Project Manager, Operations Manager

Utah Steel is a heavy structural steel fabricator headquartered in Cedar City, UT, serving general contractors, EPCs, and owners across the western United States. We are expanding our Structural division into a new 250,000 sq ft facility, and we are hiring a Project Manager to own the full lifecycle of awarded structural steel projects.

The Project Manager is the single point of accountability between Utah Steel and the customer from contract handoff through final closeout. This role drives detailing, procurement, fabrication, logistics, and field erection support to deliver each project on schedule, on budget, and to AISC and AWS quality standards. The successful candidate is a disciplined operator who is equally comfortable reading connection details, negotiating a change order, walking a job site, and managing schedule risk inside our ERP and scheduling tools.

• Serve as the primary point of contact for the customer — typically the GC project team, owner's representative, or EPC project manager — from contract handoff through closeout.
• Lead internal kickoff meetings; confirm scope, schedule, milestones, deliverables, and any contractual exclusions or assumptions inherited from estimating.
• Maintain a clean project record in our ERP and project management tools — including contracts, drawings, RFIs, submittals, change orders, and meeting minutes — so any stakeholder can reconstruct project status without verbal context.
• Drive a closeout discipline that includes punch list resolution, mill certs, weld documentation, lien waivers, retention release, and a documented lessons-learned debrief.

• Develop and maintain the project schedule using Gantt‑based tools; align detailing release sequences, material procurement lead times, shop loading, paint/galvanizing, and shipping with field erection priorities.
• Partner with detailing, production control, and the shop floor to set realistic fabrication start dates and protect committed ship dates; identify slippage early and work the recovery plan.
• Coordinate logistics for outbound shipments, including oversized loads, permitting, and crane/erector readiness on the receiving end.
• Provide weekly status updates to leadership and the customer with a forward‑looking risk view, not just a backward‑looking percent‑complete.

• Read, interpret, and administer construction contracts (AIA A132/A133/A201, Consensus Docs, and custom subcontract agreements); understand flow‑down terms, indemnification, insurance requirements, retention, lien rights, and dispute resolution.
• Identify scope changes the moment they appear in correspondence, drawings, or the field — and convert them into priced, documented change orders before fabrication is impacted.
• Own the project budget against the estimate handoff; track committed cost vs. earned value; coordinate billing milestones, pay applications, and retention release with finance.
• Protect Utah Steel's contractual position on schedule impacts, owner‑furnished items, and downstream coordination failures by other trades.

• Manage the submittal log: approved‑for‑construction drawings, ASIs, ESIs, bulletins, and revisions; ensure detailing and production are always working from the latest released set.
• Generate, log, and resolve RFIs with quantified schedule and cost impacts; elevate non‑responses before they become claims.
• Read and interpret structural drawings, shop drawings, erection drawings, and connection details; identify constructability or scope conflicts before they reach the shop floor.

• Ensure project execution conforms to the AISC 303 Code of Standard Practice, AISC 360, AWS D1.1, and any project‑specific specifications.
• Coordinate with QC on weld procedures, NDT requirements, mill certifications, and the project quality plan.
• Reinforce a safety‑first culture in every shop walk, site visit, and supplier interaction; ensure Utah Steel personnel and subcontractors are properly trained, equipped, and authorized.

• Work daily…