Manager or Director of IT Operations

Position Title:
Manager/Director of IT Operations

Reports To: Chief Information and Digital Officer

Position Summary

The Manager/Director of IT Operations is Rural Metro Fire’s designated Information Security Officer and owns cybersecurity, enterprise infrastructure (network, server, cloud, and endpoint), identity and access management, business continuity and disaster recovery, and IT service management for a distributed, 24/7 public safety organization. The role governs the managed service provider (MSP) that delivers the security operations center (SOC), IT Helpdesk, and project-level engineering support, retaining ownership of strategy, standards, risk, and outcomes while holding the MSP accountable for contracted services.

This role does not administer business or public safety applications (e.g., CAD, RMS, ERP, and SaaS business systems); those remain with their designated application owners and administrators. As Security Officer, it sets and enforces the security requirements those systems must meet and provides the secure infrastructure, oversight, and escalation support they depend on.

Title and level (Manager or Director) will be determined by the selected candidate’s experience and scope of prior leadership.

Essential Functions

• MSP Oversight, Service Management, and Team Leadership
• Own the MSP relationship for SOC, Helpdesk, and project support: govern scope, SLAs, escalation paths, and performance against the master services agreement; lead operational and quarterly business reviews.
• Own IT service management processes (incident, problem, change, request, asset) across internal and MSP-delivered services; establish KPIs and reporting; ensure Helpdesk quality for a distributed, 24/7 workforce.
• Define and maintain the MSP/internal division of responsibilities (RACI), escalation paths, and after-hours coverage.
• Lead and develop internal IT operations staff assigned to the role; partner with, but do not administer on behalf of, business and public safety application owners

Cybersecurity and Risk Management

• Serve as the company’s Information Security Officer: accountable to executive leadership for security posture, with authority to set security requirements for all systems and data, and primary point of contact for auditors, regulators, cyber insurance carriers, and law enforcement.
• Own the cybersecurity program—strategy, policies, standards, and risk decisions aligned to NIST CSF/CIS Controls—and direct the MSP-provided SOC that executes monitoring, detection, vulnerability and patch management, and endpoint and email security; set requirements and SLAs and hold the MSP accountable for results.
• Own identity and access governance (Entra /Active Directory, MFA, conditional access, privileged access, access reviews) and serve as incident commander for security events, coordinating response with the MSP SOC, cyber insurance carrier, and legal partners.
• Understand and apply CMMC and NIST standards and lead assessment readiness; ensure compliance with HIPAA (where applicable), PCI DSS, and cyber insurance requirements, and manage security awareness training and vendor security risk.

Infrastructure, Cloud, and Network Operations

• Own the architecture, lifecycle, and operation of networks (LAN/WAN, Wi-Fi, firewalls), servers and virtualization, storage, backup, and cloud platforms (Microsoft 365, Azure).
• Ensure high availability, redundancy, and performance for mission-critical systems at headquarters, fire stations, dispatch, and remote sites.
• Lead backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning and testing with defined recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Standardize the endpoint lifecycle (Intune/MDM) for office, station, and field devices; drive modernization, automation, and…