Who We Are

We are a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm who values diversity and inclusion and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique. Our culture is built on mutual respect, recognizing that our variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives leads to better solutions, which fosters our continued success for our employee-owners and clients.

Who You Are

You are a confident, approachable leader with 20 or more years of relevant professional experience who thrives on being a people leader. You value people and staff development; providing technical and professional mentorship to colleagues. You seek out ways to make meaningful contributions to the careers of others through staff supervision or participation in mentoring and training programs. You enjoy leading, mentoring, and growing your team by working collaboratively with them, clients, and interdisciplinary teams to help them deliver projects on time and within budget. Your experience includes at least 15 years’ experience targeting, procuring, and retaining clients. You have prepared business plans, strategic and capture plans, and have comprehensive knowledge of project management, financial management, and industry best practices.

You are a collaborative communicator, who maintains high standards and sets a respectful, positive example for their team and others. You are a financially astute and solution-oriented problem solver with a can-do attitude. You are focused on strategic growth through project acquisition and the recruitment and retention of key talent in the biological resources market.

You are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion and recognize that our differences contribute to our success.

You have significant experience designing and working on a variety of cultural resource management projects in Northern California involving agency coordination and client service experience; proficiency in management of archaeological, historical architecture, and tribal cultural resources within the context of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). You have experience with cultural resource inventories and testing projects, documentation, evaluation, and treatment of prehistoric and historic-period archaeological resources; and experience preparing EIR, EIS, EA, and MND sections and developing mitigation. You have in-depth knowledge of federal, state, and local environmental policies and regulations and have coordinated and managed complex permitting and regulatory compliance efforts.

You hold a graduate degree in anthropology, archaeology, architectural history, cultural resources management, or a related field and meet the Secretary of Interior Professional Qualification Standards for Archaeology, Architectural History, or History. You maintain strong working relationships with land managers, tribes, federal, state, and local agencies.

You can work in a hybrid-fashion from one of our Northern California offices: Sacramento, Petaluma, San Francisco, Oakland, or San Jose. Our business group directors are expected to travel throughout the Northern California region routinely and spend approximately 3 days per week in one of our offices.

What You Will Do for ESA

Within ESA, Regional Business Group Directors are senior-level positions leading the operations and financial performance at the regional level. In this role, you will ensure that ESA’s Northern California cultural resources group, consisting of more than 30 cultural resource practitioners, sustains and strengthens its reputation and achieves its annual business plan goals.

More specifically, the leadership responsibilities include the following four areas:

Empower all employee-owners to have a positive impact on the firm

Collaborate with project managers to align project assignments with individual professional development goals to further career progression and succession planning.
Engage with employee-owners at all levels across the region’s business group to personally connect, and to foster a culture of collaboration, equity, diversity, inclusion, and continual learning.
Lead talent acquisition including continual assessment of market and service needs to ensure best in class talent is recruited, supported, and developed to achieve exceptional industry recognition as a consultant and employer of choice.
Understand and leverage the benefits of our ESOP to increase employee engagement and retention,
and promote an ownership culture.

Lead the sound, profitable operation of the group

Responsible for establishing and achieving all aspects of the business group’s annual business plan goals.
Assist in the preparation of multi-disciplinary proposals and lead some cultural resources specific proposals.
Collaborate with project managers to ensure clear business group goals and expectations are established regarding profitability, utilization, acquisitions, and project execution.
Optimize project performance by ensuring principles and practices of proactive project management, risk management and quality control are effectively implemented, including regular project manager portfolio reviews to maintain strong project performance.

Maintain and grow our reputation for the highest quality services

Provide strategic expertise and/or serve as Project Director or senior technical advisor on the most complex, unique, strategic, and/or large projects for the business group.
Maintain and grow an extensive professional network across the Northern California region including decisionmakers within client organizations and regulatory agencies to identify, position for, and win projects.

Actively participate in setting the strategic direction for the group and region

Collaborate with the Regional Director and other Northern California Business Group Directors to develop and implement the region’s annual business plan.
Collaborate with the Cultural Resources Practice Leader on practice wide, strategic, and multi-region activities.
Continually assess the group’s technical capabilities, drive innovative project solutions, and support and increase cross-practice project execution.

ESA has established multiple pay ranges tailored to the economic factors in the geographies in which ESA staff reside. For this position the range is $139,695 – $209,542 or $158,061 – $237,019 annually based on our anticipated hiring locations as noted in the above job details. Actual compensation is determined by a number of factors including but not limited to an individual’s related experience, education, skills, and geographic location.

What’s Special About ESA

Joining ESA means becoming part of a close-knit team of environmental professionals who contribute to outstanding projects, improve environmental stewardship, and advance a more sustainable and resilient future for our communities and wild places.

At ESA, we provide benefits such as medical, dental, and vision insurance (paid at 70% for you AND your family), annual allocations of company shares through our ESOP, a 401(k) plan with company match, annual performance based bonuses, and paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, to name a few.

We also provide specific programs whether you want to further your technical expertise, sharpen your business acumen, or help lead the next generation of employee-owners. We want to support you in reaching your career goals through tuition reimbursement, professional development bonuses, and attendance at conferences.

In accordance with ESA’s duty and responsibility to provide and maintain a safe workplace that is free of known hazards and to minimize the exposure to potential hazards, any employee who works from an ESA office or conducts any other in-person ESA work-related activity is required to submit their proof of vaccination status or have received an approved exemption and accommodation.

ESA is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment. (EOE M/V/F/D)