Duties

Summary

This Senior Executive Service (SES) position is located in the Office of Water (OW), Office of Wastewater Management, Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act Management Division. If selected, you must work at the location stated in this announcement. About OW: https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-office-water

Learn more about this agency

Responsibilities

The Director of the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) Management Division within the Office of Water's Office of Wastewater Management is responsible for managing a national effort to leverage Federal resources and stimulate private capital investments in water infrastructure by providing billions of dollars of credit assistance in the form of direct loans and loan guarantees to entities for water infrastructure projects.

Major program responsibilities include:

• Establishing the national direction and overseeing the WIFIA program, which administers federal loan and loan guarantee programs authorized under Public Law 113-121, the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014, specifically Title V, the WIFIA, which provides long-term, low cost supplemental credit assistance for regionally and nationally significant water infrastructure projects.
• Providing oversight and stewardship of highly technical and complex water infrastructure projects that are awarded financing under the program.
• Providing expertise and leadership that will be leveraged to spur environmental benefits and economic growth through supporting state, tribal, and local efforts to modernize the outdated water infrastructure on which the American public depends.
• Overseeing review of exotic and complex financial plans and highly technical engineering and scientific data and information, ensuring selected projects are of the highest quality and project plans meet the eligibilities under the program and are appropriate to meet program objectives.
• Developing and implementing national policy, priorities, guidance, and strategies for establishing, implementing, and overseeing the WIFIA program.
• Developing and maintaining external relationships within EPA and with other Federal agencies as well as national, State and local officials and organizations concerned with water and wastewater infrastructure finance, construction and management.

The Director selects, assigns and provides leadership, direction and guidance to a multi-disciplined staff to achieve major program objectives, and coordinates Division activities across the Agency, with States, Tribes, and Territories and with other Federal agencies sharing a mutual interest or responsibility within the major program areas assigned to the Division.

Supervisory status
Yes

Promotion Potential
00

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• You must be a U.S. citizen.
• You must submit resume and required documents (see How to Apply section).
• If you are selected, a pre-employment background check is required.
• You may be required to travel 1 to 5 days per month.

If you are selected, you must complete a 1-year SES probationary period, if not previously completed.

The Ethics in Government Act, P.L. 95-521, requires the applicant selected for this position to submit a financial disclosure statement, OGE-278, prior to assuming the SES position, annually, and upon termination of employment.

This position is designated as High Risk and requires a background investigation. Unless an appropriate background investigation is already on record with the Office of Personnel Management, you must undergo a background investigation.

Qualifications

The work of this position is classified in the Program Management, 0340 series where the qualifications include both general management skills and characteristics that are applicable to all SES positions and technical or program responsibilities specific to this position. Applicants must have substantive general experience which provides a good basic or general knowledge of the principles of organization, management and administration; and substantive specialized (operating administrative or managerial) experience in a type of work or a combination of functions directly related to this position.

All applicants must have one year of specialized experience at a level close to the work of this job that demonstrates the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities required to successfully perform in this role. Typically this experience can be found in work within this field or a field that is closely related.

As a basic requirement for entry into the Senior Executive Service, applicants must also provide evidence of progressively responsible leadership experience that is indicative of senior level management capability and directly related to the skills and abilities outlined under the Executive Core Qualifications and Technical Qualifications listed below.

A. Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) - Mandatory for competitive applicants - Failure to address these factors will result in your application being disqualified, unless you are a noncompetitive eligible applicant.

ECQ 1 - LEADING CHANGE. Involves the ability to bring about strategic change, both within and outside the organization, to meet organizational goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to establish an organizational vision and to implement it in a continuously changing environment.
ECQ 2 - LEADING PEOPLE. Involves the ability to lead people toward meeting the organization's vision, mission, and goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to provide an inclusive workplace that fosters the development of others, facilitates cooperation and teamwork, and supports constructive resolution of conflicts.
ECQ 3 - RESULTS DRIVEN. Involves the ability to meet organizational goals and customer expectations. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to make decisions that produce high-quality results by applying technical knowledge, analyzing problems, and calculating risks.
ECQ 4 - BUSINESS ACUMEN. Involves the ability to manage human, financial, and information resources strategically.
ECQ 5 - BUILDING COALITIONS. Involves the ability to build coalitions internally and with other Federal agencies, State and local governments, nonprofit and private sector organizations, foreign governments, or international organizations to achieve common goals.

Your responses should be clear and concise and show a level of accomplishment and a degree of responsibility. Leadership competencies for each ECQ can be found at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/reference-materials/guidetosesquals_2012.pdf

B. Technical Qualifications (TQs) - Mandatory for all applicants - Failure to address these factors will result in your application being disqualified.

TQ 1 - Demonstrated experience managing a complex multi-disciplinary financial assistance and/or scientific and/or technical organization.

TQ 2 - Demonstrated experience leading the implementation of environmental and/or financial assistance programs (e.g. development of guidance, technical and financial assistance programs, program evaluation, data acquisition and management, etc.).

Education

This job does not have an education qualification requirement.

Additional information

If you are selected, travel, transportation, and relocation expenses will not be paid by EPA. Any travel, transportation, and relocation expenses associated with reporting to work in this position will be your responsibility.

This position has portable work. If selected for this position, you may be authorized to telework after meeting eligibility requirements if approved by the supervisor/manager. Telework is available based on agency policy. NOTE: The agency is currently utilizing maximum telework flexibilities due to COVID. Once normal operations resume, you will be required to report to the location stated in this announcement.

EPA participates in E-Verify. E-Verify is an Internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that enables participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees. For additional information: EPA Announcement Policies and Procedures .

Veterans' preference is not applicable to the Senior Executive Service.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and required documents to ensure you meet the basic qualification requirements. If you meet basic qualification requirements, your application will be evaluated based on your narrative statements addressing the Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) and Technical Qualifications (TQs). It will then be forwarded to a three member Rating Panel consisting of SES members for further review. The Rating Panel will decide which Best Qualified applicants will be issued to the Selecting Official by the Human Resources Office.

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Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Not Required

Drug test required
No

Required Documents

Documents to be submitted online:

-- Resume clearly stating your experience related to this position as described in the Duties section and Qualifications section. In describing your experience, you need to be clear and specific. We may not make assumptions regarding your experience.

-- A narrative statement covering each of following:

• Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs) - Required for competitive applicants - Address each of the five factors individually within a limit of ten pages total. Exceeding this limit will result in disqualification of your application.
• Technical Qualifications (TQs) - Required for all applicants - Address each listed factor individually within a limit of two pages per factor. Exceeding this limit will result in disqualification of your application.

Your examples should use the Challenge-Context-Action-Result (CCAR) model to emphasize your level of responsibilities, scope and complexity of programs managed, program accomplishments with results of your actions, policy initiatives and level of contacts. Additional information on the proper preparation of ECQ statements and the CCAR model is available at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/reference-materials/guidetosesquals_2012.pdf

-- Senior Executive Service (SES) noncompetitive applicants: If you are currently serving under a career SES appointment, are eligible for reinstatement into the SES, or have successfully completed a SES Candidate Development Program approved by OPM, proof of SES noncompetitive eligibility must be submitted:

• SF-50 showing your status as a:
  
  • current Career SES appointee,
  • former Career SES appointee with career SES reinstatement eligibility, or
  • current or reinstatement eligible Career SES-equivalent executive who is/was employed in a Federal government agency that has an interchange agreement with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) allowing for movement between the agency's SES-equivalent personnel system and the SES; OR
• A certificate of completion from an OPM-approved SES Candidate Development Program (CDP). This applies only if your ECQs have been approved by an OPM Qualifications Review Board through the SES CDP.

You are not required to submit a narrative statement addressing the ECQs, but are encouraged to do so.

To learn more about submitting documentation, visit Uploading Documents to USAJOBS .