Director of Land Acquisition

Target Hospitality•The Woodlands, TX

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Target Hospitality is seeking a seasoned, entrepreneurial Director of Land Acquisition to build and execute the company’s land banking and strategic land positioning strategy in support of AI infrastructure, power generation, and data center development. This role sources, evaluates, and secures land in rural and remote markets — frequently where ownership is fragmented, sparsely recorded, or opaque — and converts raw ground into controlled, entitled, buildable positions ahead of announced demand. This is a field-based role for someone who operates with fervor and urgency. Sites are identified, walked, and tied up on compressed timelines, often ahead of a client’s formal site selection process. The successful candidate will travel extensively and on short notice, work to deadlines driven by client award schedules and utility interconnection queues, and make sound judgment calls with incomplete information. The ideal candidate is a career land professional with deep title, leasehold, and surface experience, an instinct for off-market assembly, and enough civil and construction fluency to know what a parcel can realistically support before an engineer confirms it.

Requirements

Minimum 10 years of dedicated land experience, including land acquisition, land management, right-of-way, or oil and gas and energy land work.
Demonstrated success in low-population, low-liquidity markets where ownership records are sparse or opaque, listings are nonexistent, and deals are made in person.
Proven history of assembling land positions directly with landowners, without listings or broker representation.
Working knowledge of site development, earthwork, and utility infrastructure, and of the legal aspects of land, including easements, access, setbacks, plats, deed restrictions, covenants, and severed estates.
Hands-on record securing zoning changes, conditional use permits, platting, and development permits at the county and municipal level.
GIS and mapping platforms including ArcGIS, LandVision, and county GIS; title plant and courthouse research; and Excel-based acquisition budgeting.
Bachelor’s degree preferred; equivalent land experience will be considered.
Valid driver’s license required.
Must be able to pass a background check, driver license check, and urinalysis.

Nice To Haves

Career land professionals strongly preferred.
RPL or CPL certification through the AAPL, or an active real estate license. Not required for candidates with a strong land record.
Experience supporting data center, power generation, transmission, renewables, midstream, mining, or other large industrial projects.
Familiarity with groundwater conservation districts, water rights, and severed surface and mineral estates in target states.
Prior experience assembling positions in advance of announced client demand or under confidentiality.

Responsibilities

Accountable and responsible for maintaining a safety culture, following all SOPs, JSAs, and policies and procedures as set out by Target Hospitality.
Identify, approach, and secure control of parcels ahead of the market, working directly with landowners, ranchers, family trusts, estates, and heirs in markets with no MLS presence and little to no commercial broker coverage.
Build and manage a rolling inventory of optioned and owned positions aligned to announced and anticipated AI infrastructure, power generation, transmission, and data center build-outs.
Resolve fragmented, unrecorded, heirship, and severed surface and mineral estates; run chain of title, work appraisal district and courthouse records, and establish who actually controls the ground.
Track transmission capacity, substation and interconnection queues, water availability, fiber routes, and announced projects to position the company ahead of demand.
Build durable relationships with county officials, appraisal districts, abstractors, title companies, surveyors, utility planners, and landowning families across target counties.
Evaluate topography, drainage, soils, access, and constructability constraints against both horizontal scope (earthwork, pads, roads, utility corridors) and vertical scope (foundations, modular set, building envelope).
Assess water availability and water rights, wastewater and disposal options, power service and interconnection capacity, and telecom, and identify which constraint governs the site.
Manage Phase I and Phase II ESAs, wetlands and waters delineations, threatened and endangered species review, cultural resources, and floodplain constraints.
Order and review title commitments, exceptions, easements, rights-of-way, encroachments, and ALTA surveys; drive curative work to clear defects and confirm legal and physical access.
Secure conditional and special use permits, variances, rezonings, plats, and development permits; own the hearing calendar and build the administrative record.
Negotiate letters of intent, purchase and sale agreements, options, rights of first refusal, surface use agreements, ground leases, and easement and right-of-way agreements.
Lead negotiations across landowners, co-tenants, lessees, adjacent operators, and mineral owners where the surface and mineral estates are severed.
Build acquisition budgets and land basis assumptions, and support project pro formas, DCF, and ROIC analysis with defensible land cost and carry inputs.
Manage escrow, curative, funding, and recording through close, and maintain a current register of all owned, optioned, and leased ground.
Represent the company with county commissioners, planning and zoning boards, groundwater conservation districts, school districts, and landowner groups.
Present at public meetings and build local support in advance of entitlement decisions.
Work with Community and External Affairs to align messaging, community benefit, and local hiring commitments with the land strategy.
Partner with Commercial, Development, Construction, Legal, Finance, and Operations to move controlled positions into execution without loss of information.
Present land investment packages, position summaries, and capital requests to executive leadership and the Board.
Additional duties may be assigned by a manager.