PROGRAM MANAGER SENIOR III Chief Program Management Officer

MDEM’s mission is to proactively reduce disaster risks and reliably manage consequences through collaborative work with Maryland’s communities and partners. MDEM is the Department of State government with primary responsibility and authority for emergency preparedness policy, and for coordinating hazard mitigation, incident response, and disaster recovery. MDEM is a national leader in Emergency Management that provides Maryland residents, organizations, and emergency management partners with expert information, programmatic activities, and leadership in the delivery of financial, technical, and physical resources “to shape a resilient Maryland where communities thrive.”

NOTE: This position operates within an on-call rotating schedule according to assignment within the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) to attend to all emergencies on a statewide 24/7 basis. This may involve working 12-hour shifts and extended periods of time in support of 24-hour consequence management activities.

Grade 25 | Location: 7229 Parkway Drive, Suite 200, Hanover, MD 21076

About the Role

The Maryland Department of Emergency Management (MDEM) is the Department of State government with primary responsibility and authority for emergency preparedness policy and for coordinating hazard mitigation, incident response, and disaster recovery. MDEM works to ensure that all Marylanders are prepared and Maryland is continually increasing its resiliency. MDEM’s work is, in large part, federally funded and project oriented. Ensuring comprehensive project and program management support for all relevant stakeholders is critical to ensure MDEM’s priorities are effectively and efficiently achieved.

This position is part of the Mission Support Directorate and helps coordinate and support important work across the department. It oversees the Program Management Office, Procurement and Business Compliance & Internal Controls. The position also helps plan and carry out major projects and initiatives that involve multiple business units or administrative areas. It works with teams to define project needs, review plans and assumptions, identify and address risks, coordinate with stakeholders, and make sure proposals are ready for leadership to review and approve.

Responsibilities

• Improve project planning, reduce administrative and operational challenges, and help ensure approved projects are successfully completed.
• Report directly to the Mission Support Director and work in close coordination with the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the Office of Strategy and External Affairs (SEA), other members of executive leadership, and MDEM’s business-unit leaders.
• Exercise influence through executive access, facilitation, analysis, relationship management, constructive challenge, and project-delivery expertise.
• Identify concerns, question unsupported assumptions, clarify the decisions required, and elevate significant risks.
• Provide leadership, staff supervision, workload management, continuity of operations, service delivery, and the daily administration of the Program Management Office, Business Compliance & Internal Control, and Procurement.
• For procurement and contract-related activities, work with business units in defining needs; developing scopes of work, specifications, deliverables, and other requirements; identifying risks and dependencies; coordinating supporting documentation and reviews; and communicating with the Department of Budget and Management and other relevant parties as necessary.
• Facilitate acquisition planning, contract development, routing, execution, administration, renewal, and vendor-performance activities.
• Serve as the Department’s lead for project-management practices and establish and oversee a Department-wide Project Management Office, including developing, reviewing, and refining scalable project-management standards, planning tools, reporting practices, and governance processes.
• Support the implementation of priorities established by executive leadership.
• Administer and ensure the effective implementation of the Department’s formal annual Budget and Project Management Plan (“Budget/PMP”) process and serve as its Department-wide functional lead.
• Establish the annual planning schedule, standards, and submission requirements; provide training, coaching, process guidance, and user support; coordinate the annual submission process; and confirm that every business unit completes its required Budget/PMP submission.
• Review submissions for completeness, internal consistency, planning sufficiency, and readiness for executive and fiscal review; identify incomplete or unsupported assumptions and require additional information or analysis before a submission advances for consideration.
• Gather and document business requirements for the Budget/PMP tool, coordinate user feedback, identify needed process or system improvements, and work with the CFO and designated system-support personnel to translate operational needs into technical system requirements.
• Participate in testing and validating proposed changes to ensure that the tool continues to support the Department’s planning process.
• Organize and provide relevant planning and project information to the SEA Office, the CFO, and other authorized officials.
• Work with each grant program team to coordinate the development of applications for new, complex, or cross-functional grant opportunities, including organizing participating stakeholders, developing project requirements and implementation plans, challenging underlying assumptions, and drafting or assembling programmatic application materials based on information validated by the responsible business units.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university.
• Five years of experience in fiscal administrative or professional work.

Benefits

State of Maryland benefits.