Principal GIS Program Lead

About the opportunity

SWCA is looking for a Principal (Geographic Information Systems) GIS Program Lead. This position will be responsible for the day-to-day oversight, leadership, and management of GIS professionals, services, projects, and will support local and regional marketing efforts in SWCA’s Rocky Mountain Region.   This is a full-time, regular (with benefits), salaried position.  SWCA's Denver (Broomfield, CO) office is the preferred location for the role (working in a hybrid work environment).  Highly qualified candidates living near other SWCA Rocky Mountain offices (e.g., Fort Collins, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Durango, Portland OR, Sheridan, Bismarck), or in remote work locations in the nearby time zones, will be seriously considered..

SWCA's GIS Department consists of 70+ GIS Professional with diverse backgrounds in GIS design, cartography, data management, and more. This position will support both our Natural and Cultural Resource programs and will collaborate with and support other SWCA offices across the country.

Our Vision (the North Star):  Help drive SWCA to be the best workplace and industry leader in sustainability, bringing sound science and creative solutions to global environmental challenges while maintaining a dedication to employee-ownership.

Core Values: We are #OneSWCA and collaborate across all our offices, programs, and disciplines. We are #AlwaysLearning, we #NeverSettle and we #GiveBack. We are 100% employee-owned, and we build our success together. It is imperative for the successful candidate to fit SWCA's unique culture. Do you appreciate sustainability and environmental awareness? Is giving back to your community a priority? SWCA is a team of scientists, planners, technical experts, and corporate services professionals that are committed to our culture.

Purpose: Our company purpose is to preserve natural and cultural resources for tomorrow while enabling projects that benefit people today. You are invited to be a part of our success story.

This position is available for distributed work in the US, but we would prefer them to be located near an SWCA office.

What you will accomplish

The Principal GIS Program Lead role at SWCA will serve as the primary point of contact and lead for a large, distributed team of GIS professionals within one of SWCAs geographic regions. They will be responsible for coordinating inter-office workloads and overseeing large and strategically important projects. Additionally, they will help lead future GIS initiatives related to SWCA’s use and development of online mapping, data collection, and analytical tools. The Program Lead will work with operations and other technology leaders to identify opportunities for process improvement through automation of workflows, deployment of new GIS technology, and leveraging SWCA’s centralized GIS organizational model.

The Program Lead must have a demonstrated ability to understand business concepts, including the ability to critically evaluate change management techniques and breaking down high-level projects into targeted deliverables. They must be comfortable working with different stakeholders and be open-minded to new and changing approaches to ensure the desired solution is achieved.

• Be overall team leader responsible for setting and implementing goals and strategy for a large, distributed GIS workforce.
• Ensuring their team of GIS professionals is producing consistent and high-quality work for projects and acting as senior technical reviewer on deliverables.
• Coordinating inter-office workloads within their respective geographic region of responsibility.
• Establishing and maintaining a positive working relationship with team members and non-technical staff.
• Working directly with company leadership and other GIS team members to ensure an even distribution of work and a consistent work product throughout the company.
• Meeting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for operational staff, including weekly and yearly productivity targets.
• Communicating regularly with regional leadership to project workload changes and assess seasonal shifts in fieldwork and project backlog
• Managing large and strategically important internal and external projects, acting as the point of contact for clients, acting as an advisor to project managers on GIS requirements for projects, scopes, and budgets.
• Acting as supervisor and mentor to a growing team of GIS professionals and identifying opportunities for training and career development for team members.
• Identifying and acting on opportunities to market GIS internally and externally at a local and regional level.
• Representing the overall Technology team as part of the West Leadership Team.
• Consider the current ecosystem of GIS use and management including involvement in troubleshooting current issues, identifying, and remedying pain points, and determining opportunities for improvement.
• Work with GIS users to get feedback and conduct needs analyses for future development efforts.
• Collaborate with other GIS leaders on Esri application releases, training, and requirements.
• Collaborate with Technical Directors and VPs of Scientific and Technical Services on best management practices for GIS data collection and analysis.
• Articulate solutions effectively to other technology team leads and to senior leadership for incorporation into each P&L’s capital expense annual budget.

Experience and qualifications for success

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of a bachelor’s degree in GIS, Geography, Anthropology, Biology, Environmental Science, or related field with an emphasis in GIS (or GIS certificate) or equivalent experience.
• Minimum of eight (8) years of experience in GIS with demonstrated increasing levels of professional-level responsibility and leadership.
• At least 3 years of demonstrated experience managing people and projects
• Experience in all GIS-related aspects of a project such as budget preparation/scoping, pre-field preparations, geospatial analyses, final report maps, and calculations.
• Experience in data transfer, data analysis, data mining, and data inventory using software applications (e.g. Windows Explorer, Excel, Access, ESRI ArcGIS).
• Experience with ArcGIS Pro 2.x and ArcMap 10.x as well as knowledge of cartography and computer mapping, design principles, and understanding map creation procedures in ArcGIS.
• Experience with ArcGIS Online/Enterprise to manage and distribute spatial data.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 12 years overall experience, with at least five years managing people/projects.
• Demonstrated experience supervising and engaging staff, managing staff workload in a consulting environment, mentoring and training GIS staff, creating a culture of quality work products and collaboration with project/sales teams, etc.
• Master’s degree in GIS, Geography, Cartography, Archaeology, Biology, Environmental Science, or related field with an emphasis in GIS.
• Experience managing GIS projects/tasks in the environmental consulting industry supporting projects with natural and cultural resource issues related to transmission, transportation, oil/gas, and/or renewable energy.
• Prior knowledge and experience in one or more of the following: creating schemas, domains, ArcServer/web applications, network analysis, knowledge of Python, .NET, Java, PHP, HTML.
• Experience writing and/or presenting protocols and methods for GIS processes, analyses, or modeling techniques.
• Experience documenting metadata.
• Experience developing analytical models related to natural or cultural resource processes.
• A working understanding of internal agency processes and procedures and positive existing relationships with federal land management and regulatory agencies, such as the BLM, USFS, NPS, BOR, DOE, DOT, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and/or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
• GISP or similar professional GIS certification.
• General understanding of basic statistics, and geometric math computations (e.g., summary, distributions, frequency, min/max, range, angles, distance, slope, degrees, area)

Additional Information:

• This position requires travel to SWCA office locations up to 20% of the time.

SWCA Environmental Consultants is a growing employee-owned firm, providing a full spectrum of environmental services. With offices across the United States, SWCA is one of the largest environmental compliance firms and ranks among Engineering News-Record’s Top 200 Environmental Firms.

If you would like to contact SWCA regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the online application process due to a disability, please email accommodations@swca.com or call 1-480-581-5378. This contact information is for disability accommodation requests only. All other inquiries will not receive a response.

In accordance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (EPEWA), we are disclosing a good faith estimate of the compensation range for roles that will be, or could be, performed in Colorado.

In Colorado, an employee in this position can expect a annual base salary between $100,000.00 and $125,000.00 depending on experience, geographic locations, client requirements where applicable, and other factors permitted by law.  Employees in this position are eligible for consideration for SWCA’s annual bonus program, which provides awards based on individual and organizational performance.

EOE - women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans are encouraged to apply.

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