Program Manager

If you are ready to take on a fresh challenge, grow your career, and contribute to supporting homeland defense and armed services, Wilcox Industries is ready to help you achieve your goals. We seek an experienced Program Manager to play a critical role in our organization, overseeing and managing complex technical programs to ensure cost, schedule, performance, and risk objectives are met. This position requires a strong understanding of the defense industry, the technologies associated with our combat systems and Headborne systems products, as well as excellent project management skills. Program Managers are responsible for maintaining operational excellence throughout the entire product lifecycle and will coordinate product strategy, product development, transition to production, and production sustainment efforts. Program Managers make data-based decisions, and propose solutions based on the data available to them.

Strategy:

• The Program Manager will work with members of Wilcox’s Executive Staff to set the overall strategy and objectives for their projects.
• Align the outcome of the projects with the organization’s overall business roadmap and goals.
• Communicate strategy to the project team and ensure that individual project goals align with the strategy.
• Identify and evaluate B2B (Business to Business) partnership opportunities.

Planning:

• Develop and maintain program plans, schedules, and budgets to achieve cost, schedule, and performance targets.
• Plan the Short-Term Forecast for revenue and order tracking.
• Conduct order management to balance internal and external priorities.
• Forecast material requirements to support program production increases.
• Plan programmatic milestones and reviews to meet overall program objectives and work to align resources to accomplish goals.
• Establish a formal reporting structure to obtain the information needed to coordinate and monitor progress across all projects.
• Plan formal product development and product improvement programs that determine specifications for new products and improvements to existing products to create and/or meet projected market demand.
• Establish a robust configuration management plan for the data the projects will generate.

Execution:

• Ensure project teams have the resources they need to conduct their roles.
• Establish priorities within the overall program and allocate resources in line with those priorities.
• Lead cross-functional teams to execute program activities and deliverables according to established plans and objectives.
• Set objectives, assign tasks, allocate budgets and agree to timetables for achieving intermediate and overall goals.
• Minimize waste and reduce costs by identifying tasks that are common to several projects and ensuring that teams do not duplicate work.
• Identify and mitigate risks to program success, including technical, schedule, budget, and resource risks.
• Be conversant in financial management to make decisions that ensure the program stays on budget and meets its requirements for return on investment.
• Conduct materials management activities to comply with established inventory levels and production schedules.
• Manage subcontractors and suppliers to ensure compliance with contractual obligations, quality standards and establish working relationships external to Wilcox to leverage in future growth.
• Manage any supporting accessory programs to support the growth of sales across the applicable business area.
• Support internal business development activities, including proposal development and resource planning.
• Develop, execute and deliver quality solution-focused client presentations targeting clients from staff to C-level.
• Always lead by example.

Communication:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for internal stakeholders, providing regular updates on program status, milestones, issues, and any changes in strategy or priority.
• Report to senior executives on the progress of individual projects and the overall program. If necessary, enlist specialists within the organization to obtain information or request support to help project teams with difficult problems.
• Understand technical issues and present them to management and customers in a clear, concise way.
• Be the voice of the customer and provide customer liaison services.
• Determine and track customer satisfaction using formal and informal methods.
• Perform other duties as necessary when directed to do so to support business needs.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• BS in an engineering, computer science, or related technical field, or a BA in a business discipline and 3 years’ experience leading highly technical projects, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Excellent project management skills, including the ability to develop and execute program plans, schedules, and budgets.
• Proven track record of successfully managing complex technical programs, preferably in the defense industry.
• Effective leadership, communication, and presentation skills, with the ability to collaborate, lead, and influence cross-functional teams.
• Experience with risk management, issue resolution, and performance monitoring.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office suite, including Microsoft Project. 
• Experience in a customer-facing role.
• Regular on-site attendance is a necessary function of this position.   
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 15% as required.
• Wilcox is a U.S. government defense contractor, and this position requires access to export-controlled technology. Qualified candidates must be legally authorized to access U.S. government-controlled technology prior to beginning work.  

Preferred:

• 6 years in a program management role.
• Experience with military procurement and government contract administration. 
• Experience with US Department of Defense contracts and requirements.  
• Engineering or technically equivalent degree from an accredited university strongly preferred
• Project management or operations experience at a manufacturing company.
• Experience using SAP Business One, JIRA, SolidWorks is a plus.

**Compensation offered may vary depending upon job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.  

Wilcox provides equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.