Quality Technical Director

About the opportunity

SWCA has an exciting new leadership position to continue to scale our Quality Management Program as our Technical Director – Quality. The position will be a national/companywide Technical Director role reporting to a Vice President of Scientific and Technical Services and will be a member of the SWCA Director Team, attending annual leadership conferences, peer group calls, and monthly leadership calls with VPs and Senior Leadership Team. The overall goal is to identify a leader who can continue to build SWCA’s Quality Management Program and reinforce our culture of Sound Science, Creative Solutions, and champion continuous improvement.

This is a full time, regular status position, eligible to work in any of our offices, or 100% distributed in the domestic US.

What you will accomplish

• Be an enterprise-level practice leader who is accountable for SWCA’s Quality Management Program across the company, ensuring that SWCA has industry-leading quality practices and state-of-the-art processes/methodologies/tools.
• Work with the SVPs, VPs, Directors, and Project Managers to identify and implement strategic initiatives to drive quality and consistency across offices and regions. Work with other Directors, Project Managers, and Client Managers to develop standard, client-specific, and practice-specific quality practices and tools.
• Scale, maintain, and lead company-wide quality practices:
  • Work across all offices, regions, and corporate departments to develop, promote, and implement quality systems and programs.
  • Support development and maintenance of a document control system.
  • Monitor and evaluate the ongoing performance of quality systems and make recommendations for necessary improvements.
  • Develop a standard quality audit program; conduct quality audits and root cause analyses when needed.
  • Document the results of audits and root cause analyses; analyze the results to identify opportunities for quality improvement and tools and formats to message lessons learned.
  • Update and maintain the SWCA Quality Manual.
  • Prepare quality-related marketing materials, including Quality Management cut sheets, language for proposals, and other client-facing documentation.
  • Adapt industry-standard quality management practices and tools to the specific character and needs of SWCA.
  • Ensure that the implementation of these quality objectives is measurable and consistent with the company’s quality policy, including SWCA’s commitment to continual improvement (Never Settle).
  • Support interoffice and interdisciplinary communication to ensure uniformity of processes and products company wide.
  • Provide leadership to the Technical Publications team under the Quality Management Program.
  • Serve as identified SWCA Corporate Quality lead in project and client pursuits.
  • Conduct internal and client audits to track quality performance and opportunities for improvement.
• Focus on the development of quality practices and leadership/mentoring of staff implementing those practices:
  • Be recognized as a Quality Management authority and role model responsible for setting a standard of excellence.
  • Help drive a culture of quality and continuous improvement.
  • Provide leadership, mentoring, and coaching of quality practices across all SWCA offices, business lines, and services.
  • Develop protocols for the documentation and sharing of lessons learned so that employees across the company can learn from the experiences of their peers.
• Develop and implement appropriate training to scale SWCA’s Quality Management Program:
  • Develop training modules and other training tools to explain the value of quality and familiarize employees with quality standards and practices.
  • Ensure that quality is included as a critical component of SWCA’s current Project Manager training programs.
  • Develop regular company-wide quality communications and updates.
  • Monitor and measure customer satisfaction and client and regulatory feedback and use it to inform quality decisions.
• Execute on the responsibilities identified in SWCA’s Career Landscape for Director-level employees in Technical Leadership.
• Demonstrate leadership, expertise, and Director-level behaviors in SWCA’s seven core competencies (Action-Oriented, Client Focus, Collaborate, Decision Quality, Ensures Accountability, Instills Trust, Situational Adaptability) and three Technical Leadership Focus Area Competencies (Communicates Effectively, Manages Complexity, and Nimble Learning).

Experience and qualifications for success

• Minimum of a bachelor’s degree in related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of project and quality management experience, including developing and maintaining a Quality Management Program.
• Practical understanding of and familiarity with standard quality concepts, processes, and terminology.
• Ability to explain quality concepts and terms, along with the purposes behind them, to all levels of SWCA’s staff and leadership.
• Training and experience developing quality assurance procedures.
• Experience conducting quality control reviews and audits.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or graduate degree in Science, Environmental, Geology, Engineering, or Business.
• Current certification in Quality Management or Project Management or ability to gain appropriate certification(s) within 1 year of being hired.
• Prior experience implementing a Quality Management Program in one or more of the firm’s core practices (natural resources, cultural resources, water resources, or planning) or business lines (energy, infrastructure, mining, transportation, carbon management/climate change).
• Demonstrated experience developing and scaling a company-wide Quality Management Program across broad geographies.
• Experience building relationships at all levels, including with Senior Leadership.

Additional Information:

• Ability and willingness to travel to SWCA’s offices as required.

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.

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

Seniority Level

Director

Not ready to apply? Connect with us for general consideration.