Department Information

The mission of the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consumer energy costs by advancing clean energy, energy efficiency, and zero emission vehicles to benefit all Coloradans. We do this by developing and implementing highly impactful policies and programs, establishing Colorado as a leading state for climate action.

We are committed to increasing the diversity of our staff and providing culturally responsive programs and services. Therefore, we encourage responses from people of diverse backgrounds and abilities.

Description of Job

Starting Salary Range: $90,000.04 – $100,000.16 Annually

*This position is eligible for a hybrid working arrangement with the contingency of appearing in-person at our Denver downtown office a minimum of 1-2x a week.

This announcement is open only to eligible individuals currently employed within the Office of the Governor. The announcement is for transparency purposes only to comply with the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. Only applications from eligible individuals currently employed within the Office of the Governor will be accepted.

To meet the State of Colorado’s climate goals, there is a crucial need for meaningful and coordinated workforce development. CEO is investing in building a qualified, skilled, and reliable workforce that is ready to support the State of Colorado’s climate efforts. At the same time, clean energy jobs can offer stable employment and wealth-building opportunities, especially in underserved communities. CEO works to develop career pathways in areas such as beneficial electrification, solar energy, electric vehicle charging, and weatherization.

This is a leadership position within the office that will include a variety of oversight activities including developing long and short-term initiatives that strengthen climate workforce development strategies goals, objectives, and priorities. This includes aligning various workforce development efforts across programs, guiding scopes of work, action plans and timelines, and coordinating with other agencies. This position will seek out and monitor funding opportunities, as well as manage grants, vendors and studies. The Senior Manager, Workforce Development will execute CEO’s workforce strategy by:

Responsibilities:

Conduct stakeholder engagement, outreach, and education in support of workforce development policies, programs, and strategies.
Assess existing efforts underway to prepare the climate workforce, including Registered Apprenticeship Programs, and identify gaps and work across partners to fill those gaps in order to reach statewide goals.
Engage with non-profits (e.g. community development corporations and financial literacy educators) and community based organizations to ensure disproportionately impacted and just transition communities benefit from the economic opportunities offered by the clean energy transition.
Collaborate with interagency partners, local governments, and industry partners on the design and management of programs that provide training, grants, and other support for workforce development in key areas.
Coordinate work to access key federal funding sources, including available funds from the Infrastructure & Investment Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, for workforce development and training.
Lead efforts to procure services through developing scopes of work, evaluating proposals, and managing vendors.
Review, align and support new and existing workforce developments across all CEO program teams. Oversee creation and management of workforce development tracker and webpage.
Work collaboratively with CEO programs and communications teams to maximize the impact of workforce development team. Align public-facing messaging involving Climate Workforce, including collateral produced by vendors, with state efforts to build and sustain a responsive, effective public workforce delivery model. Identify opportunities to communicate, market, and conduct outreach and engagement on CEO workforce development programs.
Collaborate with program teams on the necessary outreach and engagement needed to implement their workforce needs, including WAP Roundtable and Annual Meetings.
Provide the Climate Workforce team with strategic direction in support of the development, and implementation of climate workforce programs for the State of Colorado.
Serve as CEO’s official representative and collaborator with various agencies, local, regional, state, and national committees, and boards with regards to climate workforce development initiatives.
Oversee economic research, data analysis, and impact assessments conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of climate workforce development initiatives and provide reports to executive leadership and other officials.
Oversee internal and external utilization of Workforce Climate dollars and ensure program compliance among allowable uses.
Attend/present at community outreach events throughout the state as needed.
Maintain subject matter expertise on climate workforce issues and advise executive and team leadership.
Other duties and tasks, as assigned.

Supervision

Manage other climate workforce staff at CEO.
Create work plans representative of employee’s duties and conduct performance evaluations.
Performance Analysis
Understand and utilize employee strengths to drive retention
Analyze gaps and work to fill gaps through training and/or hiring
Plan for and supporting ongoing professional development and training.
Responsible for the coaching, counseling, and development of staff across multiple disciplines.
Motivate a high performance work unit through practical and actionable solutions.
Engage employees in a positive work environment.
Responsible for shaping and fostering a culture of excellence and performance.
Continuously evaluate goals for integration with CEO WIGS and employee work product.
Other duties and tasks, as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications, Substitutions, Conditions of Employment & Appeal Rights

The Energy Office seeks a well-rounded professional with the following required and preferred experience:

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree in any field or a combination of education and work experience meeting the minimum qualifications below.
- Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor's degree in a related field (public administration, environmental science, political science, education, business, or similar).
- Minimum of 3 years professional experience in workforce development strategy, training and certification, or related fields.
- Knowledge of workforce development practices at the federal, state, and local level.
Awareness of apprenticeships, work-based learning, skills-based hiring and other workforce development strategies.
A keen ability to bring innovative, forward-thinking solutions to meet evolving organizational and community needs.
The ability to effectively (publicly and internally) communicate the vision and foster the core principles of CEO and the State of Colorado.
A commitment to fostering and maintaining mutually beneficial partnerships with industry and community organizations.
Strong written, oral, and presentation communication skills.
Experience with program management, project management and/or procurement.
Ability to take initiative and work independently as well as in a team environment. Strong time management and organization skills.
Excellent computer skills including the Microsoft Office and Google suite.
Comfortable working with a combination of reporting lines, teams, divisions, and content areas.
Valid driver's license.
Ability to travel up to 20% of the time.
Flexibility to work periodic weekends, evenings, and overnight travel, as needed.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in clean energy (energy efficiency, electrification, renewables, etc).
Experience with leading stakeholder engagement efforts preferred.
Experience in and knowledge of Colorado labor, climate, and workforce issues and stakeholders.
Experience working with government agencies, regulatory bodies, and legislative bodies.
Knowledge of state laws (or ability to quickly get up to speed with them) related to climate practices, state procurement and vendor management) preferred.
Understanding of evidence based workforce development and DEIA practices/workforce development in underrepresented communities.
Familiarity with the workforce needs of communities underrepresented in the renewable energy workforce and knowledge of practices to increase diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility in training, hiring and promotion practices.
Experience using collective impact or other collaboration models to meet strategic goals.
Ability to evaluate workforce related data and use that data to strategically plan efforts and initiatives.
Experience with Salesforce.
Experience with federal grants.

Supplemental Information

To Apply:

A cover letter and resume must be submitted with the application for consideration. Your cover letter and resume must provide sufficient detail about your background and experience to allow the screening panel to properly assess your experience in the required elements, including your experience and achievements.

The State of Colorado/Office of the Governor offers a generous benefits package including:

Annual leave accrued at 13.33 hours per month (4 weeks a year)
Sick leave accrued at 6.66 hours a month (10 days a year)
12 paid holidays per year
Medical and dental plans
State paid life insurance policy of $50,000
Choice of 2 retirement plans
401K and 457 plans
State paid Short Term Disability coverage
Additional optional life and disability plans
Credit Union Membership
RTD pass
Training and professional development

To learn more about State of Colorado benefits visit: https://www.colorado.gov/dhr/benefits.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

The State of Colorado believes that equity, diversity, and inclusion drive our success, and we encourage candidates from all identities, backgrounds, and abilities to apply. The State of Colorado is an equal opportunity employer committed to building inclusive, innovative work environments with employees who reflect our communities and enthusiastically serve them. Therefore, in all aspects of the employment process, we provide employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, medical condition related to pregnancy, creed, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, or military status (with preference given to military veterans), or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law.

ADAAA Accommodations

The Office of the Governor is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, our agency will assist individuals who have a disability with any reasonable accommodation requests related to employment, including completing the application process, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, participating in the employee selection process, and/or to perform essential job functions where the requested accommodation does not impose an undue hardship. If you have a disability and require reasonable accommodation to ensure you have a positive experience applying or interviewing for this position, please direct your inquiries to our ADAAA Staffing Coordinator (the Director of Human Resources) at gov_hr@state.co.us.

Conditions of Employment

Applicants must pass a thorough background check prior to employment.