Event Services Manager

Position Title Event Services Manager

About the University

Western Washington University, with over 15,000 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 has additional sites in Anacortes, Bremerton, Everett, Port Angeles, and Poulsbo. Western is recognized nationally for its successes, such as being named one of the top public master's-granting institutions in the Pacific Northwest for 25 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

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.

The Viking Union Department 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.

The Viking Union's mission is to enrich the Western Community by advancing student focused services and welcoming spaces that contribute to Belonging through meaningful connections, joyful celebrations, and shared learning.

The Event Services Manager is responsible for
1) the management of services that support the logistics and production of events at the Viking Union, and large scale university events held in venues on the Bellingham Campus and
2) oversight of reservations processes for the Viking Union Lakewood and Exterior spaces on campus.

The Event Services Manager directs event setup and technical services, including supervision, scheduling and training of 2 full-time staff and up to 40 student employees, estimating costs, establishing service agreements, and coordinating logistics with customers (i.e. student, staff, faculty and off-campus event planners), service providers and space approvers.

In addition this position supervises and oversees the Reservations and Access area of the Viking Union who confirm and review over 11,000 space reservations and management of 100’s of keys.

This position provides expertise, consultation, policy interpretation, risk assessment, logistical planning and negotiating with stakeholders (Deans, Directors, Event Coordinators and space approvers) to support the execution of events.

This position guides customers through the planning process and helps navigate the complexity of university policies, laws, and procedure, including freedom of expression and public assembly, for use of university facilities for events.

This position provides mentorship to student supervisors, creating experiential education, and professional development opportunities for students in event planning and service delivery.

This position is a Budget Authority and is responsible for a $475,000 Budget, and completes monthly customer billing totaling over $148,000.

This position may be required to work occasional evenings or weekends as needed to support major events.

50% - Management of Event Services

• Directs the operations of Event Services including Audio/Visual, Reservations and Event Staff services offered to support the logistics and production of events/conferences held at the Viking Union and other venues at WWU.
• Develops procedures and standards for the reservation of space and utilization of services offered to clients.
• Reviews the quality of Viking Union Facility Meeting Spaces and Venues and their furnishings and equipment.
• Consults with clients on event logistics for WWU special events and supervises the delivery of event support services. Assigns staff to consult with and deliver event support services to clients for more…