SENIOR PLANNER

At HDR, our employee-owners are fully engaged in creating a welcoming environment where each of us is valued and respected, a place where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic selves and novel ideas to work every day. As we work to weave diversity, equity, and inclusion into our work and foster a sense of belonging throughout the company and within our communities, we constantly ask ourselves: What is our impact on the world?

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Each and every role throughout our organization makes a difference in our ability to change the world for the better. Read further to learn how you could help make great things possible not only in your community, but around the world.

More and more, our academic clients need strategies and pathways that differentiate themselves from the competition. They need individuals who can take a fresh look at their strategic goals, long range strategic plans, master plans, space utilization and classroom / lab planning to help develop solutions that will create a sustained, successful future.

We are looking for a Senior Education Planner who can work with teams and support our academic clients through a variety of planning studies including strategic planning, comprehensive planning, precinct planning, space utilization studies, innovation in learning spaces, impactful informal learning spaces, and research space planning.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The primary duties are to work with teams and support clients to develop education programs and planning studies.

Responsibilities include:

• Participate in user group meetings of multiple stakeholders in the academic planning process.
• Share thought leadership with our clients and project teams.
• Develop visualization communication tools with staff to convey planning ideas and principles.
• Embrace HDR’s data-driven design culture while collaborating directly with our predictive analytics and computational design teams who support academic planning and programming with our clients.
• Support client interviews and work directly with clients to facilitate workshops, tours, synapse events, etc. 

Additional duties to include but not limited to:

• Stay abreast of industry thought leadership and research studies.
• Collaborate on authorship of white papers. 

The successful candidate will want to:

• Dedicate their time to promoting student-centered learning experiences and advancing vision, mission, and institutional goals for our academic clients.
• Serve as point of contact for clients with aptitude for building client trust and relationships.
• Collaborate with project teams to develop, advance and implement the strategies and goals of the Education Sector.
• Actively network at professional events, and attend conferences.
• Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams that include analysts, strategists, designers and clients.
• Collaborate with diverse teams to ideate and evolve solutions.
• Work with data analysts to implement models that are logically sound, imaginative, and defensible.
• Ask questions. Seek clarity. Listen. Empathize.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 10+ years in the Business / Administrative Office of a college or university.
• Knowledge of higher education facilities, including academic buildings, science + technology, health education, engineering, STEM, libraries and campus planning for both public and private campuses. Ability to work effectively with clients and project teams.
• Experience with early phase marketing, pursuit development and organizing client interface.
• Ability to meet prospective clients and identify potential projects.
• Strong organizational, writing and editing skills.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project).
• Proficiency with Adobe suite of creative tools and basic Revit skills.
• Effective and memorable communication skills.
• Certification by the American Institute of Certified Planners.