Senior Water Quality Program Specialist

Senior Water Quality Program Specialist

The City of Gresham is seeking a Senior Water Quality Program Specialist to serve as the City's central lead for its drinking water quality and protection programs, reporting directly to the Water Operations Manager. This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced water professional to take ownership of a large-scale, high-profile program with direct public health, regulatory, and community impact.

This position provides advanced technical oversight and citywide coordination of regulatory sampling and reporting, distribution system flushing strategy, cross-connection control, customer water quality investigations, and data analysis across SCADA, GIS, laboratory, and field datasets. This person must be fully versed in drinking water testing procedures under Oregon Health Authority (OHA) rules and regulations and will often serve as the division's subject matter expert.

The position provides lead direction, training, and functional guidance to water quality staff.

As Oregon's fourth-largest city, Gresham is a welcoming community of hard-working people where tradition and heritage meet innovation and opportunity. Gresham is a dynamic and rapidly growing city where families and businesses have a mutual desire and drive to thrive. City of Gresham employees care deeply about the community they serve and go 'one step beyond' to deliver services in collaborative, inventive, practical, and nimble ways.

Our work is challenging, fast-paced and rewarding.

We believe that to deliver the highest level of service to all Gresham community members, it is crucial we employ a diverse workforce, foster an inclusive working environment, and ensure our policies and systems result in equitable outcomes. The City seeks candidates who will support these values by continuously incorporating equity in their daily work and actively contributing to a workplace culture that respects unique viewpoints, life experiences and cultural perspectives.

Come build the future with us.

What you will get to do:

• Plan, organize, and manage a high-profile drinking water quality program with regulatory and public health components.
• Assist with strategic planning, develop program goals, policies, and procedures.
• Monitor subprograms, evaluate and report on performance and outcomes, and analyze technical information and evolving federal and state regulatory requirements to recommend improvements and ensure ongoing compliance.
• Conduct program-related research and data analysis.
• Gather and compile drinking water quality and regulatory monitoring data from a variety of sources.
• Apply descriptive statistics to answer questions and support programmatic changes.
• Prepare, submit, and distribute the annual Consumer Confidence Report (CCR) along with a variety of technical reports, notices, and public communication materials.
• Develop and implement outreach in support of program goals.
• Build and maintain relationships with partner and regulatory agencies.
• Provide water quality technical assistance and education to staff, the public, and outside agencies.
• Represent the City in meetings, presentations, committees, and interagency work groups, and respond to sensitive inquiries, investigate complaints, and recommend corrective actions.
• Maintain and advance critical program documentation, including SOPs, technical manuals, monitoring plans, and staff training materials essential to regulatory compliance and sanitary survey readiness.
• Support budget development, equipment procurement, and inventory management.
• Deliver training and functional oversight to operations staff.
• Serve as delegated backup Direct Responsible Charge (DRC).
• Coordinate, prioritize, and assign work to assigned staff.
• Perform other duties as assigned, including participation in citywide emergency response.

Knowledge of:

• Federal and state drinking water regulations, including the Safe Drinking Water Act and OAR 333; cross-connection control and backflow assemblies.
• Sampling techniques, QA/QC protocols, and laboratory coordination.
• Data analysis, trend evaluation, dashboards, and regulatory record keeping.
• Development of monitoring schedules, SOPs, and multi-program…