Senior Exercise Planner - Regional Exercise Lead

Leidos•Arlington, VA

1d•$82,550 - $149,225•Onsite

About The Position

Leidos is seeking a Senior Exercise Planner to serve as a Regional Exercise Lead for the CISA National Cyber Exercise Program (NCEP). This role involves leading all exercise design, development, planning, conduct, and evaluation for their assigned region. The position leads exercise support teams, comprised of Junior to Senior Exercise Specialists, across their assigned region, developing and executing multiple, concurrent exercises for CISA stakeholders nationwide. Leidos' Homeland Sector's Airports, Borders, and Security (ABS) business area provides solutions for air travel modernization, border protection, and critical infrastructure security, integrating technologies like AI-driven analytics and advanced threat detection to secure global movement of people and goods.

Requirements

Active TS/SCI clearance.
Ability to obtain DHS EOD.
10+ years experience in HSEEP exercise design, development, conduct, and evaluation.
8+ years experience in exercise management or leadership, including managing multiple exercises, exercise teams, schedules, and concurrent execution.
FEMA HSEEP Certified.
Demonstrated experience planning and delivering exercises or exercise-like events that require structured documentation, coordination, and post-event reporting.
Strong writing skills to develop polished exercise materials and documents (such as EXPLANs, SITMANs, MSELs, and controller/observer instructions) and post-exercise products (including AAR drafting support).
Demonstrated ability to lead high-level meetings, exercise facilitation, and give customer-facing presentations.
Demonstrated ability to manage time, meet deadlines and milestones, and hold team members accountable to requirements.
Ability to meet DHS suitability and the clearance requirement applicable to the assigned role (TS/SCI for designated personnel; otherwise Public Trust fitness type), as described in the SOW.

Nice To Haves

FEMA Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP)
Experience supporting cybersecurity-focused scenarios and stakeholder engagement across government and private sector partners.
Experience contributing to strategic plan maintenance and innovation projects in support of leadership requests.
Cybersecurity Certifications CISSP CEH GIAC

Responsibilities

Lead all exercise design, development, conduct, and evaluation as required for the exercises in their assigned region.
Participate in initial meetings with leadership, CISA, and exercise stakeholders to determine scope, team requirements, resources, schedule, etc., for each exercise in their assigned region.
Support PM and DPM/IM in identifying and allocating appropriate personnel and resources to each exercise support team for each exercise in their region, based on type, size, complexity.
Identify roles in each exercise support team and staff to assume those roles for the lifetime of the exercise cycle, including a lead for meetings, documentation, content development, etc.
Lead coordination of planning meetings (as appropriate), such as C&O, IPM, MPM, MSEL Meeting, and FPM, and all supporting documentation, including agendas, presentations, and notes.
Lead coordination for the development of core exercise documentation and artifacts (e.g., CONOPS, EXPLAN, SITMAN, MSEL, COSIN, evaluation forms, invitations/sign-in sheets).
Focus on managing multiple concurrent exercises across their assigned region.
Communicate and coordinate with other Regional Exercise Leads and PM/DPM to ensure appropriate resource allocation and deconflict schedules.
Maintain communications with regular meetings with exercise stakeholders in their region.
Report regularly to management based on communications plan.
Establish own battle rhythm for meetings and coordination/communications with regional exercise teams.
Fill in as a SME and Exercise Facilitator if necessary.
Support development of new CISA Tabletop Exercise Packages (CTEPs) and maintenance of the CTEP scenario library.
Provide SME input to internal training activities to improve facilitation and planning skills across NCEP staff.