Manager - IT Service Desk

As the leading transit bus manufacturer in the United States, GILLIG buses play a critical role in the environmental and social initiatives in communities across our nation. GILLIG is on the forefront in the transition to zero‑emission vehicles and has an unmatched reputation in the industry for quality, reliability, durability, service, and support. From initial design through final assembly, each GILLIG bus is designed and built in Livermore, CA.

• Leader in environmentally friendly mobility solutions including battery electric, hybrid electric, near‑zero CNG and clean diesel transit buses
• Renowned for its inclusive team/family‑oriented culture
• Stable, successful, and growing organization – a Bay Area business for over 132 years!
• Flexible schedules (
  * depending on project needs)
• Excellent compensation including company paid medical premiums, generous retirement plan and other comprehensive benefits

Information Technology (IT) enables GILLIG’s business by delivering secure, reliable, and scalable technology services across our manufacturing operations, engineering environment, and corporate functions. The team partners with stakeholders to keep employees productive and connected through end‑user support, collaboration and productivity tools, endpoint and asset lifecycle management, network and infrastructure operations, business application support, cybersecurity, and technology governance. IT focuses on service excellence, operational resiliency, and continuous improvement—ensuring systems and data are protected, outages are minimized, and technology investments align to business priorities.

We are looking for a Service Desk Manager who will provide strategic and operational leadership for GILLIG’s enterprise IT Service Desk function. This role is responsible for ensuring consistent, high‑quality IT support delivery across all GILLIG locations; establishing and enforcing IT service management processes; maintaining SLA performance; developing team capabilities; and driving a customer‑centric culture. The Manager oversees Service Desk technicians, supervises daily operations, manages escalations, and partners closely with Infrastructure, Applications, Security, and business leaders to ensure a stable, efficient, and predictable IT support experience.

This is an on‑site position at our Livermore, CA Headquarters and will report to the Head of IT.

• Lead, develop, and mentor Service Desk Technicians and Senior Technicians, including hiring, performance management, coaching, and career progression planning
• Establish a high-performance culture built on accountability, service quality, and continuous improvement
• Create shift schedules, staffing plans, and site coverage models to support 1,000+ end users across manufacturing, engineering, corporate, and remote teams
• Own daily Service Desk operations including ticket management, queue monitoring, SLA adherence, escalations, and KPI performance
• Ensure the team follows ITIL-aligned processes for incidents, requests, knowledge management, and major incident response
• Serve as the final escalation point for complex or high-impact issues, coordinating cross‑functionally with Infrastructure, Security, and Applications teams
• Drive a customer-focused mindset to ensure fast, consistent, and high-quality support
• Communicate service status, disruptions, and major incident updates to business stakeholders and executives
• Monitor customer satisfaction and service quality metrics, and implement improvements to enhance the end-user experience
• Define and enforce Service Desk SOPs, intake criteria, escalation paths, and ticket documentation standards to support auditability and continuity
• Lead Service Desk maturity initiatives including automation, self-service enablement, knowledge improvements, and workflow/tooling enhancements
• Own SLA/OLA performance tracking, reporting, and remediation planning, including dashboards and backlog/workload trend analysis for IT leadership
• Identify patterns in support issues and partner with engineering, applications, and manufacturing teams to drive root-cause remediation
• Administer Service…