Senior Project Manager

SSI-Venesco JV LLC • Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, McLean, VA / FHWA Headquarters, Washington, DC • Full-time • Contingent upon contract award

You will run a federal research communications and publishing program end to end — a portfolio that produces hundreds of research documents and external-facing communication products every year for the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Research, Development and Technology at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center.

This is the senior leadership seat on the contract. You own the schedule, the staffing, the quality system, and the client relationship. You lead a team of roughly twenty writers, editors, designers, web specialists, and multimedia producers delivering everything from one-page fact sheets to 500-plus page technical reports, plus a quarterly full-color national magazine.

Note that this is a non-personal services contract: you provide total supervision of your staff, and Government personnel do not direct them. Your ability to translate client priorities into contractor work assignments is the core of the job.

Responsibilities:

Program leadership

• Manage complex, high-visibility projects and a full portfolio of concurrent tasks in a busy research communications and publishing office.
• Own strategic planning, resource allocation, and workload balancing across all labor categories.
• Provide total supervision of contractor staff, assign tasks, and hold the team to schedule and quality standards.

Client interface

• Serve as the primary point of contact to the Contracting Officer, the Contracting Officer's Representative, Task Managers, and researchers.
• Translate technical direction into executable work while keeping the effort inside the contract's scope.

Delivery and reporting

• Ensure all deliverables are met on schedule and within budget while managing risk and performance metrics.
• Deliver a kickoff meeting agenda at least five business days before the kickoff, and meeting minutes within five business days after.
• Submit a monthly progress report by the 15th of each month covering the preceding month: project status summary by state, project type categorization, monthly tracking, project highlights, requests by office, meeting notes, and ad hoc reports.
• Conduct project status meetings approximately every two weeks and issue notes within two business days.

Systems and tracking

• Ensure staff consistently update the research submission and project tracking system so clients can see the live status of their projects.
• Monitor and document production details across all product phases — due dates, production schedules, and milestones — and proactively follow up with research staff to keep work on track.

Quality

• Develop and deliver a Quality Control Plan within 45 days of award and maintain it throughout the contract.
• Establish procedures to identify, prevent, and ensure nonrecurrence of defective services, and report quality status to the client at regular meetings.

Continuity

• Maintain an adequate workforce for uninterrupted performance, coordinate leave to preserve coverage, and provide qualified substitutes for extended absences.
• Own recruitment, retention, and succession planning for every position on the contract.
• Lead transition activities, including a phase-out period working alongside a successor contractor.

Education: Master's degree, or a Bachelor's degree with relevant experience, in Business, Marketing/Communications, or a related technical discipline.

Experience: 

• 10 or more years of relevant professional experience.
• Demonstrated leadership of multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrated experience managing marketing and communications functions.
• Demonstrated experience supervising the publication of technical information from concept to final product — spanning one-page flyers through 300+ technical reports, and including presentations, videos, online tours, social media, and other communications collateral.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in transportation, especially highway and surface transportation.
• Prior performance as a project or program manager on a Federal services contract, with direct CO and COR interface.
• Experience standing up or operating a quality control plan under a Government quality assurance surveillance plan.
• PMP or an equivalent project management certification.

Technical Skills and Competencies

• Portfolio and resource management across concurrent production streams with competing deadlines.
• Risk identification and performance metrics reporting to a Federal client.
• Working command of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, and of project tracking and workflow systems.
• Ability to write and defend a management approach, a staffing plan, and a contingency plan for personnel replacement.

Location, Schedule, and Credentialing

• Onsite at TFHRC in McLean, VA and/or FHWA Headquarters in Washington, DC. This is a client-facing leadership role with a strong onsite expectation.
• Business hours fall between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, with a one-half hour unpaid lunch. Full-time baseline is 1,880 productive hours per year.
• Unclassified position. A USDOT badge is required, which means a favorable HSPD-12 / PIV background check at the low risk / non-sensitive level — a National Agency Check with Inquiries including fingerprinting, covering the past five years. Work cannot begin until FHWA Personnel Security authorizes the candidate to report.

How to Apply

• Submit a résumé of no more than two pages that clearly states your education, your years of relevant experience, and the specific programs and products you worked on.
• Be prepared to sign a letter of intent to accept employment contingent upon contract award, and to undergo a Federal background investigation.