Assistant Vice President, Facilities Operations

Department

OPS Facilities Office of the AVP for Facilities

About the Department

The University of Chicago is a world-class institution of higher education. Its mission is to produce a caliber of teaching and research that regularly leads to advances in fields such as medicine, biology, physics, economics, critical theory, and public policy. Our Facilities Services team supports that mission through efforts to maintain and enhance the University campus and environment and provide superior client service to our community including faculty, students, staff, neighbors, and visitors.

Job Information

Job Summary

Reporting to the Associate Vice President of Facilities Services, the AVP is the senior operating executive accountable for the day-to-day performance of building operations and maintenance, skilled trades, grounds, work control, service partners, assigned residential properties, and Energy Programs. The Senior Director of Energy Programs reports directly to this role. This leader is accountable for service delivery, asset performance, labor-management relations, safety, emergency response, operating and utility budgets, contracts, customer experience, and continuous improvement.

The role requires a visible, field-engaged leader credible with skilled-trades employees, shop and zone managers, campus customers, and University executives. The immediate mandate is to stabilize operations; evaluate and implement an effective zone model; right-size spans of control and administrative support; rebuild trust and morale; and institutionalize consistent leadership practices, SOPs, and CBA administration. A critical near-term priority is transforming how the organization uses Maximo and data-driven tools — moving from a reactive, paper-based culture toward a disciplined, technology-enabled operating model in which AI and automation actively improve decision-making, workforce deployment, and asset performance.

NEAR-TERM LEADERSHIP PRIORITIES

Evaluate and implement an effective campus operating model — zone structure, spans of control, decision rights, field leadership coverage, administrative support, and after-hours responsibilities.

Stabilize the leadership team; fill essential supervisory, administrative, customer-service, and skilled-trades gaps; establish succession and knowledge-transfer programs for specialized technical roles. Rebuild trust, morale, and labor-management relationships through visible leadership, consistent policy application, employee engagement, and clear accountability. Transform Maximo utilization: create a plan and make measurable, significant progress towards establishing Maximo as the single authoritative platform for all work intake, prioritization, dispatch, labor and material capture, asset history, and performance reporting — eliminating shadow systems and informal workarounds. Institute daily urgent-work reviews and recurring dashboards that hold leaders accountable to data. Embed AI and analytics into daily operations: deploy approved tools for predictive maintenance, work-order routing, backlog analysis, utility anomaly detection, and executive reporting — with clear governance, data-quality standards, and human oversight. Build durable staff fluency so adoption outlasts any individual leader. In partnership with Campus Planning & Sustainability, develop a long-term asset management and deferred maintenance strategy integrating facility-condition data, asset criticality, life-cycle forecasts, FMEA findings, and available funding. Restore customer confidence through clear service standards, transparent work-order status, and disciplined service recovery. Strengthen operational readiness and formal turnover protocols for new and renovated facilities, especially complex research and laboratory buildings. Modernize procurement and contract management; conduct disciplined evaluation of in-house vs. contracted service models. Partner with the Associate Vice President to complete an asset-by-asset strategic review of Residential Properties and implement the approved strategy.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead an inclusive, high-performing Facilities Operations organization with clear roles, aligned goals, and shared accountability for service, reliability, safety, and stewardship within approved budgets.

• Evaluate and refine zone structure, spans of control, field leadership, decision rights, scheduling, and on-call coverage; implement the model approved by the Associate Vice President.

• Develop the senior leadership team through talent assessment, recruitment, coaching, succession planning, and candid feedback; model visible, field-engaged leadership and a no-surprises culture.

• Own the full Maximo operating model: define data standards, work-intake rules, asset hierarchies, PM schedules, labor and material coding, and closure requirements — eliminating informal workarounds and making Maximo the organization's single source of operational truth.

• Build and publish executive and shop-level dashboards — PM completion, backlog age and volume, planned-vs-reactive ratio, cycle time, labor productivity, cost, energy, safety, and customer satisfaction — and drive weekly accountability reviews with direct reports.

• Lead the organization's adoption of AI and analytics: prioritize high-impact use cases (predictive maintenance, work-order optimization, utility anomaly detection, workforce scheduling, contract analysis); govern data quality and model outputs; require measurable outcomes before scaling.

• Build lasting AI and technology fluency across the workforce — through training, coaching, and embedding approved tools into standard daily workflows — so adoption is durable, not episodic.

• Partner with Information Technology on system integration, cybersecurity, data governance, and roadmap prioritization for Maximo, building automation, metering, and related platforms.

• Ensure buildings, engineering systems, utility infrastructure, grounds, and operating practices are managed for safety, reliability, resilience, efficiency, regulatory compliance, and sustainability.

• Maintain a controlled library of SOPs; audit adherence regularly. Require disciplined Maximo data practices — accurate intake, scheduling, labor capture, and closure — as a non-negotiable baseline for every shop and zone.

• Develop and execute a risk-based asset management and deferred maintenance strategy; lead FMEA and central utility plant assessments; conduct root-cause reviews after significant failures.

• Ensure reliable 24/7/365 monitoring, alarm routing, escalation, and response for critical building and utility systems.

• Through the Senior Director of Energy Programs, provide executive oversight of the central utility plant, building automation, utility planning and procurement, commissioning, and infrastructure reliability — leveraging metering data, monitoring-based commissioning, and AI-driven analytics to improve equipment performance and demand management.

• Integrate Facilities Operations and Energy Programs into annual capital and non-capital planning; ensure maintainability, commissioning, and operational readiness are addressed before facilities are accepted. Lead risk-rating process, FCA support of issue identification and prioritization, and provision of information required for annual capital and operational budget planning.

• Implement and champion energy efficiency, energy conservation, and sustainability initiatives in furtherance of the University’s greenhouse gas reduction goals. In partnership with Campus Planning + Sustainability, develop an update to the utility master plan that supports the institution’s climate action goals.

• Define, document, and manage service-delivery levels; develop SLAs for units requiring specialized service. Standardize customer communication from request through closure using Maximo notifications, outage notices, and escalation protocols; lead prompt service recovery when p