Director of Facility Operations

Department Chief Operating Officer Summary The  Director of Facility Operations provides strategic and operational leadership across the university’s portfolio of physical infrastructure and capital assets in addition to emergency and environmental health and safety programs. Operating in a unique, highly collaborative urban environment, this role oversees building operations, maintenance, lifecycle asset management, maintenance strategies, emergency management and environmental health and safety.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, this role drives operational excellence while serving as a key partner across administrative and academic units. This high-performing leader will bridge strategy with operational execution and serve as a key point of contact for campus partners—most notably the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC), which owns and manages shared campus grounds and general use facilities. Additionally, this position directly leads a team consisting of two senior facilities managers, an environmental health and safety manager, a fiscal and office manager, and a forthcoming emergency manager, while also overseeing the third-party management company for our new residential hall.

The ideal candidate is an ambitious, proactive, and versatile professional who excels at complex problem-solving, data-driven decision-making, and demonstrated excellence in leadership.

Duties & Responsibilities
1. Operations, Maintenance & Property Management Oversight Direct day-to-day operations and maintenance programs across all university-owned, leased, and operated facilities to ensure safe, functional, and efficient environments for students, faculty, and staff. Oversee third-party property managers, outsourced service providers, and specialized trade contractors. Establish performance benchmarks, manage service level agreements (SLA’s), and ensure, contract compliance, accountability and cost control across contracted services.

Oversee the property manager contract for the university’s residence hall, ensuring property manager is delivering highly responsive and planned operations and maintenance, efficient turnover of spaces, and working collaboratively with Housing and Residence Life.
2. Capital Planning, Lifecycle Management & Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Develop and maintain a rigorous capital asset management plan with an intentional focus on maximizing useful life of capital assets and planned prioritization of capital asset investment, Evaluate equipment conditions, perform asset lifecycle analysis, develop end-of-life asset replacement plan, develop rough order of magnitude estimates for the plan, prioritize and optimize capital asset replacement cycles.

Prioritize, track, and execute the university’s preventative, deferred and controlled maintenance plan, integrating facility condition assessments into multi-year capital budget requests. Develop financial and functional thresholds of assets to maintain vs. run to failure. Apply preventative maintenance per code specified frequencies. Utilize predictive maintenance techniques to extend the useful life of assets.

Manage computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) corrective actions, repairs and work order requests.

Act as the technical lead in determining the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for proposed capital developments, major renovations, and new academic/operational programs. Evaluate long-term utility, custodial, maintenance, and capital renewal costs prior to project approval.

Collaborate with university leadership on capital intake processes and project readiness for upcoming facility openings.
3. Campus Partnership Partner closely with the Planning, Design, and Construction team through significant collaboration and…