Lead Program Manager, Emergency Planning

About us

National Grid is hiring an Lead Program Manager for our Emergency Planning department in Northborough, MA.                                                

Every day we deliver safe and secure energy to homes, communities, and businesses. We are there when people need us the most. We connect people to the energy they need for the lives they live. 

The pace of change in society and our industry is accelerating and our expertise and track record puts us in an unparalleled position to shape the sustainable future of our industry. To be successful we must anticipate the needs of our customers, reducing the cost of energy delivery today and pioneering the flexible energy systems of tomorrow. This requires us to deliver on our promises and always look for new opportunities to grow, both ourselves and our business.

Job Purpose

Primary areas of responsibility will include fulfilling the external resource requests required to ensure safe and reliable service to our customers. The selected candidate will relationship manage the company's relationships with external stakeholders in response to operational disruptions within the framework of company policy, national, and regional regulations & protocols.

The successful candidate will enjoy a rewarding experience of being directly involved in the preparation, response, and regulatory compliance duties associated with National Grid’s Electric Emergency Response Plan and Planning activities.

The selected candidate will work within the framework of Emergency Planning policy into processes and procedures that drive greater quality, efficiency, and awareness while ensuring compliance with regulation and internal standards. 

Key Accountabilities

• Assist in the development of the long-term vision and execution based on analysis, research, best practices, and motivate/manage cross functional teams to reach common goals.
• Establish and maintain an open business relationship/partnership with internal and external stakeholders at all levels of the organization to ensure alignment.
• Serve as a SME on all aspects of the overhead line contracts. Work with necessary stakeholders to perform contract audits to ensure compliance to Terms and Conditions.
• Serve as focal Point for all issue/conflict resolution with external contractors. Track, categorize, and identify trends for potential escalations and process/policy improvement.
• Develop and implement contractor performance and compliance KPIs.
• Lead contractor performance review meetings in collaboration with cross functional stakeholders.
• Lead, manage and track contractor Performance Improvement Plans (PIP).
• Develop and manage internal lessons learned processes and collaborate with NY External Resource team.
• Support Procurement during the RFP process to revise/enhance contract strategy.
• Focal Point for required DPU audit requests from previous emergency responses.
• Focal Point/SME for Storm Manager, the system used to manage external contractor crews during an emergency.
• Support/facilitate North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group (NAMAG) bi-annual conferences and participate when needed in mutual assistance discussions with other utilities.

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  Emergency Response:

• Represent National Grid in their Regional and National Mutual Assistance program and activities. Identify resource needs and availability to proactively acquire or assist.
• Serve as the point of contact, within Emergency Planning to meet the acquisition requests for external contractor crews during emergency response.
• Coordinate with the Outsource Construction team for activation of on property COC crews.
• Coordinate border crossing process for acquired Canadian crews.
• Manage the activation and activities of the External Team throughout the event.
• Coordinate with other Emergency Response organization leads to ensure objectives are realized.
• Participate in all pre-event, during-event, and post-event operational calls.
• Generate and distribute External Contractor Crew reports.
• Coordinate with impacted stakeholders on crew movement between divisions.
• Prepare external contractor crew demobilization plans.
• Develop contractor timesheet KPIs, track progress during and post event to allow event closure in Storm Manager.
• Manage the release and tracking of external contractor crews in Storm Manager.
• Drive operational efficiencies in securing needed crews as well as swift and sound demobilization procedures in collaboration with impacted stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 5 years of emergency planning/management and/or utility experience preferred.
• Ability to understand