Assistant Vice President for Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities

We are seeking a highly collaborative leader who can bring together planning, design, real estate, utilities, and institutional priorities into a unified strategy for campus development. This individual must be skilled in developing sound business cases, engaging senior leaders and stakeholders, building consensus, and communicating project vision, value, risks, and outcomes. Success in this role requires the ability to synthesize complex information, navigate governance processes, and guide strategic initiatives from concept to approval, implementation, and completion.

Pay

Salary range is $203,300 to $248,500 annually, plus a comprehensive benefits package and relocation assistance if necessary.

About the Role

The Assistant Vice President for Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities (AVP RECPU) provides leadership and strategic vision for a multidisciplinary organization of approximately 165 support staff, including temporary, on-call, and student employees. Reporting as a senior leader within Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, this position is responsible for advancing an integrated planning and asset management model that supports the full lifecycle of university assets—from strategic acquisition, planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, occupancy, and renewal through eventual disposition.

The AVP RECPU shapes the organization to reinforce collaboration, accountability, innovation, stewardship, and service excellence while fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment that values continual learning and achievement of results.

The role provides executive leadership for the university's capital planning and project delivery programs, utility infrastructure systems, and real estate portfolio. This includes oversight of:

• Planning, design, construction, commissioning, and closeout of capital projects
• Strategic real estate acquisitions and asset management
• Leasing and occupancy planning
• Utility infrastructure planning, operation, and maintenance
• Alternative project delivery models, including public-private partnerships

The AVP RECPU oversees annual operating and capital budgets, including utility operations, fuel, salaries, supplies, services, and major capital investments. The role ensures the reliable, efficient, and sustainable delivery of campus utility services while aligning infrastructure investments with institutional priorities and long-term campus development goals.

The AVP RECPU leads and oversees the offices of Campus Planning, Planning, Design and Construction, Capital Renewal, Real Estate, Leasing and Property Management, and Utilities. Through this broad portfolio, the position administers the continuum of university infrastructure and asset management, ensuring the strategic integration of campus development, utility systems, capital investments, and real estate initiatives to support the university's academic, research, and operational mission.

Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy

• Demonstrates strengths in strategy and leadership across a variety of teams and functions; promotes and monitors operational excellence; builds consensus and fosters effective teams
• Establishes strategic direction and sets priorities to develop and grow; creates and assesses decision variables and KPIs to monitor performance and support strategic approaches
• Develops, directs, and serves as a centralized point of contact to lead, evaluate, and manage all types of projects and partnerships
• Collaborates with and seeks relevant guidance from campus stakeholders, cultivating a high level of trust and collaboration
• Aligns and elevates the continuum of campus planning and capital planning from inception to completion, connecting capital asset management seamlessly to both emerging and long-range university needs and strategic endeavors
• Collaborates with campus partners to nurture a continuous planning and innovation cycle that aligns with university goals and plans
• Ensures a culture that practices and enables a diverse and inclusive environment, building a participative team climate that assumes a proactive stance and seeks innovative solutions
• Enhances partnership with university stakeholders (on campus and across the state), delivering outstanding service and creating value for users
• Broadens the capabilities of the Utilities team to take on more value-added initiatives which improve the effectiveness and efficiency of campus operations across the MSU enterprise
• Sets a tone of fiscal diligence, advancing sound fiscal management and employing effective strategies that balance mission with cost effectiveness, innovative solutions, and high-level service and quality
• Promotes and ensures compliance with university policies, procedures and ordinances, state, and federal laws
• Establishes and builds trusting relationships with customers and campus and community partners

Functional Areas

• Campus Planning: Committed to a comprehensive and continuous land use planning process that results in a flexible framework to guide future decision making. The university considers environmental, regulatory, operational, economic, historic, and cultural perspectives in support of its teaching/learning, research, and outreach mission.
• Capital Renewal: The university's primary annual facility reinvestment program. Addresses deficiencies in campus facilities and infrastructure, prioritizing projects that address life safety, accessibility, infrastructure performance, resource efficiency, and renewal of critical building systems (e.g., electrical, plumbing, HVAC). Maintains a long-term, multi-year plan for ongoing, strategic reinvestment in campus facilities.
• Planning, Design, and Construction: Provides inspection and management services for campus infrastructure and facilities. Responsible for the planning, design, and construction of campus capital projects, utility infrastructure, and cost estimating. Includes an interior design team that designs teaching and learning spaces, athletic spaces, offices, and public areas. Manages landscaping, roads, sidewalks, and the long-term physical development of MSU's campus. Supports MSU's Energy Transition Plan by focusing on energy policies, monitoring and verifying energy consumption, and identifying energy-use patterns. Oversees the Campus Infrastructure Planning Work Group (CIPWG), a broadly-based committee chaired by a faculty member, which provides recommendations on campus-wide and project-specific planning and design efforts.
• Real Estate Operations: Provides a suite of real estate, leasing, and property management services to the university. Plans proactively and implements a strategic approach to the university’s current and potential future real estate holdings in support of the university’s academic, research, innovation, and outreach mission.
• Power & Water: Operates the T.B. Simon Power Plant and the campus potable water system (reservoir and wells), which provide water, steam, and electricity to MSU’s campus. The T.B. Simon Power Plant is a co-generation natural gas-fired plant that provides steam, heat, and electricity. Steam is used to generate electricity and is distributed across campus, mainly for heating and cooling buildings.

Culture & Engagement (50%)

• Uses Performance Excellence as a planning and evaluation tool to guide, engage, and motivate staff to succeed by using T-shape goal development, with a concentration on succession planning and life-long learning
• Recruits and retains a diverse staff of well-qualified and highly performing professionals; creates a positive work environment incorporating the university’s commitment to equal opportunity and diversity
• Promotes employee engagement by coaching and mentoring current staff to develop talent and expertise and empower employees to use their full range of strengths and abilities
• Leads with emphasis on employee engagement by interacting with staff at all levels and encouraging collaborative communication and innovation through teamwork
• Cultivates a team culture that assumes a proactive stance and seeks innovative solutions, enhancing trust and partnership with university stakeholders by delivering outstanding service and creating value for users
• Owns the responsibility for articulating and reinforcing the culture of Infrastructure Planning and Facilities (IPF)
• Initiates and leads customer engagement initiatives to bridge communication between employees and customers
• Acts as a steward to preserve and maintain the campus as a teaching, demonstration, and research resource for university faculty, staff, students, and visitors
• Ensures organizational accountability through consistent adherence to university policies and procedures, with an emphasis on safety, compliance, and responsible use of resources

Functional Responsibilities (30%)

• Leads, oversees, and sets direction for reporting units and directors; provides leadership and direction to the Office of Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities ensuring innovative stewardship of university assets and maximizing cooperation among project stakeholders, design teams, builders, and developers from project inception to completion
• Provides fiscal guidance and oversight of assigned areas
• Advocates and supports the development of a strategic asset management portfolio that spans real property management and facilitates high-level assessment and strategic decision making
• Advances a strategic and integrated approach to developing university facilities; provides leadership in the implementation and execution of the university campus plan, oversees the development of major construction and renovation projects, including relevant public-private and public-public partnership projects
• Establishes and implements short- and long-range goals, objectives, and KPIs; monitors and evaluates programmatic and operational effectiveness and implements changes required for improvement
• Collaborates effectively with other university leaders and stakeholders