Senior Manager of Project and Program Management

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Virginia Transformer is a privately held, organically growing company that builds custom power transformers. After achieving 3X growth, we’re hiring to do it again. Every order brings unique customer requirements and manufacturing challenges, and every team member plays a part in delivering on our commitments.

One team. One mission. One source.

Position Summary

Virginia Transformer is seeking a Senior Manager of Project & Program Management to lead a portfolio of customer-specific transformer orders from post-award turnover through factory testing, shipment, and closeout. This role leads project managers and coordinates with engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, testing, logistics, and finance to keep orders on track.

The Senior Manager owns project controls, customer communications, contract compliance, milestone coordination, and timely escalation of delivery and margin risks. The role connects verified manufacturing progress to credible schedules and cost-to-complete forecasts while protecting approved scope and commercial obligations.

ey Responsibilities

Project Planning and Manufacturing Coordination

• Lead post-award kickoffs and document technical scope, contractual deliverables, drawing approvals, witness tests, payment milestones, and delivery terms.
• Maintain integrated schedules covering design release, long-lead materials, coil, core and tank milestones, assembly, drying and oil processing, testing, and shipment.
• Lead cross-functional order reviews, assign action owners, track constraints, and escalate delivery risks with recovery recommendations.
• Confirm customer dependencies—including drawing reviews, site information, inspection notices, and shipping permissions—are reflected in project plans.
• Use progress from winding, core stacking, tank fabrication, active-part assembly, processing, final assembly, and testing to assess actual order status.

Contract Control and Customer Communication

• Validate post-award records against signed agreements, including equipment scope, technical exceptions, drawing-review periods, payment terms, testing requirements, delivery basis, warranties, and notice requirements.
• Track approved scope, technical exceptions, customer obligations, and requests that may require a change order.
• Coordinate cost and schedule estimates for customer changes with engineering, manufacturing, sourcing, and finance.
• Prepare change-order proposals and support negotiations within delegated authority; escalate disputes and significant liabilities to senior leadership or legal.
• Maintain records of customer-caused delays and scope changes, including approval hold-ups, late decisions, revised specifications, site unreadiness, and access restrictions.
• Route requests for additional scope, early shipment, extra testing, extended warranties, or changed delivery terms through approved commercial review channels.
• Provide clear customer status reports and lead day-to-day discussions about drawing approvals, production milestones, factory tests, and delivery plans.

Financial Control and Commercial Protection

• Review order budgets, incurred costs, estimated cost-to-complete, milestone billing, and projected margin with finance.
• Compare estimated and actual material, labor, rework, expedite, testing, and freight costs, updating forecasts through closeout.
• Monitor exposure related to late materials, production rework, engineering changes, expedited work, and site or shipping delays.
• Quantify change-order impacts and prepare supporting cost and schedule evidence for commercial proposals or escalation packages.
• Track milestone invoices, customer acceptance obligations, retention, disputed balances, and billing dependencies with finance and project coordinators.
• Lead closeout reviews for late orders and margin losses, documenting causes and actions for future transformer contracts.

Manufacturing Recovery and Customer Milestones

• Build recovery plans with functional owners when drawings, critical components, labor, test-bay capacity, or transportation threaten committed dates.
• Coordinate inspection and factory acceptance test notices, witness attendance, test procedures, punch-list closure, and release-to-ship approvals in line with contract terms.
• Prepare concise executive and customer reports that distinguish confirmed milestones, assumptions, contingency options, incremental costs, and decisions requiring approval.
• Ensure contractual notices are prepared and submitted within required deadlines.

Team Leadership and Process Discipline

• Review project manager workloads and focus resources on orders with the greatest contractual, financial, material, or delivery risk.
• Coach project managers on schedules, risk logs, commercial records, customer escalations, closeout, and lessons learned.
• Standardize action logs, customer correspondence files, baseline schedules, change registers, financial exception logs, and closeout records.
• Coach project managers to communicate with customers factually and firmly while staying within approved commitments.
• Provide leadership dashboards covering design releases, material risks, production status, pending test witnesses, expected ship dates, and decisions requiring escalation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, operations, project management, or equivalent experience delivering complex equipment.
• At least 8 years of experience managing industrial equipment or engineered-to-order projects, including team-lead or supervisory responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience with project schedules, budgets, change orders, contract documentation, and customer escalations.
• Ability to interpret technical delivery milestones and coordinate engineering, procurement, manufacturing, testing, and shipping.
• Experience handling customer-driven drawing changes, approval delays, commercial notices, and contract-based factory test or shipment schedules.
• Ability to connect shop-floor manufacturing progress with cost-to-complete forecasts and customer-facing milestone plans.
• Strong communication, negotiation, risk-reporting, ERP, and project-system skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with power transformers, heavy electrical equipment, or comparable high-value custom equipment.
• Experience with utilities, EPC contractors, factory witness testing, liquidated damages, milestone payments, or large equipment transport.
• PMP certification and experience supervising multiple project managers.
• Background coordinating engineering, production, commercial contracts, and specialized logistics for large custom electrical equipment.

Key Performance Indicators

• Contractual on-time delivery and milestone adherence
• Change-order capture and documented customer approvals
• Forecast versus final project margin and cost-to-complete accuracy
• Customer escalation closure and project documentation completeness
• Age of unresolved project risks and pending customer decisions
• Timeliness of commercial notices and customer-caused delay documentation
• Reliability of factory test and ship-date forecasts

Assigned location(s), reporting line, direct reports, delegated authority, and specific performance targets are subject to executive approval.

No Agencies