Manager of Operational Technology

This position is responsible for the strategy, reliability, security, support, and lifecycle management of Operational Technology (OT) systems used to operate the Company’s water and wastewater facilities and infrastructure. The position leads the Company’s plant-based automation and process-control functions, including SCADA, PLCs, HMIs, RTUs and the hardware/software supporting the OT environment. The position works closely with Operations, Engineering, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and external partners to ensure OT systems are secure, reliable, standardized, supportable, and aligned with Company objectives.

• Develop and maintain the Company’s OT strategy, architecture, standards, policies, procedures, and multi-year technology roadmap.
• Establish priorities for modernization, lifecycle replacement, reliability, cybersecurity, standardization, and support of OT systems.
• Develop performance measures and reporting for system availability, incidents, preventive maintenance, lifecycle status, cybersecurity risk, projects, and other key OT activities.
• Develop and manage OT operating budgets and provide input to capital budgets and multi-year capital improvement plans.

• Provide management oversight for SCADA, PLCs, HMIs, RTUs, data collection/transmission, instrumentation interfaces, industrial networks, communications systems, OT related software, and related systems.
• Ensure OT systems are properly maintained, monitored, documented, backed up, and supported.
• Establish and enforce standards for control-system architecture, PLC and HMI configuration, alarms, communications, programming practices, documentation, and system implementation.
• Coordinate maintenance, upgrades, and changes to production systems to minimize operational risk and disruption.
• Coordinate, facilitate, and oversee troubleshooting and change/enhancement requests,
• Ensure appropriate testing, validation, documentation, and operational acceptance of environment changes

• Ensure OT systems are designed and maintained for appropriate availability, redundancy, resiliency, recoverability, and supportability.
• Maintain accurate inventories and lifecycle plan for OT hardware, software, firmware, applications, communications infrastructure, configurations, and system dependencies.
• Maintain appropriate backups of critical programs, configurations, and applications and periodically validate restoration and recovery procedures.
• Partner with IT and Cybersecurity to implement and monitor appropriate controls for segmentation, remote and privileged access, authentication, monitoring, vendor access, vulnerability management, and incident response.
• Coordinate with Information Technology for patching, upgrades, vulnerability remediation, incident response, networking, and root-cause analysis while balancing security, vendor requirements, system availability, and operational impact.

• Provide OT leadership for capital projects, facility improvements, automation upgrades, and other initiatives involving operational technology.
• Review system designs, scopes, estimates, technical specifications, budgets, schedules, and vendor deliverables for compliance with Company OT, cybersecurity, operational, and support standards.
• Establish and enforce change-management and configuration-management processes to ensure production changes are properly reviewed, tested, approved, documented, scheduled, and communicated.
• Coordinate with and oversee system integrators, engineering firms, controls contractors, telecommunications providers, equipment manufacturers, and technology vendors; ensure Company standards and documentation requirements are adhered to.

• Maintain effective relationships within the company, including water and wastewater Operations, Engineering, Maintenance, IT, Cybersecurity, and field personnel to understand requirements and priorities.
• Coordinate planned system maintenance and changes to minimize disruption to critical water and wastewater services.
• Support the design, implementation, commissioning, and modernization of facilities, equipment, processes, and automation systems.
• Evaluate new technologies and recommend improvements that enhance reliability, security, functionality, operational efficiency, and…