Job Description
Join Clark Nexsen, a JMT Company, and become part of a dynamic, collaborative team dedicated to delivering exceptional service to our clients—while making a meaningful impact on our communities and the world through the projects we help bring to life.
Clark Nexsen is seeking a full-time Sustainable Design Practice Leader who is passionate about seeking progress toward a zero-carbon, equitable, resilient, and healthy built environment. The successful candidate will work as part of our project teams and side by side with our building performance and design team leaders to advance critical imperatives of carbon reduction and resilience.
The ideal candidate fully embraces the collaborative nature of the interdisciplinary design process and will lead the sustainable design initiative within the firm. They will oversee and contribute to practice-wide sustainable design strategies, green building certification consulting, sustainability analysis and upgrades for existing structures, along with education and training, working closely with Clark Nexsen project teams to help advance sustainability on project work and across firm initiatives. The practice lead will participate in marketing the firm’s capabilities in sustainability and high-performance design through participation in client interviews, authoring content for publication, and speaking at industry events.
General responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:
- Project design and management
- Leads sustainability workshops, eco-charrettes, and/or integrative design processes to help stakeholders identify and realize project sustainability goals.
- Authors project sustainability deliverables, including client presentations, basis of design narratives, charrette reports, green building certification system checklists, requests for proposals, sustainability plans, and studies.
- Provides leadership of sustainable design activities throughout the project life cycle.
- Assigns Sustainability Coordinators to projects and monitors their performance.
- Develops appropriate internal processes and tools to enhance sustainable design workflows.
- Performs quality control reviews of project deliverables generated by Sustainability Coordinators.
Research, innovation, and leadership
- Leads specialized research activities; assists with the identification and implementation of targeted research.
- Partners with market sector leaders to support new project pursuits including contributing to marketing proposals and participating in interviews.
- Contributes to business development and thought leadership through involvement in professional organizations and industry conferences.
- Serves as an in-house subject matter expert for sustainability-related information, monitoring sustainable design industry trends related to software, emergent research, and best practices.
- Incorporates relevant practices, knowledge, and tools into the firm’s practices.
- Supports recruitment, interviews, and hiring of Clark Nexsen Sustainability staff.
- Mentors Sustainability Coordinators, providing direction and feedback to support their professional development.
Required Skills
- Demonstrated knowledge of strategies and systems related to occupant wellness, energy efficiency, daylighting, embodied and operational carbon, indoor air quality, materials assessment, stormwater management, and other common project topics.
- Self-motivated, takes initiative, and is resourceful, with eagerness to contribute, learn, adapt, and grow professionally.
- Ability to problem solve and apply innovative solutions.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to convey information to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Thorough understanding of project work planning, scheduling, budgeting, and staffing.
- Open to learning new things and excited to share knowledge with others.
- Ability to travel occasionally to Clark Nexsen offices and project locations.
- Ability to successfully complete a background check for work on Federal Government projects
Required Experience
- Minimum bachelor’s-level accredited professional degree in Architecture, Engineering, or related field.
- Professional licensure in architecture or related field preferred.
- 10+ years of professional experience, including 5+ years working directly in the field of sustainable building design, is required.
- Direct experience leading project eco-charrettes, sustainability workshops, or similar building sustainability work sessions involving multiple stakeholders is required.
- Direct experience facilitating an integrated building design process, including scheduling and coordination of energy and daylight modeling, site analyses, and similar activities to achieve desired sustainability outcomes within project schedules and budgets, is required.
- Experience authoring sustainability or decarbonization plans for clients is desirable.
- LEED Accredited Professional with Specialty (BD+C or ID+C) must be active. Experience serving as LEED Project Administrator for projects which have been successfully certified is required.
- Additional accreditations such as WELL AP, LFA, Green Globes Professional, etc. will be given special consideration.
- Exposure to analysis tools pertaining to built environment sustainability such as Climate Studio, IES Virtual Environment, Climate Consultant, Sefaira, PVWatts, tallyLCA, and/or EC3 is preferred. Experience with Revit is required. Experience with Rhino, Grasshopper, and related plugins (Ladybug, Honeybee, etc.) is desirable.
Working Conditions
At JMT, we prioritize a healthy work/life balance and offer a flexible hybrid working schedule. JMT offers a hybrid work schedule. The selected candidate is expected to work in a JMT office location at least three days per week or as needed to perform assigned duties. While most of our work is desk-based, there may be times when standing, walking, bending and lifting of minimal weight are required. Our office environment is comfortable, has adequate lighting and temperature, and is free from noise, dust, and other hazards. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions
Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law.
