DLR Group is an integrated design firm with a promise to elevate the human experience through design. This fuels the work we do around the world and inspires our mission to improve the lives of our clients, our communities, and our planet. If this sparks your interest, you’re in the right place.

We have an opening for a Campus Planner Leader. We currently operate within a hybrid work model, supporting flexibility between office time and work from home. Considering this model, this role could be based in the following cities:

• Dallas 
• Denver
• Houston
• Orlando
• Phoenix 
• San Diego
• Los Angeles
• Charlotte
• Other locations may be considered

About the Higher Education Sector at DLR Group

DLR Group’s Higher Education practice fully embraces our responsibility to society by designing spaces that emphasize academic learning and social development. We are transforming the educational landscape, working with our clients to set new horizons for learning and living that enrich school communities, the spaces they strive to provide, and what they can achieve. Our team draws from evidence-based design to work with shareholders to affect student and teacher engagement, ensuring that learning is enhanced through design. We also understand the rapid pace of technological, social, and cultural change; our teams work with schools to navigate these challenges.

Position Summary

As the Campus Planner Leader at DLR Group, you will play an important role in growing our Campus Planning practice. This is a national opportunity to work with all DLR Group’s offices within the United States. and lead our national Campus Planning practice, within our Higher Education practice. Along with leading you will play an integral role in our comprehensive campus and facility planning projects, you will have the opportunity to lead and participate in facility programming, digital tool development, research, and developing expanded services for planning, analytics, policy, and management. Your focus will be on growing our campus planning practice, participate in strategy formation related to BD and marketing activities, elevate DLR Group’s brand through our work, and engage with the higher education community at a national level.

What you will do:

• Lead, grow and manage our national campus planning practice.
• Closely coordinate nationally with the higher education practice.
• Participate in or lead marketing and business development activities that support the growth of the practice.
• Actively Collaborate closely with the Global Sector Leader (GSL) for Higher Education and with Global Planning Leader (GPL) on practice related matters
• Coordinate hiring with GSL and GPL to grow and elevate the practice.
• Coordinate and integrate campus planning activities with our national and regional planning leaders.
• Develop a sustainable growth trajectory to build our campus planning practice managing workload, delegation of responsibilities, and succession planning.
• Be highly collaborative with a strategic mindset and enjoy an interdisciplinary approach to projects and teams.
• Lead 360-degree campus engagement workshops and client communication.
• Focus on the future of Higher Education, student success, evolving programs and partnerships, town/gown dynamics, along with sustainability, equity, and wellness.
• Ensure DLR Group’s higher education research, analytics, and planning support our clients’ institutional mission, vision, values, accreditation, and strategic planning goals and strategies.
• Assess higher education facilities, open space, and infrastructure. Identify campus condition, capacity, utilization, and usage patterns. Tie patterns to institutional success metrics.
• Integrate campus data, physical condition analysis, and recommendations with institutional strategic planning and key performance indicators.
• Identify and integrate evolving best practices, policies, and procedures and communicate / present project related work with institutional research, deans, department chairs, facilities planning, and reviewing boards.
• Lead, collaborate, review, and confirm internal planning analytics, scenarios, and reports with Higher EducationGSL and GPL
• Manage the project process and communications to deliver, on time and on budget, graphics, and narrative to support project goals, objectives, and required deliverables for interim and final presentations and reports in accordance with DLR Group’s established standards and protocols.
• Provide thought leadership to elevate the Campus Planning Team, our Higher Education practice, and DLR Group as a whole. Participate in research to document trends, identify DLR Group strengths/weaknesses, and tie to client needs.
• Contribute to the growth of the national campus planning practice to deliver current services as well as identify and develop expanded services identified in DLR Group’s Vision 2025 and Vision 2030.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience leading comprehensive planning teams and projects for colleges and universities.
• Bachelor's and or master’s degrees in complementary disciplines such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, and interiors.
• Ability to lead teams, projects and clients located from Eastern to Alaskan time zones.
• Ability to lead project processes to achieve project budgets, schedules, and research.
• Ability to work collaboratively with all Carnegie Classifications and levels of higher education management.
• Knowledge of applicable Higher Education federal, state, and peer standards.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States without need for work visa or residency sponsorship.
• Experience in the preparation of proposals and qualifications to secure work.
• Experience in participating in or leading interviews and project presentations.

Our comprehensive Benefits at DLR Group include medical, dental, vision, disability, wellness programs, flex spending, paid holidays, and paid time off. We also offer a 401(k) plan, employee stock ownership, and bonus opportunities. Compensation considerations are based on location, experience, and skills. The suggested pay range for this position is:

DLR Group is an integrated design firm delivering architecture, engineering, interiors, planning, and building optimization for new builds, renovations, and adaptive reuse projects.

We are 100% employee-owned: every employee is literally invested in our clients’ success. At the core of our firm are interdisciplinary teams engaged in every step of project lifecycles. Our teams champion true collaboration, open information sharing, shared risk and reward, value-based decision making, and proficient use of technology to deliver exceptional design. We are pursuing the goals of the 2030 Challenge, the ME2040, and the SE2050, and are an initial signatory of the China Accord and the AIA 2030 Commitment.

Through our values – commitment, creativity, environmental stewardship, fun, integrity, ownership, sharing, teamwork – we elevate the human experience through design, together.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/M/F/Veteran/Disabled employer.