Senior Planner- Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Westwood Professional Services, Inc.

Westwood Professional Services, Inc. is seeking a Senior Planner to join our team in our Baton Rouge, Louisiana office. The Senior Planner is responsible for performing an active role in managing and delivering multiple planning projects focused on building community development and resilience, developing materials for product deliverables, identifying strategic solutions to community challenges, and mentoring other planning staff and collaborating with multiple other disciplines to bring planning projects to excellent conclusions. This technical role serves Westwood clients by transforming their challenges into opportunities by developing the plans and defined projects and the associated competitive funding proposals to implement them. The Senior Planner partners with clients to help them come to decisions to move their resilience efforts forward.  The Senior Planner works closely with team members across Westwood’s disciplines to meet project deadlines and lead planning activities and staff for our clients.Westwood has a highly experienced and dynamic team of individuals dedicated to providing high-level professional services to our clients. 

• Leads the development and implementation of resilience, sustainability, and climate adaptation plans for communities, infrastructure systems, and organizations.
• Integrates resilience principles into land use, infrastructure, hazard mitigation, and comprehensive planning efforts.
• Assesses vulnerabilities of critical assets, infrastructure, and natural systems to climate, hazard, and socio-economic risks.
• Identifies and prioritizes resilience and mitigation projects based on risk reduction potential, cost-effectiveness, and co-benefits.
• Establishes and maintains primary contacts and positive relationships with clients and stakeholders.
• Delivers content and provides guidance and perspective for a variety of planning and resilience initiatives for the firm.
• Attends, participates, and/or facilitates public meetings and community engagement activities, in support of projects.
• Assists in the development of and/or revisions to land use and zoning ordinances in support of community goals.
• Manages production of project deliverables, including data analysis, and data integration to support grants and plans, projects, and reports.
• Conducts research and analysis on the history, structure, objectives, programs and financial needs of clients.
• Assists in spatial data acquisition, data conversion, and spatial/data analysis.
• Assists in data creation, georeferencing, editing, integration, and distribution to support communities’ planning and grants application activities.
• Assist in a variety of map making/data-related tasks to support community planning and grant application activities.
• Performs GIS analysis and assists in the review of more advanced geo-spatial analysis.
• Supports the content development for grant proposal efforts if/when needed.
• Shares knowledge and information with team members to improve processes and services for the betterment of the team and our clients.
• Provides strategic advice to clients on successful approaches and problem resolution methodologies.
• Support team efforts to deliver quick turn arounds on nationally competitive grant submissions which could include: NOFO compliance, preliminary scoping, engineering, mapping and data analysis, benefit cost analysis, narrative development, state and federal agency engagement, desktop environmental reviews and other relevant items.
• Other duties as assigned.

Financial Responsibilities

• • Effectively and efficiently estimates, tracks, and reports program/project costs.
  • Oversees and manages program/project revenue and profitability.
  • Manages the Accounts Receivable ledger with the client, including coordinating with the Client Manager to assist in collections of overdue amounts.
  • Oversees and manages consultant/sub-consultant team member invoices and managing A/P.
  • Tracks and manage time and budget against as-bid baseline for assigned projects.
  • Reviews and approves line-item budget expenditures for assigned projects.

Operations Responsibilities

• • Reviews plans and other deliverables and provide quality control / quality assurance.
  • Identifies scope of project and develop documents outlining key program objectives, goals, plans, requirements, estimates, schedules, and budgets.
  • Ensures estimates of time, cost, performance level, and materials are accurate and meet program requirements.
  • Makes modifications to plans and schedules as necessary.
  • Coordinates with other practice areas within the firm to ensure programs/projects satisfy compliance obligations.  Prepares and participates in quality review checks.
  • Responsible for coordinating all program/projects communications with internal and external stakeholders.
  • Manages general project administration including contracts, risk management, billing and accounts receivable.
  • Responsible for on-going communications and formal project reviews with the, Practice Lead, Client Manager, and Resilience & Recovery Delivery Group Lead.
  • Manages team members and sub-consultants’ performance.

• Working knowledge to proficient knowledge of current planning and rendering software, such as ArcGIS, Civil 3D in AutoCAD, Photoshop, InDesign, SketchUp, or others
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook)

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning, Public Policy, Landscape Architecture, Architecture, or related field. A Master’s degree in related fields is desired.
• Experience: 12+ years of experience in urban planning, master planning, resilience planning, grant writing, project management, or related field. AICP and/or ASLA certification is preferred.
• Additional Requirements: If the candidate is not already AICP certified, must be committed to become certified as a Planner through the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).

Westwood Professional Services Inc. (Westwood) was established in 1972 and has since become a leader in many of the markets it serves. Westwood is a full-service, multidiscipline professional engineering firm and serves wind, solar, power delivery, residential and commercial development, and public infrastructure clients and their projects from multiple offices across the U.S.

In 2023, Zweig Group ranked Westwood nationally at #12 and #30 respectively on its Hot Firms and Best Firms to Work for lists. Zweig also awarded Westwood two national 2nd place awards for Marketing Excellence. Westwood was recently recognized as #79 in the ENR Top 500 Firms in 2023. The firm consistently ranks on industry top 25 lists and receives recognition for its involvement on award-wining projects nationwide.

Westwood provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. We believe that diverse backgrounds strengthen our business. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.