REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT

Location: Des Moines, IA

Compensation: $240,000 - $300,000 Base Salary + Bonus + Equity



ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

Workspire is partnering with an established industrial contractor to build out a new region in the central Iowa market. This is a build, not a handover. There is no inherited region to steward here - the craft bench, the leadership bench, the operating cadence, the customer map, and the regional P&L all get made by the person who takes this seat.

Our client self-performs. The work is executed by its own craft workforce, under its own supervision, on a merit-shop model, across mechanical, structural, electrical, and underground disciplines. That is the operating distinction that defines this role: the company owns its labor rather than buying it, and every leadership seat is built around that fact.

The region is anchored in Iowa by design, and the reasoning is worth stating plainly because it is the job. The pipeline being built is merit-shop, and the major Upper Midwest metros are union strongholds - building a non-union industrial pipeline out of those markets means recruiting against the grain of the local labor market. Iowa does not carry that constraint. And the demand is live now: the Iowa data-center and advanced-manufacturing buildout is real work in the near term, not a forecast.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Establish the region's operating cadence within the first 90 days: weekly business review, KPI dashboard, risk map, and a published hiring plan.
• Publish and execute a prioritized merit-shop craft and leadership hiring sequence - named first hires, in a defensible order, with the reasoning behind each.
• Produce demonstrable non-union pipeline fill and backlog growth within 6 to 12 months.
• Build the leadership bench to the point that key-person dependency is measurably reduced, hiring geography-level P&L owners and partnering with discipline specialists across the trades.
• Own regional P&L end to end: forecasting, revenue and backlog management, margin discipline, and cash and billing governance. Projects meet or beat bid-day gross margin; regional overhead holds at or below plan against top-line revenue.
• Win and staff multi-disciplinary industrial work without a union agreement as a sourcing tool. This is the hardest thing the job asks, and it is the capability that decides who succeeds in it.
• Lead the regional safety presence - reporting, site-specific planning, and the metrics that follow, including TRIR, DART, and EMOD. Safety performance is a condition of scaling, not a trade against it.
• Grow key accounts, handle escalations, and earn repeat work across multiple service lines, establishing area offices and local leadership as the footprint expands.
• Drive diversification across end markets rather than letting the region rest on a single vertical.
• Contribute to preconstruction through bid and constructability reviews: activity production rates, crew makeup, equipment selection, and cost analysis.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Self-perform, open-shop craft delivery. Your organization hired the craft, supervised it, and owned its safety and productivity. General contracting or construction management alone does not meet this bar.
• Regional business unit P&L ownership at the $300M+ tier, with forecasting, margin, and cash discipline you ran personally.
• A grassroots build on your record. Not a turnaround, not an optimization, not an inherited region grown incrementally. A build - what existed when you arrived, what existed when you left, and the hiring sequence and early-stage margin management that got it there.
• A merit-shop craft network you can actually activate: trade schools, training programs, direct craft recruiting - channels that produce non-union craft professionals in practice, not in principle.
• Multi-disciplinary industrial scope across mechanical, structural, electrical, or underground work.
• A team-building history specific enough that you can name your first three to five hires into a new operation and explain why each one, in that order.
• Safety leadership fluency - TRIR, EMR, and leading indicators as metrics you have used to change outcomes, in your own words.
• Sustained in-market presence across the central Iowa corridor through the build phase. Iowa residency is not required at offer; a committed heavy in-market travel model works. A remote or fly-in posture does not.
• Fifteen or more years of progressive operational leadership, and a bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Understanding union labor and navigating a union-dense market intelligently is an asset here. A career executed entirely inside the union framework, with no open-shop project you can name and describe, is not a fit for this particular seat.

Preferred:

• Merit-shop industrial or utility self-perform leadership already anchored in, or anchorable to, the Iowa corridor.
• Service-line diversification around an incumbent core - growing piping, scaffolding, structural, underground, coatings, civil, or instrumentation and controls out from a dominant existing line.
• Utility and underground self-perform leadership positioned against the data-center and grid buildout.
• Mission-critical, advanced-manufacturing, or semiconductor construction exposure.
• Power generation exposure, including substation or nuclear.
• MBA or comparable advanced degree.
• Who fits: a builder rather than a governor. Someone hungry to construct from near-zero, who acts with urgency and makes decisive calls, who invests in the people around them and passes down what they know, and who is locally embedded rather than managing from altitude. Confidence is expected. Ego is acceptable where performance backs it.
• If you are excited about this role but do not meet every qualification, we still encourage you to apply. We value candidates who meet 80-85% of the core criteria and bring a strong capacity to learn. If you carry genuine merit-shop self-perform craft leadership and a real from-zero build on your record, the conversation is still worth having.

WHY THIS ROLE STANDS OUT

• You are not inheriting someone else's region. The structure, the bench, the standards, and the customer map are yours to set, and the record of having built it is yours to keep.
• Unusual latitude during the build phase, with a direct line to the executive who owns the operating decision.
• You are not cold-starting. There is an existing operating platform behind this region - craft infrastructure, vendor relationships, and market credibility already in place - which is a materially different proposition from a true greenfield.
• A live demand market. The Iowa data-center and advanced-manufacturing buildout is near-term work, not a projection you have to wait on.
• Executive compensation with a weighted annual incentive and equity participation, relocation support, and full benefits including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) with company match, paid time off and holiday pay, life and disability insurance, and professional development.

WORKSPIRE INSIGHT

Workspire partners exclusively with organizations that invest in experienced leadership and build for the long term. Every role we bring to market has been vetted for impact, advancement potential, and cultural alignment.

EEO STATEMENT

Workspire and our client partners are equal opportunity employers. We celebrate diversity and are committed to building inclusive environments for all employees.