Environmental Compliance Director

ESA is seeking an Environmental Compliance Director to lead a cohesive, firmwide environmental compliance program focused on delivering successful implementation of projects post environmental review, including developing a robust and properly equipped firmwide capability to deliver complex and challenging projects with extended field deployment. They will oversee field data collection, monitoring, site inspections, and reporting programs and provide expert knowledge and experience to anticipate and solve complex logistical issues on high complexity/high visibility projects across all practices throughout ESA. They will work collaboratively with Practice Leaders, Market Leaders, Regional Directors, and Business Group Directors to provide leadership, coordination, and processes to support safe and efficient execution of onsite work, fostering a “field positive” culture that supports firmwide deployment of project site surveys, studies, and monitoring across ESA. They will build business development strategy with Market Leaders to build a focused pipeline of compliance services, sell these program services to market and increase ESA’s visibility and position to expand on profitable opportunities to increase contract acquisitions in this service line. The Environmental Compliance Director will work with limited direction from senior and/or executive level management.

Who You Are

You are an experienced scientist with at least 20 years of consulting experience and a mastery in managing large, complex projects or environmental programs with interdisciplinary elements of environmental review, biology, fisheries, natural resource science, regulatory permitting, cultural and historic resources, air quality/greenhouse gas emissions, technology services, and corresponding administrative logistical support services. You have a sophisticated understanding of environmental regulations and applicable policies and principles, mitigation and monitoring programs, project environmental commitments, permit compliance, data management, and reporting procedures. You understand the transition from environmental review/development of project implementation commitments to project construction to site demobilization and have led project teams in this type of project work. You are also able to train and support project managers to understand the unique needs for these types of projects.

You have leveraged this experience to collaborate with project teams to develop or review scopes of work, understand field and reporting objectives, permit requirements, surveyor qualifications, and develop tools and strategies to optimize field data collection, analysis, and reporting. You are intimately familiar with the mobilization and execution of field work, including field logistics, equipment management, risk and hazard assessment, safety plan implementation, data collection and management, and the training of project managers and project staff to be accountable to these processes. You can work efficiently across technical practice teams to implement these standardized approaches and make applicable to any project scale. You have an inclusive leadership style in leading teams that motivates employees to have a high-level engagement in their work.

You are adept at developing a collaborative and profitable business strategy to sell compliance services across the ESA markets, with a prioritization in the Energy, Transportation, and Water markets. You bring an understanding of project costing and commensurate levels of effort where the consultant serves in a compliance role on various types of infrastructure development projects. You have solid writing skills, exceptional oral presentation skills, active listening skills, and are able to speak confidently and persuasively on a variety of complex topics and/or high visibility projects to clients, agency staff, teaming partners, other project interested parties and the general public.

What You Will Do for ESA

You will build and manage ESA’s capabilities to support environmental compliance projects and field deployment at all scales of project size. You will provide leadership in guiding logistical support to field teams engaged in environmental data collection, sampling, and the implementation of monitoring programs including but not limited to surface water, groundwater, stormwater sampling; soil sampling; biological data collection; cultural or historic resource data collection; compliance monitoring; air quality and noise sampling; and data collection, management, processing and analysis. You will provide guidance in developing reporting procedures and providing QA/QC of deliverables. You will help to develop and guide a focused logistics team to support and better prepare and supply our project teams to make sure they are properly equipped. You will coordinate with Safety to improve safety preparedness and onsite implementation, so staff are well supported in all site conditions. You will have regular internal coordination with Practice and Regional representatives, project management teams, and may be responsible for client stewardship and regularly cultivating clients through effective problem solving and implementation of environmental compliance services, as well as through various business development and marketing activities.

You will pursue contracts focused on these services and deliver success in ESA’s market growth. You will identify the right networking engagements to advance ESA in the compliance space, will represent ESA at conferences and other networking events, identify clients in this space, collaborate within industry networks to foster client relationships, preposition and build a pipeline of opportunities, and win environmental compliance contracts. You will oversee or lead multi-regional/national or multi-practice marketing pursuits and negotiate contracts, and work with legal and corporate leadership to provide risk assessment during opportunity/contract review. You will consistently consider how to increase capability in our delivery of services to address evolving client needs and requirements for ESA to be more competitive and qualified to pursue larger compliance opportunities. You will also work with the Recruiting team to develop and implement proactive strategies to hire qualified staff to support execution of projects as well as surge requirements when the need arises, and work with Practice Leaders, Regional Directors, and Business Group Directors to retain and develop meaningful career growth for ESA practitioners committed to environmental compliance projects.

What’s Special About Our Team

This role would sit within ESA’s Practice Leader group, with a direct reporting relationship to the Director of Practices. This Practice Leader group provides frequent, consistent opportunities for cross-practice, firmwide collaboration and delivery on key company initiatives as well as project success. Environmental compliance projects provide a significant contribution to ESA financial performance. With a large queue of contract opportunities currently identified, this Environmental Compliance Director position will play a key role in driving ESA’s growth into the future.

What’s Special About ESA

Joining ESA means becoming part of a close-knit team of environmental professionals and employee-owners who contribute to outstanding projects, improve environmental stewardship, and advance a more sustainable and resilient future for our communities and wild places. Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI), strong employee engagement, and innovation are key attributes of our company culture.

At ESA, we provide benefits such as medical, dental, and vision insurance (paid at 70% for you AND your family), annual allocations of company share through our ESOP, a 401(k) plan with company match, and paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, to name a few.

We also provide specific programs whether you want to further your technical expertise, sharpen your business acumen, or help lead the next generation of employee-owners. We want to support you in reaching your career goals through tuition reimbursement, professional development bonuses, and attendance at conferences.

Who We Are 

We are a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm who values diversity and inclusion and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique. Our culture is built on mutual respect, recognizing that our variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives leads to better solutions, which fosters our continued success for our employee-owners and clients. 

In accordance with ESA’s duty and responsibility to provide and maintain a safe workplace that is free of known hazards and to minimize the exposure to potential hazards, any employee who works from an ESA office or conducts any other in-person ESA work-related activity is required to submit their proof of vaccination status or have received an approved exemption and accommodation in states which this applies. 

ESA is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment. (EOE M/V/F/D)