The posting
We are seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager / Owner’s Representative to provide on-site leadership and owner-side project management support for the construction of a specialty chemical manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona.
This individual will serve as a key interface between the Owner’s engineering team, contractors, consultants, vendors, and other project stakeholders. The Owner’s internal engineering team will maintain responsibility for technical and process engineering decisions; however, the Senior PM will provide the construction-management leadership necessary to coordinate execution, maintain accountability, identify project risks, and help ensure the project progresses safely, efficiently, and in accordance with contractual, schedule, cost, quality, and turnover requirements.
A particularly important aspect of this role will be facilitating effective communication between the Owner’s Taiwan-based engineering team and U.S.-based contractors and consultants. Fluency in both Mandarin Chinese and English is strongly preferred. Candidates without Mandarin fluency may also be considered when supported by a bilingual Mandarin/English Assistant Project Engineer or Site Coordinator.
Key Responsibilities
Owner’s Representation & Project Leadership
- Serve as the Owner’s primary on-site project management representative during construction.
- Represent the Owner’s interests in day-to-day coordination with the General Contractor, subcontractors, consultants, vendors, inspectors, and other project stakeholders.
- Provide experienced leadership regarding Arizona and U.S. construction practices, project administration, documentation, and contractor management.
- Coordinate closely with the Owner’s engineering team while respecting their authority over technical and process-design decisions.
- Identify emerging project risks, conflicts, delays, and commercial issues and provide recommendations for resolution.
- Facilitate clear communication, accountability, and timely decision-making among project participants.
- Lead or participate in construction progress meetings, coordination meetings, executive project reviews, and issue-resolution meetings.
- Maintain visibility of critical actions and ensure responsible parties follow through on commitments.
Construction Management
- Monitor field construction activities for consistency with contract requirements, approved plans, specifications, schedules, quality expectations, and project objectives.
- Coordinate interfaces between civil, structural, architectural, mechanical, electrical, controls, process, utility, and specialty chemical systems.
- Monitor contractor performance, productivity, sequencing, manpower, material availability, and access constraints.
- Identify construction coordination issues before they materially affect schedule or cost.
- Support review and resolution of RFIs, submittals, field changes, nonconformance items, and design/construction coordination issues.
- Assist the Owner with understanding local construction requirements, contractor practices, inspection processes, permitting interfaces, and jurisdictional expectations.
- Monitor contractor compliance with project procedures, reporting requirements, documentation standards, and contractual obligations.
Schedule & Project Controls Coordination
- Work closely with part-time scheduling/project-controls support responsible for independent review of the contractor’s project schedule.
- Monitor critical and near-critical paths, milestones, procurement constraints, construction sequencing, and turnover dates.
- Evaluate schedule updates for logic, progress accuracy, changes in float, emerging delays, and potential schedule manipulation.
- Identify schedule risks and communicate potential impacts to the Owner.
- Coordinate recovery planning and mitigation strategies when project milestones are threatened.
- Support evaluation of contractor requests for schedule extensions and time-related claims.
- Maintain management-level visibility of schedule performance and forecasted completion.
Cost & Commercial Management
- Coordinate with part-time Quantity Surveying / cost-control resources.
- Support review of contractor payment applications for completeness, progress validity, and consistency with actual work performed.
- Assist with evaluation of change orders, proposed changes, contractor claims, and potential cost exposure.
- Track pending changes, commitments, contingency exposure, and forecasted project costs.
- Support negotiation and resolution of commercial issues in coordination with the Owner.
- Help ensure change documentation is complete, traceable, and appropriately supported.
- Escalate material cost or contractual risks to Owner leadership.
Communication & Cross-Cultural Coordination
- Act as a practical communication bridge between the Taiwan engineering team and local U.S. project participants.
- Help translate technical intent into clear construction direction and project-management actions.
- Facilitate meetings involving team members with varying levels of English proficiency.
- Confirm that important decisions, action items, contractual communications, schedule matters, and field directions are clearly understood by all parties.
- Help the Owner’s engineering team navigate U.S. construction terminology, documentation practices, contractor relationships, and project-management processes.
- Promote professional, respectful, solutions-oriented collaboration across cultural and organizational boundaries.
Mechanical Completion, Turnover & Closeout
The Senior PM will remain engaged through project completion and will:
- Coordinate construction completion and mechanical-completion activities.
- Monitor completion status by system, area, discipline, and contractor.
- Support development and management of turnover packages.
- Coordinate system handover between construction, commissioning, engineering, and operations teams.
- Monitor punch-list development, assignment, aging, resolution, verification, and closure.
- Track outstanding deficiencies and incomplete work through final disposition.
- Coordinate collection and completion of required closeout documentation, including as-built drawings, O&M manuals, warranties, testing records, inspection documentation, certifications, and vendor documentation.
- Support resolution of final contractor claims, change orders, commercial closeout items, and outstanding payment issues.
- Assist with final acceptance, project closeout, and transition to operations.
Requirements
Required Qualifications
- Minimum 10 years of progressive project management, construction management, Owner’s Representative, EPC, General Contractor, or related experience on complex industrial or manufacturing construction projects.
- Demonstrated experience leading construction-phase activities on large capital projects in ARIZONA.
- Strong understanding of ARIZONA construction practices, contractor management, project controls, change management, documentation, and project closeout.
- Experience coordinating multiple engineering disciplines and construction contractors.
- Demonstrated ability to identify and manage schedule, cost, commercial, construction, and interface risks.
- Experience reviewing contractor schedules, progress reports, payment applications, change orders, and claims.
- Strong understanding of mechanical completion, system turnover, punch-list management, and construction closeout.
- Ability to interpret construction drawings, specifications, schedules, contracts, RFIs, submittals, and project-control reports.
- Strong meeting leadership, communication, documentation, negotiation, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work effectively with international engineering teams and multidisciplinary stakeholders.
- Must be able to work full-time on-site in Casa Grande, Arizona.
- Familiarity with Arizona construction practices, permitting, inspections, and regional contractor environments.
BONUS Preferred Qualifications
- Fluent Mandarin Chinese and English, with the ability to communicate effectively in both technical and business environments.
- Previous experience working with Taiwanese, Chinese, or other international engineering and construction organizations.
- Specialty chemical, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceutical, battery, process manufacturing, or comparable high-tech industrial construction experience.
- Experience with process piping, specialty chemical systems, utilities, high-purity systems, industrial mechanical systems, electrical systems, controls, and facility infrastructure.
- Experience functioning directly as an Owner’s Representative on a major capital project.
- Experience with scheduling platforms such as Primavera P6 and project-management/document-control platforms such as Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, SharePoint, or similar systems.
