Critical Environments Program Manager

Baker Group•Ankeny, IA

About The Position

The Critical Environments Program Manager leads customer-facing, multi-site programs that protect the availability, safety, and performance of mission-critical facilities. The role partners with customers and internal teams to plan and execute preventative and corrective maintenance, projects, incident response, operational governance, and budget planning. It also supports customer retention, new business growth, and team expansion. The position supports high-reliability environments such as data centers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical facilities. It coordinates customers, facility leaders, finance partners, technical specialists, and executive stakeholders, and requires travel to customer and operating sites approximately 20% of the time. Success requires operational discipline, a focus on uptime, decisive incident response, and balancing immediate reliability needs with long-term maintenance and capital plans.

Requirements

At least five years of experience in mission-critical operations, such as data centers, hospitals, pharmaceutical facilities, or nuclear environments.
At least three years of experience leading and developing technical or operations teams, including direct people leadership responsibility.
Deep knowledge of infrastructure redundancy concepts, including N+1 and 2N configurations.
Strong working knowledge of building management systems, data center infrastructure management, and electrical and mechanical distribution systems.
Familiarity with EPA environmental permitting requirements and applicable local building, electrical, and mechanical codes.
Ability to translate complex technical risks into clear business terms for customer executive leadership and clinical and IT stakeholders.
Ability to present concise reporting, recommendations, and trade-offs related to operations, capital planning, budgets, and uptime.
Ability to align customers, facility teams, finance partners, and technical specialists around safe, reliable, and measurable outcomes.
Ability to lift 10 pounds occasionally and to stand, walk, or climb stairs for prolonged periods during field and construction-site interactions.
Ability to travel approximately 20% of the time.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, facilities management, or a related technical field.
Data center certifications such as Certified Data Centre Professional (CDCP), Certified Data Centre Specialist (CDCS), or equivalent mission-critical facilities credentials.

Responsibilities

Mentor and scale a high-performing team supporting customer operations.
Promote a safety-first culture, disciplined execution, and strong knowledge-management practices.
Build trusted relationships with current customers and develop partnerships that attract and secure new clients.
Develop and manage programs for consistent preventative and corrective maintenance of mission-critical infrastructure across multiple sites.
Tailor oversight to customer operating environments, including data centers, hospitals, pharmaceutical facilities, and other high-reliability settings.
Ensure maintenance, projects, and uptime commitments comply with service-level agreements and key performance indicators.
Partner with customers to plan and execute maintenance and projects across multiple facilities.
Coordinate maintenance schedules, standard operating procedures, and escalation processes to maximize uptime and operational continuity.
Direct the operational cadence for mechanical and electrical systems, EPMS, BAS/BMS, life-safety systems, power distribution, UPS, generators, specialized cooling systems, security, and VESDA.
Serve as the primary escalation point for facility emergencies in collaboration with customers and internal stakeholders.
Coordinate rapid triage, incident communications, and root cause analysis to prevent incident recurrence.
Help teams anticipate operational risk and identify single points of failure before availability is affected.
Lead short- and long-term budget planning for maintenance, operational needs, and future capital improvements.
Partner with finance and facility leaders to forecast spending, track performance, and adapt plans as risks and priorities change.
Align annual and multi-year budgets with maintenance, upgrade, replacement schedules, and applicable regulatory requirements.
Evaluate cost renegotiations, support contract negotiations, and assess return on investment to maximize value while protecting uptime.
Provide executive leadership with regular reporting and recommendations on operating expenditure, capital planning, and budget variances.
Guide teams in developing the Master Scope of Work, Method of Procedure, and Job Hazard Analysis for safe and effective project execution in high-risk environments.