Deputy Project Manager

IEM is looking for a Full-time Deputy Project Manager to support Planning & Preparedness projects, with an emphasis on utility and critical infrastructure readiness, continuity planning, and grant or program assessments. Working under the direction of a Project Manager or program leader, this role supports work planning, schedules, budgets, risks, team coordination, client communication, and deliverable development. The Deputy Project Manager may lead assigned workstreams and help develop and validate operational plans, assessments, playbooks, training, exercises, and improvement products that strengthen organizational readiness.

Primary Location

• Live anywhere within the United States, including Puerto Rico, in a location that meets IEM work-from-home standards.
• Work may occur in an office environment, at client sites, in the field, or from a personal location, depending on project needs.
• Preference will be given to candidates located in the Pacific Time Zone or able to consistently work Pacific Time business hours.

Travel Requirements

• This position may require travel to client sites, offices, workshops, exercises, or field locations to complete assignments and support client delivery.

Essential Functions

• Support project operations, work plans, schedules, budgets, risks, quality controls, and performance tracking for projects of varying scope and size.
• Coordinate team assignments and the timely development, review, and delivery of plans, assessments, playbooks, training materials, exercises, reports, and other client products.
• Support client and stakeholder communication; track decisions, review cycles, action items, and follow-up needs; and maintain productive working relationships with internal and external partners.
• Lead assigned tasks or workstreams related to utility and critical infrastructure readiness, continuity, grant or program assessment, emergency planning, training, exercises, after-action reporting, or corrective action tracking.
• Conduct research, source-document review, data collection, interviews, process mapping, and analysis; identify gaps or conflicting information; and help develop practical findings and recommendations.
• Draft and revise client-ready plans, reports, executive summaries, technical memoranda, assessment matrices, presentations, meeting records, and other planning products.
• Plan and facilitate, or support facilitation of, stakeholder interviews, meetings, workshops, tabletop exercises, and trainings; prepare materials and agendas; document decisions and notes; and provide timely follow-up.
• Coordinate across emergency management, utilities, engineering, operations, logistics, cybersecurity, communications, public information, leadership, and other disciplines as required by project scope.
• Use Microsoft Office and project-planning, scheduling, survey, virtual meeting, geospatial, dashboard, and collaboration tools to organize work and support project delivery.
• Identify delivery, quality-control, and process-improvement needs and help develop reusable tools, templates, and internal references.
• Support proposal development, technical writing, staffing approaches, work plans, and cost-informed delivery strategies.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience: Ten (10) years of professional experience in emergency management, public safety, public health, public administration, crisis management, continuity, critical infrastructure, utilities, grants management, program assessment, or a related field. This experience should include the below or the below experience can be in addition to the 10 years.
  • Five (5) years developing or assessing related plans, programs, processes, exercises, assessments, or operational products.
  • Three (3) years leading or managing projects, programs, major workstreams, or multidisciplinary teams, with responsibility for work plans, schedules, budgets or cost tracking, assignments, risks, review cycles, client or stakeholder coordination, and deliverable completion.
  • Three (3) years supporting local, state, federal, utility, critical infrastructure, or private-sector clients, or equivalent experience managing complex client-facing and external stakeholder work.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in public administration, emergency management, public safety, homeland security, business administration, political science, engineering, utility management, or a related field.
• Degree and Experience Substitution: Four years of relevant professional experience may substitute for the degree.
• Advanced experience in at least two of the following, with utility or critical infrastructure readiness, continuity planning, or grant or program assessment required as one: utility or critical infrastructure readiness; continuity planning; grant or program assessment; emergency operations planning; training and exercise; organizational assessment; or after-action and corrective action planning.
• Working knowledge of disaster phases, core capabilities, incident command, community lifelines, continuity, resilience, operational coordination, restoration priorities, dependencies, and national preparedness.
• Ability to independently lead assigned projects or major workstreams; manage competing priorities; elevate issues appropriately; build positive relationships; communicate technical, operational, financial, compliance, and policy information to varied audiences; and lead or support meetings, interviews, workshops, tabletop exercises, and trainings.
• Ability to review complex information, identify gaps or contradictions, maintain source traceability, and support defensible findings and recommendations.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint, with the ability to use standard office, collaboration, project-management, and smartphone technology.

Preferred Qualifications

• Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM), Certified Emergency Manager (CEM), or comparable project management or emergency management credential.
• Continuity Excellence Series Level I Professional Continuity Practitioner, Level II Master Continuity Practitioner, or comparable continuity credential or training.
• Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program training or certification and FEMA Professional Development Series completion.
• Experience supporting electric, gas, water, telecommunications, transportation, fuel, or other critical infrastructure organizations, particularly in restoration readiness, outage or disruption planning, mutual aid, dependency analysis, cybersecurity coordination, or exercise programs.
• Experience supporting continuity planning or program development, including mission essential functions, business impact analysis, alternate operating strategies, orders of succession, delegations of authority, essential records, reconstitution, or continuity exercises.
• Experience assessing or improving federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, or private-sector grant programs, including stakeholder engagement, process mapping, compliance review, risk assessment, monitoring, reimbursement, reporting, or closeout processes.
• Experience reviewing and synthesizing large document sets, coordinating multiple stakeholder groups, and managing successive client review cycles.
• Familiarity with relevant emergency management, continuity, grants, cybersecurity, or utility guidance and requirements.
• Experience using Smartsheet, Microsoft Project, geospatial products, survey platforms, process-mapping tools, dashboards, or interactive maps.

Additional Information:

• Office Locations: Often, these offices are either owned by the client we work with or by IEM. All candidates are expected to follow any rules and regulations of the office in which they are required to work for that project.
• Personal Office/home locations: All personal office work environments require the ability to maintain minimum Internet speeds of 25 Mbps upload and 3 Mbps download, as well as a ping rate of 100 ms or less during working hours, regardless of the type and number of devices using your Internet connection. You must also have account privileges and access to your Internet service provider account during working hours for the purpose of maintaining the Internet connection, if needed.

Benefits and More:

• Annual Salary based on location and experience: $95,000 - $105,000
• 10 paid holidays
• Vacation pay
• Sick pay
• 401(k) plan with company matching
• Company-paid short-term disability and long-term disability coverage

Equal Employment Opportunity. All IEM employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, placement, training availability, promotion, compensation, evaluation, disciplinary actions, and termination of employment, if necessary, are made without regard to an individual’s race, color, religion, creed, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression), national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship or immigration status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law.

Reasonable Accommodation. IEM is committed to providing reasonable workplace accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance or reasonable accommodation during any part of the application or employment process, please email IEMhumanresources@iem.com with specific details about the requested accommodation. All accommodation requests are reviewed case-by-case in compliance with applicable law.