Assistant Director of University Residences Facilities

About the University

Western Washington University, with over 16,000 students in seven colleges and the graduate school, is nationally recognized for its educational programs, students and faculty. The campus is located in Bellingham, Washington, a coastal community of 90,000 overlooking Bellingham Bay, the San Juan Islands and the North Cascades Mountain range. The city lies 90 miles north of Seattle and 60 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Western is the highest-ranking public, master's-granting university in the Pacific Northwest, according to the 2022 U.S. News & World Report rankings. Western Washington University is committed to achieving excellence through advancing inclusive success, increasing our Washington impact, and focusing on transformational education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences and based on innovative scholarship, research, and creative activity. Western's greatest strength is the outstanding students, faculty, staff, and alumni/ae who make up its community. Western supports an inclusive governance structure for all and provides a learning and working environment in which everyone can thrive. In pursuit of this excellence, individual employees are expected to establish and maintain productive and effective inclusive working relationships amongst diverse populations including staff, faculty, administration, student, and external constituents. Further, individual employees are expected to have the ability to operationalize sustainability concepts (economic, societal, environmental) into all aspects of performing their job duties.

About the Department

University Residences supports Western's mission, which states that together with our students, staff, and faculty, we are committed to making a positive impact in the state and the world with a shared focus on academic excellence and inclusive achievement. We encourage applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and other candidates from underrepresented backgrounds and with diverse experiences interested in this opportunity.

About the Position

The Assistant Director of University Residences Facilities oversees multiple operational areas including facilities operations, building maintenance / cleaning, dining facilities services, and support for summer conferences and guest housing.

The Assistant Director ensures the efficiency of daily operations and supports leadership directives, while assisting the Associate Director with administering multimillion-dollar projects along with asset management initiatives. They develop plans addressing the department’s building maintenance infrastructure needs and supervise staff while establishing oversight of inter-departmental service level agreements as needed.

Directly supervising full-time permanent staff, the Assistant Director ensures that personnel are trained and supervised in alignment with University and departmental objectives related to Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI), fostering competency in these critical guiding principles among the team.

Position Duties and Responsibilities

40% - University Residences Facilities Operations:

• Develop and oversee annual budgets for project operations related to facilities and building maintenance program.
• Coordinate long-term project planning efforts and capital planning requirements with appropriate campus partners and vendors.
• Ensure regulatory, corrective, preventive, and emergency maintenance tasks are completed as needed and in a timely manner.
• Initiate service requests using relevant maintenance system software.
• Facilitate concept meetings with key stakeholders to define project scope, budget, and requirements.
• Provide relevant oversight of designated projects from conception to completion.
• Review design plans and documents, monitors project progress, and provides regular updates to stakeholders.
• Conduct project closeout punch list inspections to ensure quality standards are met.
• Ensure warranty issues are addressed post-project completion according to contract stipulations.
• Prepares annual reports evaluating the status and effectiveness of related facilities and building maintenance program project.
• Analyzes current and future needs, service levels, cost effectiveness and spearheads corrective actions and/or improvement initiatives.
• Review / update appropriate Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreements and service contracts ensuring that services rendered comply with established standards.
• Develop and manage custodial operations budget to optimize resource utilization.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders to identify operational requirements, develop daily and long-term maintenance, cleaning, building amenities support plans/schedules.
• Monitor building maintenance and cleanliness ensuring customer satisfaction levels are maintained.

15% - University Residences Asset Management:

• Develop life cycle support plans for assets and ensures viability for resident and staff usage.
• Conduct recurring cycle counts to verify asset availability / condition levels and to spearhead follow-on actions required (repair, replace, refurb, surplus).
• Assist in the assessment of movable and stationary assets and ensures proper maintenance.
• Manage the operation of media rooms located in residential and staff spaces.
• Oversee logistical support operations and ensures efficient storage and delivery processes.
• Develop / oversee vehicle operation budget, coordinate vehicle acquisition / maintenance, ensure optimized vehicle usage per campus policies.
• Administer the Linen Exchange Program ensuring adequate inventory management, cleaning, distribution to end users.

15% - Dining Facilities Services:

• Ensure residential / retail spaces are properly maintained / cleaned and oversee quality initiatives (inspections, audits, customer surveys) to confirm compliance with contract standards.
• Manage commercial food service equipment maintenance and ensures compliance with contract stipulations.
• Coordinate technology support for the University Dining System (UDS) program.
• Collaborate with campus partners to support dining-related projects.

10% Quality Improvement:

• Assist the Associate Director with the execution of the Facilities Continuous Improvement Program.
• Conduct routine building inspections, audits, and resident surveys to maintain quality standards.
• Process inspection and audit data and participates in quality analysis efforts.
• Review existing processes and emerging trends to ensure efficient support services.
• Solicit input from staff, students, campus partners, vendors and benchmark with peer institutions to drive service improvements.

10% Supervision and Leadership:

• Provide effective leadership and personnel management for assigned staff.
• Supervise staff and ensure adequate staffing levels are available to provide effective customer support services.
• Monitor safety practices and ensures compliance with relevant policies and procedures.
• Work independently and cooperatively in a cohesive team environment. Essential Edit Remove

5% - Access, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (ADEI):

• Collaborate on ADEI initiatives and provides summaries to senior leadership.
• Enhance staff competency through training and collaboration with campus partners.

5% - Additional Responsibilities:

• Substitute for the Facilities Assets and Projects Associate Director as needed.
• Maintain effective communication with senior leadership and attend and participate in meetings regularly.
• Participate in policy development, staff recruitments, and campus committees as directed.
• Contribute to campus initiatives and projects as directed.
• Participate in regional / national networking opportunities to stay informed on trends within student affairs (ACUHO-I, NASPA, other) and building related operations (APPA, ISSA, other) while supporting professional development.
• Perform other duties as directed.

Special Requirements/Conditions of Employment

• Ability to effectively manage a high volume of work with strict deadlines.
• Ability to recruit and lead a diverse work crew and overcome communication challenges.
• Ability to adapt to changing business needs, conditions, and work responsibilities.
• Ability to exercise good judgment and maintain confidentiality in performing job duties.
• Ability to be self-motivated and effectively follow established policies and procedures.
• Ability to interact in a positive manner with students, staff, parents, campus partners, vendors, and co-workers in a diverse environment.
• Ability to work effectively with employees at all levels, outside agencies, and the general public.
• Ability to positively motivate team members to support mission objectives in a productive manner.

Required Qualifications

• An undergraduate degree.
• Four (4) years of full-time work experience successfully managing facilities related, logistical support, or customer / student centric operations in an institutional / industrial environment.
• Demonstrated ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with diverse constituencies and historically marginalized populations.
• General understanding of risk management protocols and emergency action plans. Familiarity with inspecting facilities for risk management or maintenance concerns.
• Demonstrated understanding and experience supporting customers (internal & external).
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Outlook, Excel, Word, Power Point, Teams).
• Demonstrated ability to proficiently listen, to understand / convey written and verbal instructions, to effectively interact and communicate in a variety of situations and work independently with minimal supervision.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction, Operations Management, Business Administration.
• Demonstrated experience developing and overseeing an annual budget of $5 million or more along with the ability to analyze past financial and performance data to develop operational budget plans and to ensure that expenditures fall within established management directives.
• Four (4) years of experience directly supervising three (3) or more permanent employees while also overseeing ten (10) or more staff members in a large-scale, collective bargaining environment managing union members. Experience should include hiring, scheduling, directing work, coaching, and performance appraisals.
• Experience recruiting and developing diverse and inclusive staff teams.
• Demonstrated facilities operations work experience in a campus housing environment.
• Demonstrated experience implementing business process analyses or interpreting, assessing, and prioritizing user needs.
• Demonstrated ability to plan and implement long-term departmental goals by factoring in management input, data analysis and working with staff members and other stakeholders to establish consensus.
• Demonstrated expertise developing detailed action plans leveraging analytical methods to create management reports driving follow-on corrective and preventive actions supporting quality improvement initiatives enhancing overall departmental efficiency.
• Experience working with workload planning (CompuClean, CleanOps, Breeze) or Computerized Maintenance Management System (Asset Works, AiM, Banner, StarRez) software.

Salary 

Hiring range for position is $87,601 - $100,741/year.  Through longevity position tops out at $113,881/year.