Utility Coordinator - Heavy Highway Construction

Position Summary The Utility Coordinator serves as the primary contractor contact for utility owners and agencies and drives the resolution of utility conflicts that could affect construction. The role focuses on communication, follow-through, documentation, and coordination with field leadership--not personally performing utility markouts, shutdowns, or utility-owner work. The coordinator reports to project leadership and helps keep utility-related decisions and commitments aligned with the construction schedule. Key Responsibilities Serve as the contractor's primary point of contact with utility owners and agencies, coordinating utility-related matters with project management, field leadership, engineers, and subcontractors. This is the position's primary objective. Proactively pursue answers and resolution of utility conflicts, relocations, and outstanding decisions with utility owners, designers, and subcontractors; escalate issues that threaten progress. This is the position's second principal objective. Maintain an accurate utility tracker covering conflicts, relocations, open items, responsible parties, required actions, and anticipated impacts; submit the tracker monthly to Brett Williams and keep project leadership informed of urgent developments. Participate in weekly progress meetings with NYSDOT and QC, providing utility updates, documenting commitments, and following up on action items. Separate utility coordination meetings are not assumed to be part of the regular process. Coordinate upcoming utility activities and constraints with superintendents during in-house meetings to support field sequencing and avoid construction delays. Work with superintendents and foremen to confirm that field markout and clearance needs are communicated to the responsible parties; field personnel and utility owners retain responsibility for their respective execution and safety procedures. Coordinate and track utility-owner actions and documentation through the applicable HC-140 process without assuming responsibility for utility-owner-performed gas work, outages, cutovers, or removals. Utility Coordination Scope Telecommunications and fiber: Coordinate with Verizon, Charter/Spectrum, private fiber carriers, and other relevant owners on conflicts, conduit/manhole issues, cable cutovers, pole attachment transfers, relocations, and schedule commitments. Electric facilities: Coordinate status and requirements involving National Grid overhead and underground facilities, duct banks, vaults, transformers, and services. Natural gas and other utility-owner work: Track dependencies and follow up on commitments through the HC-140 process; physical cut-offs, cut-and-cap, purging, abandonment, and similar work remain with the responsible utility parties. Lighting, traffic signals, and ITS: Not included in the core scope of this position. The contract includes extensive lighting and signal work that would require separately assigned resources and responsibilities. Agency and Stakeholder Coordination Coordinate with NYSDOT and relevant utility owners, including National Grid, Verizon, Charter/Spectrum, and fiber carriers. As applicable, track interfaces with City of Syracuse departments, Onondaga County agencies, and regulatory parties through the established HC-140 and project coordination processes. Coordination with affected residents may be required where specific utility impacts arise. Qualifications 5+ years of experience in utility coordination, field engineering, or a comparable role on heavy civil or DOT infrastructure projects. Working knowledge of utility conflicts, relocations, access constraints, shutdown coordination, and utility-owner interfaces. Familiarity with Dig Safely New York, 16 NYCRR Part 753, OSHA excavation and power-line clearance requirements, and utility clearance procedures, with a clear understanding of field and utility-owner responsibilities. Strong organizational skills, accurate issue tracking, persistent follow-through, and sound judgment in escalating schedule risks. Clear, professional communication with utility representatives, field teams, project leadership, engineers, and subcontractors. General understanding of heavy highway construction operations, including excavation, drainage, structures, demolition, traffic maintenance, and construction sequencing. Preferred Qualifications Experience with utility trackers, HC-140 coordination, correspondence, and meeting action-item follow-up. Experience resolving telecom/fiber utility conflicts on active construction projects. NYSDOT project experience and OSHA 30 certification. Familiarity with construction schedules, field reporting systems, and Microsoft Office.