Principal Biologist at Stantec Santa Barbara, CA

Principal Biologist – Stantec

Location:

Santa Barbara, CA (or San Diego, CA)

Stantec is seeking a consulting biologist with at least 15 years of experience to join our southern California Ecosystems Group. This principal-level role will lead multidisciplinary teams, provide technical expertise, mentor junior staff, manage projects, and drive business development. The position is primarily based in the office but may include limited field work.

• Your assignments/projects will be advanced in nature and require the application of experience and strategy.
• Interact and interface with environmental regulators and clients, proactively assessing and resolving concerns.
• Plan, strategize, implement, and orchestrate the team to deliver complicated projects related to natural resources, wetlands, biophysical impact assessments, environmental assessments, and regulatory approvals.
• Manage tasks and projects according to approved scopes of work and deliver quality reports on schedule and within budget, while maintaining consistency with Stantec’s Project Management Framework and ISO-certified Integrated Management System.
• Provide senior technical peer reviews and independent reviews relating to natural resource science and biology on multidisciplinary projects.
• Apply technical and business knowledge and methods to develop creative, effective, and economical solutions to address current and potential project issues.
• Analyze current and emerging technical issues and implement actions to proactively address market, business, regulatory, and/or economic issues.
• Champion Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Policies, Procedures, Standards, and Guidelines in the execution of all work.
• Provide supervision, training, technical direction and mentoring to more junior staff.
• Contribute to and lead business development activities, including proposals, pre-qualifications, scoping/budgeting, and relationship building with clients and prospective clients.
• Occasional overnight travel within and outside of southern California may be required.

• Biologist or natural resources management specialist with at least 15 years of related experience showing increasing levels of responsibility in business development, project management, technical execution, and mentorship.
• Highly skilled in communications and technical information exchange with clients, engineers and scientists, government regulators and agencies, academia, and the public.
• Disciplined approach to project execution and technical excellence.
• Leadership in striving to continuously improve technical performance.
• Promotes new ideas and initiatives and creates an environment that supports creativity and innovation.
• Builds and maintains productive professional and personal networking relationships.
• Drives collaborative efforts within the region and beyond to deliver consistent, high-quality and appropriately scoped technical work.
• Proficient in and consistently demonstrates and promotes policies and procedures for HSE, including client-specific training (if applicable).
• Extensive experience in reviewing and analyzing scientific data, maps, and drawings with strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities.
• Extensive demonstrable background, knowledge, and experience with the flora, fauna, and vegetative communities of southern California; experience in other areas of California and elsewhere will be considered a plus.
• Extensive experience in conducting floristic botanical surveys, reconnaissance wildlife surveys, and species-specific protocol surveys; experience/permits with steelhead trout, tidewater goby, California tiger salamander, California red-legged frog, western snowy plover, California least tern, least Bell’s vireo, southwestern willow flycatcher, and/or coastal California gnatcatcher will be considered a plus.
• Extensive experience in preparing technical documentation including biological survey reports, technical memoranda, Biological Resources Technical Reports (BRTRs), jurisdictional waters delineations and Aquatic Resources Delineation Reports (ARDRs), and/or biological resources sections for CEQA/NEPA documents.
• Extensiv…