Field Operations Manager

Client Overview:

High Country Search is partnering with a high-growth infrastructure services contractor building and maintaining the connectivity systems communities and businesses depend on. The company delivers critical telecommunications, fiber-optic, underground utility, and civil services for demanding customers, utility owners, and public-sector partners—where responsiveness, quality, and operational discipline matter. This is an entrepreneurial, field-driven organization where capable leaders have visibility, autonomy, and a direct hand in shaping operational performance. The culture values people who take ownership, move with urgency, solve problems early, and build trusted customer relationships through safe, reliable execution

Position Summary:

The O&M Field Manager will lead daily operations and maintenance work across utility locating, emergency restoration, repairs, preventative maintenance, and service contracts. This role manages locate technicians and repair crews while coordinating with project management, construction, estimating, safety, fleet, warehouse, engineering, subcontractors, municipalities, and utility owners. The ideal candidate is a hands-on, customer-focused field leader with experience in fiber, underground utilities, OSP construction, utility locating, or related infrastructure services. You will own repair work from field walk and estimate through closeout, balancing safety, response time, service quality, and margin performance. This is a fully remote role, with a strong preference for candidates based in Northern California to support regular field travel.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead daily O&M field operations, including utility locating, repair work, emergency restoration, preventative maintenance, and service-contract activities.
• Direct, support, and develop locate technicians, repair crews, and other assigned field personnel.
• Coordinate emergency outage restoration and ensure rapid, safe, professional response to customer and operational needs.
• Ensure compliance with 811 requirements, applicable OSHA/Cal-OSHA regulations, customer requirements, and internal safety standards.
• Champion a zero-incident culture by conducting field audits, supporting incident investigations, and implementing corrective actions.
• Perform field walks to identify repair opportunities and develop accurate repair estimates and proposals.
• Manage repair projects from estimate through closeout, including coordination of labor, equipment, materials, subcontractors, change orders, documentation, and customer communication.
• Oversee annual O&M service contracts, including preventative-maintenance scheduling, SLA compliance, workload forecasting, staffing planning, customer reporting, and renewal support.
• Monitor labor productivity, material usage, overtime, repair costs, inventory levels, equipment utilization, and overall contract profitability.
• Maintain accurate daily reports, repair records, outage reports, project-closeout documentation, and billing support records.
• Serve as the primary operational contact for customers, utility owners, municipalities, and other external stakeholders; resolve escalations quickly and professionally.
• Maintain appropriate spare-material inventory, coordinate warehouse replenishment, and support effective stewardship of company assets.
• Train, mentor, and develop field personnel through ride-alongs, coaching, performance feedback, and clear accountability expectations

Education and Qualifications:

• 5+ years of progressively responsible field operations, O&M, construction, utility, telecommunications, or fiber-infrastructure experience.
• Prior experience leading field crews, technicians, supervisors, or operations teams in a fast-paced service or construction environment.
• Strong working knowledge of fiber optics, utility locating, 811 regulations, OSP construction, outage restoration, underground utilities, and repair operations.
• Demonstrated experience preparing estimates, managing repair work, coordinating resources, identifying change-order opportunities, and protecting project or contract margins.
• Experience managing maintenance contracts, service-level agreements, preventative-maintenance programs, or recurring service work is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with OSHA/Cal-OSHA safety requirements, field audits, incident response, and corrective-action processes.
• Strong customer-service, communication, planning, decision-making, financial-awareness, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to respond to emergency operational needs and work effectively across customers, crews, subcontractors, municipalities, and internal support teams.

Why This Role?

This is a highly visible field leadership opportunity for someone who enjoys owning outcomes, leading teams, and building trusted customer relationships. You will have direct authority over daily O&M operations, emergency-response coordination, repair execution, field resource assignments, and operational problem-solving while partnering with senior leadership on estimates, contract performance, and growth opportunities. For an experienced utility, fiber, or infrastructure operations professional, this role offers the chance to make an immediate impact on safety, response time, customer satisfaction, field productivity, and profitable service delivery.