Position Description
The role of the Technical Director is to identify opportunities for efficient and effective best management practices (BMPs) at a watershed scale in Lancaster County, PA, and facilitate collaborations with a sense of urgency to accomplish water quality improvements associated with those BMPs. The position will focus on driving implementation of Lancaster County’s Countywide Action Plan (CAP), specifically to go above and beyond required practices for nutrient and sediment reductions in multiple prioritized catchment areas. Within these catchments, the Technical Director serves as the key leader for leveraging collective grant dollars, pushing the permit process, outreach to landowners if necessary, tracking and verifying the work done by boots-on-the-ground partner organizations, and establishing landowner agreements or contracts to accomplish priority projects. The Technical Director does not duplicate or replace existing technical expertise at engineering firms, but rather advances the shared goals of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners by building collaborative capacity as a technical liaison when working with municipal or land development partners (design, permit paperwork, municipal ordinance and MS4 expertise, etc). The Technical Director will be responsible for collaborating with on-the-ground restoration partners in addition to driving success for deliverables and funding. This is a new position funded by a grant award from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The Lancaster Clean Water Partners – Organizational Overview
The Lancaster Clean Water Partners (the Partners) is a countywide, collaborative partnership of more than forty diverse partner organizations – local leaders in business, municipal public service, higher education, conservation planning, and non-profit management – that come together with a shared vision of clean and clear water in Lancaster by 2040. The need for water quality improvement is urgent because the streams in Lancaster need reduced pollutants at a pace that is not only on target with the Bay watershed’s 2025 goals, but also achieves local water quality goals. The cross-sector collaboration of this group is essential to accomplishing goals and requires intentional outreach, strategic and strong partnerships, as well as transparency and inclusive practices. The Partners has come together to design and drive a strategy with a collective approach so that Lancaster County will see improved water quality across the landscape.
Key members of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners
- Steering Committee and Executive Committee
- Six Action Teams
- Director of Strategic Partnerships and Programs
- Senior Advisor
- Communications and Program Manager
- Project and Grants Coordinator
Learn more about staff and leadership on our website: https://lancastercleanwaterpartners.com/leadership-staff/
The Partners’ mission is to rapidly accelerate and expand the ability of the partner organizations to restore and sustain healthy Lancaster County waterways. The vision is to make Lancaster County’s streams clean and clear by 2040.
The Lancaster Clean Water Partners is a program of the Conservation Foundation of Lancaster County (CFLC), an independent 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to promote, support, and sustain the stewardship, education and conservation activities undertaken by the Lancaster County Conservation District and other local partners. The person filling this position will be an employee of the Lancaster County Conservation District but will focus completely on the work of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners, reporting to the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Programs.
Job Duties And Responsibilities
- Create the environment for collaboration between partners to include trust, technical capacity, and opportunities for more interaction.
- Use the stream delisting strategy (individually and in collaboration with technical service providers like the catchment leads) to determine where contiguous landowners share a mutual interest in clean water projects
- Identify opportunities to advance stormwater BMP implementation in urban areas (and the extended one mile boundary permitted by DEP) for municipalities and leverage agriculture land use opportunities to create larger projects above and beyond MS4 permit requirements.
- Facilitate partner development and implementation of projects at an accelerated pace.
- Oversee and assist with pre-application permit meetings between DEP and project leaders
- Manages the daily planning, execution and tracking of restoration projects within the priority catchments (and across the county as possible) and contracts to ensure compliance with the Partners’ policies and federal and state restoration funding and cost-share programs to support the Partners’s mission.
- Assist partner organizations with permitting advice and guidance.
- Work from available funding sources to develop a project-specific financing package to ensure implementation occurs at an increased (yet appropriate) level
- Assist CAP Coordinator with metrics to increase verification and tracking of work done and work planned for management of Lancaster’s CAP; utilize the data to identify BMPs in CAP that need attention
- Assist with the development of printed and digital materials to explain and promote the rapid stream delisting strategy or other materials as necessary.
Required Qualifications
- Applicants for this position should bring the following knowledge, abilities, and attitude:
- Strong leader who naturally earns the respect of local leaders and partner organizations, policymakers, agencies, and funders
- Understanding of water quality issues, specifically as they relate to sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus, and fecal pollution that affect south central PA and Lancaster County
- Understanding of Pennsylvania’s municipal stormwater permits and/or the process to administer or obtain state permits (NPDES, MS4, Chapter 105, etc)
- Working knowledge of both agricultural and stormwater restoration practices and best management practice design
- Ability to communicate effectively to a wide-variety of audiences including landowners, contractors, partner organizations, and a financial team – interpersonal skills, with the ability to build authentic relationships with a diverse set of high profile stakeholders
- A minimum of 5 years of combined on-the-ground restoration experience (conservation, watershed management or related field) and/or project management experience
- Proven ability to conceive and execute programs with clear objectives, benchmarks, and deliverables
- Experience with federal and state environmental restoration funding programs
- Strong computer skills, in particular, working knowledge of Microsoft Office and Google Suite, ArcGIS (and or comparable mapping platforms such as CSDatum, Field Doc,etc)
Preferred Qualifications
- Coalition-building and fundraising experience, including grant-writing, and demonstrated success in forging mutually-beneficial relationships and partnerships.
- The successful candidate will demonstrate excellent attention to detail and the ability to manage and track workflows integrating programmatic, technical, and financial colleagues who serve as essential partners in delivering high-quality tracking and reporting.
- Experience coordinating with multiple conservation organizations and maintaining continued communication.
- Lancaster Clean Water Partners is a fast-paced environment where self-initiative, epic collaboration, and teamwork are all valued and expected. The work requires and fosters comfort with ambiguity and ability to thrive in a fluid, entrepreneurial environment where the person needs a willingness to “roll up one’s sleeves” and extend beyond formal responsibilities when necessary.
- B.A., B.S., or Master degrees preferred in planning, environmental studies, engineering, geography or another environmentally related field or subsequent professional experience in a related field.
Why We Value You
- Impactful – You have gravitas, creating impact through discussion, debate, and action, using narrative to ensure that their point of view is understood and heard.
- Influencing – You have to earn respect, with a tone of voice that gets you heard in honest and difficult conversations, and where your personality and character are strengths.
- Inspiring – You build trust and respect across the organization, harnessing the skills of everyone to work together to deliver long-term value to the business.
- Innovative – You explore innovative ways to lead and navigate business growth, manage the associated risks, and complexities of driving change in today’s environment
- Inclusive- You make sure that everyone feels welcome and safe within our spaces
- Investment- You work on your relationships with internal and external partners, always turn toward team members, and to work through conflicts and disagreements
This is a grant-funded position for 3 years with the potential for future funding. It is a full-time position, 40 hours per week. The position reports to the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Programs and does not supervise other staff. The Lancaster Clean Water Partners offer competitive compensation and benefits as well as a flexible work environment.‘
‘
Work Remotely
- Temporarily due to COVID-19
Job Type: Full-time
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Flexible schedule
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Schedule:
- Monday to Friday
COVID-19 considerations:
All staff are currently asked to wear a mask in the office. The shared kitchen space is available to use coffee makers, microwaves, fridge, etc but tables are not open for shared eating space at this time.
Application Question(s):
- Please provide text version of a cover letter in the space provided.
Work Location: Multiple Locations
