Quality Assurance Manager

The NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enriches the environment and protects public health for all New Yorkers by providing 1.1 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water, managing wastewater and stormwater, and reducing air, noise, and hazardous materials pollution. DEP is the largest combined municipal water and wastewater utility in the country, with nearly 6,000 employees. DEP's water supply system is comprised of 19 reservoirs and 3 controlled lakes throughout the system’s 2,000 square mile watershed that extends 125 miles north and west of the City.

The Bureau of Water Supply seeks to hire an Administrative Director of Laboratory (Water Quality), M-2, for a position within the Drinking Water Operations Directorate, located in Kingston, New York.

Water Quality is responsible for ensuring the quality of New York City's drinking water supply and compliance with all federal and State drinking water regulations. To accomplish its mission, the Directorate performs extensive water quality monitoring and data analysis both in the water supply watershed and the distribution system to ensure compliance and to guide operations. The laboratory and field groups are required to adhere to specific standards, practices and policies outlined in the National Environmental Laboratories Accreditation Conference (NELAC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (ELAP), and New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) quality programs for environmental labs.

Under the direction of the Director of Water Quality, the Quality Assurance Manager will be responsible for overseeing the technical and administrative functions of the quality systems in both the distribution and watershed operations in multiple locations. They will ensure consistency and efficiency across the laboratories and field operations in distribution and the watershed locations. The Quality Assurance Manager will provide opportunity for succession planning to ensure continued compliance in the future.

Specific duties include:

• Maintain NYSDOH Environmental Laboratory Approval Program (ELAP) accreditation for all labs by implementing and managing the Quality system and QA staff.
• Managing the staffing of the unit including hiring, recruiting, onboarding, coaching and career development of staff.
• Develop and manage the OneQA project, with the goal of combining QA systems into a single, consistent Laboratory and Field QA program and combining tools related to recording quality activities.
• Provide QA Support for laboratory relocation (e.g., planning for checks and validation of all new equipment).
• Implement, improve and maintain all NELAC related policies and procedures including at least the Quality Manual, Divisional Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Quality Assurance SOPs. These must include procedures for document control, records management, Demonstrations of Capability, Corrective Actions, Quality Assurance Project Plans, validations, Quality Assurance training, methods changes, detection limits, and calibration.
• Ensure that all methods are NYSDOH ELAP approved, if applicable.
• Stay informed about industry direction and trends in Quality Assurance regulations.
• Participate in the Annual Management System Review.
• Work effectively, efficiently, and conscientiously to achieve the goals that are outlined by Divisional Management.
• Solicit feedback from staff and management during policy development and rollout.
• Ensure consistency between laboratory and field programs.
• Manage projects and coordinate work including planning, implementation, procurement, assigning staff, managing contracts, and preparing reports/presentations within deadlines.

Travel to other locations including Hawthorne, Grahamsville and Lefrak will be required.

(This is a brief description of what you might do in this position and does not include all the duties of this position.)

• A Master's degree in an appropriate scientific field from an accredited college or university and four years of satisfactory, progressively responsible experience in a laboratory concerned with sanitary control and/or protection of a municipal water supply system; of which two years must be in a responsible supervisory or administrative capacity.
• Education and/or experience equivalent to "1" above. However, all candidates must have two years responsible supervisory or administrative laboratory experience concerned with sanitary control or protection of a municipal water supply system.

• Advanced knowledge with Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, Power Point and Outlook - Knowledge of Quality systems and quality control concepts, including certifications, e.g., NELAC Basic Assessor Training - Working knowledge of methodologies and equipment used by water quality field and lab units and contract labs - In depth experience working with environmental laboratory instrumentation, data, and quality…