Operations Director II

Aqua, an Essential Utilities company, employs people in a variety of roles within our eight-state footprint, ranging from field workers and customer service representatives who are on the front lines working with customers, to scientists and engineers who help ensure we’re delivering reliable water and wastewater services to our communities.  If you’re looking for a rewarding career helping improve our environment and protect our natural resources, we encourage you to join our team!

About Essential Utilities

Essential Utilities, Inc. delivers safe, clean, reliable services that improve quality of life for individuals, families, and entire communities.

Operating as the Aqua (water and wastewater services) and the Peoples and Delta (natural gas) brands, Essential serves approximately 5.5 million people across 10 states. We are committed to sustainable growth, operational excellence, a superior customer experience, and premier employer status - including a competitive and comprehensive benefits package as well as a commitment to career growth opportunities.

We are advocates for the communities we serve and are dedicated stewards of natural lands, protecting more than 7,600 acres of forests and other habitats throughout our footprint.

Our company is one of the most significant publicly traded water, wastewater service and natural gas providers in the U.S. 

Essential Duties:

• Leads the operations team and collaboratively works with engineering, compliance, and accounting functional leads to provide safe, reliable high quality water and wastewater service.
• Creates a culture of trust, support and high employee engagement cemented in our values of integrity, responsibility, and commitment to excellence.   Lead the mutual development of performance goals and measurements; provide meaningful performance feedback and evaluations; provide training and growth opportunities; plan and direct work assignments; administer Company policies; and communicate information for effective job performance.
• Drives to improve the customer experience in daily decision making throughout operations team.  Establishes positive, proactive communications in the communities we serve.  Ensures customers are notified promptly and clearly of any problems or issues, or service disruptions.
• Prepares and executes  operating and capital budgets within areas of responsibility. Supervises  operational and capitalized maintenance activities and supports planned vertical and linear capital investments. Works with business development in the coordination and negotiations with developers regarding new systems. Assist in the identification, due diligence, and smooth operational transition of acquisitions.
• Coordinates and negotiates with vendors regarding supplies and/or services needed. Hires and oversees work by contractors and subcontractors, ensuring that the work is performed, and the funds are deployed in the most efficient and effective manner.
• Assists environmental compliance in interaction with environmental regulators regarding current regulations, permit compliance and other matters regarding water and wastewater operations.
• Works closely with the Compliance team to ensure compliance with operating permits and contracts while drafting/submitting responses and or comments to relevant regulatory compliance concerns/issues/requests.
• Institutes and supervises Aqua Texas’s Safety Program.
• Works with others in the organization to develop performance matrices to assure that all resources are used in a cost-effective manner. Uses technology where appropriate to monitor and manage. Continues to maintain and search for new methods of increasing productivity and quality in a cost-effective manner.
• Coordinate with the Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCD) and Groundwater Subsidence Districts (GSD) to ensure that permitted withdrawal limits are met and manage internal resources toward the same.
• Follows Incident Commander system and fills Incident Commander Role for most events.  For significant emergency events initiates enterprise incident command per the National Incident Management System.

Required Experience, Education, Licenses, and Certifications.  

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering or related field and 10 years’ experience required.
• Ideal candidate will have a “C” license in water and/or wastewater.
• Knowledge of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as well as Public Utility Commission of Texas rules and regulations, public policy, environment, and industry knowledge and can comfortably and confidently discuss issues that relate to this industry.
• Ability to work with regulatory agencies, developers, public, water and wastewater district representatives, contractors and engineers.
• Must have a valid U.S. Driver’s License.

Preferred skills and experience:

• Knowledge of Safe Drinking Water Act is highly desired.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills; communicate effectively (clearly, concisely and professionally) with internal and external customers
• Strong customer service skills
• Ability to work well under pressure.

Aqua, an Essential Utilities company is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. Equal employment opportunity is provided to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to the following legally protected characteristics: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions, including medical conditions related to lactation), physical or mental disability, covered-veteran status, genetic information (including testing and characteristics), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state or federal law.
Aqua is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities.  If you have a condition that may prevent you from applying for a job online or need to request an accommodation during the interview process, please call (1-877-271-9012).  
To maintain the integrity of the recruitment process and to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest due to employment and/or assignment of family members and personal referrals, specific guidelines apply to the hiring and assignment of these individuals including, but not limited to:

• Family members cannot result in a supervisor/subordinate reporting relationship
• Family members cannot work in the same department.