Construction Project Manager

Job Description

The Construction Project Manager is responsible for the profitable execution of energy retrofit, new construction and building projects.   This includes managing the entire project lifecycle- from resource planning and cost estimating to site safety and final commissioning.  Details include planning, scheduling, monitoring, evaluating, and directing projects to ensure a complete business solution is implemented. Work includes managing various construction projects contract structures such as Design build, Turnkey, EaaS, DBOOM projects. Develop and manage project plans based on the Optimum Energy Project Management methodology for executing and implementing projects. Responsible for ensuring projects meet established time, cost, and technical objectives including company revenue, executed gross margin and cash targets. Manage the project’s change control and effectively utilize all available methodologies and tools culminating in customer acceptance of results. Conduct project progress reviews with customers and project team personnel, providing contingency and problem-resolution plans as required.

Primary Responsibilities

• Construction & Project Management: Oversee the execution of construction projects
  • Identify resource requirements, coordinate the work of Optimum Energy resources and assigned customer tasks
  • Perform project status reviews and communicate project status
  • Manage project submittals and documentation
  • Facilitate the procurement of IT connection between OE and the customer site
  • Manage all project mechanical completion, construction startup and commissioning (on time, within budget, within expectations)
  • Conducts final project team review/lessons learned
• Financial Accountability: Manage project costs, change orders, and billing to ensure “executed gross margin” goals and cash goals are met
  • Manage and monitor cost/schedule/resource variances through Optimum’s project lifecycle
  • Proactively manage foreseen project risk, identify any potential risk scenarios, and facilitate issue resolution
  • Provide regular cost forecast updates to the Finance team including project cashflows, Initial schedule of values (contractual)
• Safety Leadership: Implement site safety and security procedures; heavy emphasis on OE safety program implementation for all employees and subcontractors.
  • Manage safety for the project reporting in accordance with OSHA guidelines
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Act as the primary point of contract for customers, ensuring high satisfaction, and foster relationships with subcontractors and internal partners
  • Conduct project planning and project kick-off meetings Internally and with the Owner
  • Assist in establishing and maintaining positive customer relationships and work closely with Optimum Engineers to ensure customer expectations are met/exceeded
• Project Scheduling: Perform cost estimating and detailed scheduling using OE tools to meet defined milestones
  • Work extensively with scheduling programs such as Primavera Project Planner and MS projects, report generation from Procore and NetSuite, and other administrative functions
  • Develop a strong understanding and knowledge of OE’s products and services
  • Participate in continuous improvement of the PMO and identifying and implementing best practices
    

Key Competencies and Skills Expectations

• Anticipate, plan, and coordinate all Project activities; Maintain overall project schedule using Primavera Project Planner or Microsoft Project
• Excellent communication (verbal and written) and interpersonal skills
• Efficient team management skills and strong leadership skills
• Detail-oriented with effective problem-solving skills
• Focus on results and success, conveying a sense of urgency and driving issues to closure
• Understanding of network diagrams and network devices
• Knowledge of IT terminology, such as VPNs, IPs, firewalls, ports; Building Automation System brands and communication protocols
• Proficient in ProCore and Microsoft Office suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio)

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Civil, Mechanical or Electrical Engineering; technical college certification with 10 years of project management experience acceptable
• Experience: 5+ years of direct project management experience in the non-residential building construction industry, experience at manufacturing or higher education facilities a plus
• Technical Knowledge: Experience with HVAC, chilled water systems and controls expertise preferred. Tridium/Niagra and IT/connectivity experience a plus
• Certifications: PMP (Project Management Professional) certification a plus
• Travel: Ability to travel up to 75% of the time, depending on location and geography

Optimum Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer encouraging diversity in the workplace.

About the Company

Optimum Energy, a Bernhard Capital Partners portfolio company, has spent 20 years helping hospitals, universities, government facilities, and advanced manufacturing operations reduce energy consumption in heating and cooling systems by up to 50% and turn that infrastructure into a strategic financial and operational asset. With 300+ plants and institutions served globally, nobody understands energy infrastructure, efficiency, and financial opportunity quite like Optimum Energy.

Our Energy-as-a-Service model converts aging central utility plants into upfront unrestricted cash, cuts utility operating expenses 25 to 35%, and keeps the transaction entirely off the balance sheet. The structure has been confirmed by Big Four auditors and cited by rating agencies as a driver of improved credit outlooks.

We work with clients from master planning and design through implementation, commissioning, and into long-term operations and maintenance. How we show up depends on what the client needs. That could mean fully managed plants with Optimum carrying total accountability for performance and uptime. It could mean supplementing an existing facilities team with engineering support, analytics, training, and escalation resources. Or it could mean a tailored combination of both. In every engagement, we stay for the life of the agreement.

Proprietary technology, including OptiCx and OptimumLOOP, powers everything we do. It is not what we sell. It is what enables us to deliver the most continuous, precise system-level optimization across chilled water, hot water, and steam plants available in the market today. Machine learning algorithms trained on two decades of operational data adapt to load, weather, and occupancy in real time. AI-driven predictive maintenance and fault detection catch equipment degradation before it becomes a problem. We guarantee the performance. We carry the risk.

Behind the technology is a team built on a simple set of principles: be sharp, be relentless, and be accountable for outcomes. Our people are engineers, operators, and financial structurers who would rather solve the hard problem than talk around it. Every engagement gets that same intensity, whether the scope is a single plant or a 26-site enterprise portfolio. For more information, visit www.optimumenergyco.com.

About the Industry
Commercial and institutional HVAC infrastructure is aging faster than organizations can replace it. Hospitals are running central plants built in the 1960s and 70s. Universities carry over $112 billion in collective deferred maintenance nationally. Advanced manufacturing operations face intensifying energy demand from reshoring and facility expansion. Rising energy costs, tightening regulations, sustainability mandates, and a skilled trades labor gap that shows no sign of closing all compound the pressure.

Connected systems are generating more data than most organizations can act on. The capacity to analyze it and translate it into operational decisions requires platforms and people most facilities teams do not have. The industry is not short on ambition or technology. It is short on the capital structures, operational models, and workforce capacity to turn intent into sustained results.

Why Optimum Energy?
With 300+ sites and over 300M square feet of operational data, our machine learning algorithms continuously optimize in real time. No competitor replicates this at scale.
We do not sell software, and we do not sell equipment. We deliver guaranteed outcomes through the convergence of deep engineering expertise, proprietary optimization technology, and financial structures that align our interests directly with those of our clients. That means tailoring solutions to unique financial and operational realities, not forcing a one-size-fits-all model. It means verifiable success across facility design, ongoing operations, and complex deal structuring. And it means protecting client investments by optimizing the 70% of total costs that occur after day one.

Our EaaS contracts transfer construction, performance, and lifecycle risk entirely. No upfront capital. No balance sheet impact. Capital that would have gone to back-of-house infrastructure stays available for the priorities that matter most, whether that is clinical growth, enrollment expansion, or production capacity.

No other firm brings this combination of engineering, technology, operations, and financial structuring under a single partnership.