- Delivering program updates and high-level science product updates to the Regional Water Board, BACWA, and other entities on a frequent basis.
- Coordinating grant writing as needed.
If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this, or one of our other roles.
Qualifications
Required Skills and Experience- Bachelor’s degree (minimum) in environmental science or environmental engineering and a minimum of 15 years of relevant work experience. Relevant backgrounds or areas of expertise for technical contributions could include a combination of: environmental engineering, regulation and permitting, watershed management, nutrient loading and dynamics.
- 7-10 years of work experience in relevant external project and program management areas, including stakeholder governance and communication; building and maintaining scientific collaborations; developing strategic programmatic goals and priorities; and holding teams accountable for deadlines and deliverables.
- Work experience in relevant internal project and program management areas, including being responsible for implementing strategic programmatic goals, overseeing scientific teams on complex environmental projects, supervising staff, overseeing deliverables tracking, and work flow planning.
- 5-10 years of work experience developing and managing budgets, and creating quarterly and annual expenditure summaries for projects showing amount and percent spent compared to percent complete of project
- Excellent written and oral communication skills. Experience communicating complex scientific information to a broad range of audiences, ability to understand key messages, and translate those to others
- Team player who inspires staff and is enthusiastic about SFEI’s mandate of providing science to inform decisions
Salary & Benefits highlights:
- This will be a Program Manager position. The anticipated salary range for full time employment is $120,600 to $175,875 for this position (Bay Area salary ranges are listed; note that salary ranges for other locations are 10-15% lower depending on location and are based on locational salary data). Salary ranges take into account many factors for making compensation decisions including but not limited to experience, education, internal equity, and organizational needs. The starting salary will be determined based on the above factors.
- Matching contributions to retirement plan (immediate vesting) (403B)
- Medical Insurance: health, vision, dental with employer and employee contributions
- 12 paid holidays
- Vacation days starting at 3 weeks accrual/year
- Hybrid workplace: local candidate required
About Clean Water
SFEI’s Clean Water Program is one of the nation’s premier water quality science programs. It anticipates and meets the water quality data needs of policy-makers, resource managers, and the public. It helps the public, regulators, and those who discharge into our waters create more effective policies to ensure the health of our waters.
About SFEI
San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which has a 25-year track record of providing robust and innovative science to decision-makers, policy-makers, practitioners, and community members to measurably improve the health and resiliency of Bay-Delta ecosystems.As a boundary organization, SFEI operates at the interface between science and policy, recognized nationally for our ability to build consensus to support effective environmental decision-making and policy. Our mission is to deliver visionary science that empowers people to revitalize nature in our communities.
SFEI employs an interdisciplinary staff of more than 70. Our operations and IT staff are the backbone of our organization and keep everything running smoothly. SFEI has three major programs: Clean Water, Environmental Informatics, and Resilient Landscapes.Our program staff represent numerous scientific and technological fields, including chemistry, modeling, ecology, wildlife biology, landscape planning, historical ecology, geomorphology, geospatial analysis, and web development.
For more information on our mission, values, programs, and staff, visit the San Francisco Estuary Institute website.
Equal Opportunity & Affirmative Action Employer
At SFEI, we celebrate the diversity of our staff and the places we serve, and recognize the value and strength of diversity. We are committed to growing together and creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace. In 2022, SFEI developed and adopted mission and vision statements for DEIJ within and beyond our organization.We also created an action plan which is currently underway. We strongly encourage applications from women-identified people, people of color, and people with other identities commonly under-represented in environmental science. We invite you to share what you like about your professional experience as well as about yourself personally.
San Francisco Estuary Institute is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. We are committed to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications.Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, physical or mental disability, family or parental status, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Accommodations Statement
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Other Key Information
Please note that SFEI cannot sponsor an employment visa (e.g., H-1B) to fill this position.
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