Manager, Telecommunications

As the nation’s first statewide, “transmission only” company, VELCO manages the safe, reliable, cost-effective transmission of electric power throughout Vermont and as a part of the integrated New England regional network.

The Telecommunications Manager sits at the center of fast‑changing technology, critical business operations, and real impact on critical communications infrastructure. The telecom network you manage supports grid control systems (like SCADA), field crews, smart meters, and emergency operations, so your work directly affects public safety and service reliability.

In this role, you will continuously modernize legacy systems, often mix decades‑old equipment with new reliability without disrupting service. You'll manage a technically diverse team towards achieving high standard quality services.

In this role, the Telecommunications Manager is responsible for the successful development and support of VELCO’s telecommunications services by aligning telecom strategy with those of OT, IT, and the corporate environment and with industry trends and evolving technologies. The Telecom Manager manages and oversees the daily operation of the Telecommunications team (engineers, technicians, vendors) and is accountable for simultaneously managing multiple projects – often involving cross-functional project teams - and their respective budgets.

This includes overall planning, organizing and execution of departmental functions, supporting and maintaining existing applications as well as the development of new or enhanced technical solutions
, and for all activities concerned with planning, selection, acquisition, design, installation, performance and maintenance of highly reliable telecom services that support SCADA, protection, control, and field operations.

Functional Management

• Manage Telecommunications staff and contractors to ensure the successful performance of work in accordance with project plans, permits, and company requirements.
• Own the design and operate Telecom with utility grade reliability and redundancy (path diversity, failover, environmental hardening) for real time OT applications (protection and control, SCADA, substation automation, and field communications, including coordination with system operations and engineering).
• Develop strong peer relationships with leaders in the Telecommunications/OT environment and throughout the company to ensure consistent alignment with business expectations and commitments.
• Work with service providers to ensure that the environment is stable, has high availability and that robust recovery plans for critical systems are in place.
• Develop customer services, RF radio services, and maintenance programs to include predictive asset management strategies including the proper data analytics tools.
• Develop Carrier interconnections and advance external business opportunities through forecasting future technology requirements based on analyses of trends and business requirements.
• Develop a technical vision that supports VELCO’s corporate vision with its fiber optic network expansion and statewide radio system. Perform cost/benefit analyses of potential technology solutions.
• Develop and maintain budgets and schedules for department. Accurately perform budgeting and forecasting for department accounts and projects as scheduled.
• Oversee daily operations: monitoring, incident response, troubleshooting, outage management, and change management for telecom services.
• Own telecom standards, documentation, and policies (architecture, configurations, diagrams, procedures, as built records).
• Ensure staff are informed and follow all pertinent regulatory requirements for NERC CIP.
• Manage relationships with contractors and vendors to ensure that the services provided are high quality and cost effective.
• Manage relationships with other technological functions including Cyber Security, Technical Services, and applications teams.
• Establish, monitor and maintain systems and teams KPI to track performance metrics (availability, latency, incident trends) and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Provide…