Description
The Role
About Us
We have been training tradespeople since 1945. Today we serve approximately 1,000 students across three campuses. We have deep roots in our communities and strong relationships with the employers who hire our graduates; we're in the early stages of building on that foundation in meaningful ways.
We're building toward something bigger: becoming the training program that produces the best-prepared tradespeople in the country, and the long-term workforce partner that employers rely on to build their teams.
What You'll Own
The work will span three areas, with the balance shifting over time.
Operations and Organizational Development
In the near term, this is where most of your time goes. We're a growing organization with decades of history, working through what it means to evolve thoughtfully. You'll work across departments, build trust with long-tenured staff, help design the initiatives that make change real, and build the operating infrastructure — starting with a dashboard of the 8–12 metrics that matter most — that gives leadership and the board a clear picture of how the business is running.
CEO Support
You'll be a close partner to the CEO on decision-making, problem-solving, and translating priorities into action. That includes participating in board meetings and helping manage the things that fall between functions.
Employer Partnerships
The biggest long-term growth opportunity for this organization is building deeper, more structured partnerships with employers: co-developing curriculum, delivering training on-site, and moving beyond the traditional model of simply placing graduates. This is early-stage work with no established product or sales playbook yet. In Year 1, your role is to help develop the strategy, have early conversations with employers, and lay the groundwork for a partnership model that can scale. The heavier BD work comes in Year 2 and beyond.
Who We're Looking For
Someone with 5–8 years of experience who has operated across multiple functions and is comfortable with ambiguity. You've built things from scratch, worked in organizations that were figuring things out as they went, and know how to build trust with people from different backgrounds.
- Can take a messy, ambiguous problem and quickly synthesize it into a clear assessment and recommendation
- Can build clear, compelling presentations and memos for senior and external audiences
- Is comfortable with cold outreach and external relationship-building
- Can design and build a dashboard or reporting framework without being handed a template
- Writes clearly and concisely, and can tailor communication to very different audiences
- Has enough financial and operational literacy to ask the right questions and spot what matters
An existing network in workforce development, employer partnerships, or trades-adjacent industries is a meaningful plus. Experience at the intersection of education and employment — whether in consulting, a workforce-focused company, or a mission-driven organization — is the background most likely to set someone up for success here.
Growth Trajectory
We expect the right person to grow into a Director or VP-level role after two years, as the employer partnership business takes shape and the organization scales operationally.
Why This Organization
We've been training tradespeople for over 80 years. The mission is concrete: more graduates with good jobs, and stronger connections between schools and the employers who hire them. The work produces visible results in people's lives. We offer competitive compensation and take work-life flexibility seriously — we want people here for the long run.