Program Manager – Exercise Planning

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Act as the leading program interface with Government stakeholders, providing overall management, technical guidance, and accountability for program outcomes.

• Direct, organize, and oversee the planning of exercises, consequence management, and major special-event preparedness activities.

• Manage the entire exercise lifecycle, which includes concept development, design, planning, facilitation, execution, evaluation, reporting, and tracking corrective actions.

• Lead multidisciplinary teams that support national and regional consequence management planning efforts.

• Collaborate with FEMA, DHS, federal interagency partners, state and local stakeholders, and various organizations.

• Plan and facilitate meetings, workshops, working groups, exercise planning conferences, stakeholder engagements, and activities for senior leaders.

• Supervise the development, validation, maintenance, and presentation of intricate planning products and executive materials.

• Ensure exercises confirm plans, identify operational deficiencies, evaluate coordination mechanisms, and produce actionable recommendations.

• Oversee the Project Management Plan, Integrated Master Schedule, deliverable tracker, risk and issue log, action-item tracker, staffing, dependencies, milestones, and reporting on status.

• Identify risks, formulate mitigation strategies, escalate critical issues, and drive towards resolutions.

• Manage the collection, analysis, visualization, and presentation of planning and exercise data.

• Establish quality control, configuration management, version control, decision histories, action tracking, and practices for knowledge management.

• Oversee staffing, workload distribution, personnel performance, surge requirements, and continuity of operations.

• Provide executive-level updates on status, milestones, risks, dependencies, decisions, staffing, readiness, and Government actions.

• Document lessons learned, observations, corrective actions, and best practices.

• Manage transition, knowledge transfer, and project closure activities.

⛳️ Requirements

• A Bachelor's degree in Emergency Management, Homeland Security, Public Administration, Business Administration, Project Management, or a related discipline.

• At least 10–15 years of progressively responsible experience in managing complex federal emergency management, homeland security, exercise planning, consequence management, or major special-event programs.

• Proven experience in leading large-scale exercise planning and execution throughout the entire exercise lifecycle.

• Background supporting national- or regional-level consequence management, emergency preparedness, or major national/international special-event planning.

• Experience coordinating with federal, state, local, regional, and interagency stakeholders.

• Ability to manage multidisciplinary teams and multiple planning workstreams, exercises, deliverables, dependencies, and deadlines effectively.

• Program management expertise with Integrated Master Schedules, project plans, deliverable tracking, risk and issue management, action-item tracking, performance metrics, and executive status reporting.

• Experience in developing and reviewing technically complex planning products, exercise documentation, executive briefings, reports, decision-support materials, and presentations for senior leadership.

• Strong understanding of emergency management, preparedness, response, recovery, consequence management, continuity, and interagency coordination principles.

• Excellent facilitation skills for planning conferences, workshops, working groups, exercises, and senior-level engagements.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to convey complex information into concise executive-level products.

• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project or similar scheduling tools, SharePoint, Teams, collaboration tools, project management tools, and data visualization platforms.

• Candidates must be U.S. citizens and currently reside in the U.S.

• Preferred: DHS clearance with CBP/ICE, or DoD Top-Secret clearance.

• Preferred: PMP certification, FEMA MEPP or a comparable qualification, FEMA EMI and/or NIMS/ICS training, HSEEP experience, and experience supporting FEMA, DHS, federal emergency management organizations, NSSEs, SEAR events, Olympic/Paralympic Games, or similarly complex events.

🏝️ Benefits

• 401(k)

• 401(k) matching

• Dental insurance

• Employee assistance program

• Flexible schedule

• Flexible spending account

• Health insurance

• Life insurance

• Paid time off

• Professional development assistance

• Vision insurance