The Campus Electrical Engineer is part of the Facilities Engineering team in the Plant Operations Department at Vanderbilt University. The Engineering team supports the planning and operations of the campus to keep it safe, park like, invigorating, comfortable, efficient, and sustainable.

About the Work Unit:

Facilities Department provides facilities support for all construction, renovation, and routine maintenance of University space and facilities; housekeeping services for approximately 5.8 million square feet of academic, administrative, residential, and recreational space; grounds care for 330 acres that are a registered arboretum; turf care for athletic fields; and utilities for the University Central and the Medical Center. The Facilities department is comprised of Campus Planning & Construction, Plant Operations, the Business Operations Center and Real Estate.

The campus and medical center consist of approximated 14,000,000 square feet and more than 200 buildings. The University purchases electricity, and natural gas to provide steam and electricity to these facilities. The 350,000 pph gas - fired steam plant produces 125 psi/415 degree super-heated steam. In house gas turbine generators produce 12 mw of the current 60mw peak load. The balance of electrical load is purchased through a local TVA distributor. Gas fired steam generators recover heat from the gas turbines to augment the central steam plant production. The three 50 mva 69kv transformers in the electrical substation serve switchgear lineups for the 13.8kv and 4.1kv electrical distribution system.

Facilities annual budget exceeds $100 million in operating expenses and includes over 500 employees. This branch manages major capital project expenditures totaling ~$150 million annually and facility renewal, replacement, and large maintenance project expenditures totaling ~$20 million annually.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Campus Electrical Engineer is a member of the Engineering team that maintains the following initiatives in support of all campus operations and capital projects:

• Generate and maintain a masterplan for campus utilities that includes the following resources (this plan includes the energy conversion plants and all distribution. It must be presentable, defendable, understandable, and attractive):
  • Electricity
  • Natural Gas
  • Steam
  • Heating hot water
  • Chilled water
  • Rainwater
  • Groundwater
  • Wastewater
  • Emergency electrical power
• Keep a brochure of Central Utilities accomplishments that illustrates our level of support, innovation, passion.
• Provide input for and maintain campus architectural and engineering guidelines and standards.
  • Work with Campus Planning & Construction to keep the standards updated
  • Ensure the standards are incorporated in all operations, design, and construction.
• Work with VU stakeholders to set building operation standards for availability (uptime), indoor conditions, energy efficiency, and sustainability.
• Guide all design engineering by:
  • Managing studies for maintaining or upgrading campus or building systems
  • Providing input for construction design team members
  • Providing facility assessments for the Real Estate group.
  • Working with construction design teams to provide designs that support the campus mission, and meet or exceed the existing campus design standards
    • Provide review and approval for any new products or design approaches.
  • Gathering timely feedback from campus maintenance personnel and all other stakeholders to upgrade the AE guideline.
• Guide construction by:
  • Providing input for contract type selection.
  • Provide evaluation of construction team members
  • Provide contract scope and pricing reviews as needed
  • Review construction product submittals
  • Review and provide feedback on construction schedules and progress
  • Ensuring construction closeout deliverables and effective training are received
• Help the team direct and manage the commissioning process.
  • Keep a list of approved commissioning agents
  • Maintain a list of commissioning activities for all projects
    • Incorporate this into eBuilder
  • Select a pre-construction commissioning agent for each project
  • Select the construction phase commissioning agent for each project
  • Work with CPC to ensure all commissioning tasks are complete
    • Review all issues lists
  • Manage the CxAs effort for high priority VU initiatives
    • OPR generation
    • Early design reviews
    • Controls design summit
    • Controls integration summit
    • Systems training for maintenance personnel
    • Lessons learned documentation
• Generate and maintain loading models for:
  • CHW distribution
  • HHW distribution
  • Steam distribution
  • Steam Condensate collection
  • Electrical distribution
• Identify and Solve problems in existing buildings.
  • Systemic problems with original design or operational misconceptions
• Identify and solve problems with the utility infrastructure.
  • Vanderbilt campus is fed by a double ended 69KV branch from the Nashville Electrical Service, this service is reduced to 13.8Kv and 4,160 volt systems that are distributed to the university and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • Vanderbilt University also owns three natural gas fired turbine generators that co-generate steam for distribution
    • The electrical engineer will provide input for normal operation on NES/Vanderbilt power mix, emergency blackstart procedures, emergency operation, and maintenance procedures.
    • The electrical engineer will provide NES tariff models to help inform when turbine operation is cost effective.
  • Coordinate electrical outage recovery and repair scheduling
• Provide training for maintenance team to help insure VUs mission is being properly supported.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field is required.
• Professional engineering license is strongly preferred.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience is required.
• Strong organizational skills, with an emphasis on managing multiple tasks and proven capability to meet deadlines is required.
• Effective oral and written communication skills is required.
• Ten years operational experience with mechanical and electrical systems is preferred.
• Management experience, knowledge of switchgear, transformers, gas turbine generators, steam turbine generators, HVAC equipment, Controls equipment, and diesel generators is strongly preferred.

Commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

At Vanderbilt University, we are intentional about and assume accountability for fostering advancement and respect for equity, diversity, and inclusion for all students, faculty, and staff. Our commitment to diversity makes us who we are. We have created a community that celebrates differences and lets individuality thrive. As part of this commitment, we actively value diversity in our workplace and learning environments as we seek to take advantage of the rich backgrounds and abilities of everyone. The diverse voices of Vanderbilt represent an invaluable resource for the University in its efforts to fulfill its mission and strive to be an example of excellence in higher education.

Vanderbilt University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. Women, minorities, people with disabilities, and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.

Please note, all candidates selected for an offer of employment are subject to pre-employment background checks, which may include but are not limited to, based on the role for which they have been selected: criminal history, education verification, social media review, motor vehicle records, credit history, and professional license verification.