Protect our Land, Ascend with Us!

ASCENSION is seeking a highly organized, responsive, and client-focused Deputy Project Manager, Federal Executive Support to serve as the alternate Project Manager and backup point of contact supporting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Executive Support Services program.

The ideal candidate will combine practical project coordination experience with the judgment and communication skills required to work in an executive-level federal environment. This individual should be comfortable managing competing priorities, maintaining visibility into multiple workstreams, coordinating personnel and deliverables, and stepping immediately into the Project Manager’s role when necessary.

This is not intended to be an over-positioned senior program management role. Rather, ASCENSION is seeking a dependable project-management professional who can maintain operational continuity, monitor task execution, coordinate status reporting, track commitments, and help ensure HUD receives timely, accurate, and professionally prepared support.

The successful candidate should be a detail-oriented planner who can operate with limited supervision, anticipate scheduling or delivery issues before they become problems, maintain disciplined project records, and communicate clearly with both ASCENSION leadership and Government stakeholders. The candidate should also be comfortable supporting assignments that may span strategic initiatives, portfolio management, operational improvement, organizational transformation, analytics and reporting, governance, executive briefings, procurement support, and executive administrative activities. These are among the thirteen functional areas identified under HUD’s Executive Support Services BPA.

This position is particularly well suited to a candidate who enjoys being the person who keeps projects organized, information current, meetings productive, risks visible, and commitments moving toward completion.

Position Summary

The Deputy Project Manager will support ASCENSION’s management and coordination of work performed under HUD’s Executive Support Services BPA and associated task orders. The position will serve as the designated alternate to the Contract/Project Manager and will be expected to assume project management responsibilities whenever the primary Project Manager is unavailable.

HUD requires the primary and alternate Project Managers to serve as Key Personnel with authority to act on contract matters relating to daily operations. Both must have sufficient knowledge of the requirement to receive Government guidance and direction and must be allocated sufficient hours to support successful performance.

In this role, the Deputy Project Manager will help translate task-order requirements into organized work plans, schedules, assignments, deliverable trackers, meeting activities, risk and issue logs, status reports, and management information. The individual will coordinate closely with the Project Manager and ASCENSION delivery personnel to maintain awareness of scope, schedule, quality, resources, risks, and Government priorities.

The position will also support the disciplined production and review of client deliverables. HUD requires deliverables to incorporate Government comments, undergo draft and final review cycles, meet professional research and analytical standards, and comply with Section 508 requirements.

ASCENSION’s existing Project Manager I labor category closely supports this assignment. That category calls for a bachelor’s degree and at least five years of experience managing project quality, schedule, cost, scope, client meetings, consultant coordination, risk identification, communications, and project documentation.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Responsibilities

The Deputy Project Manager will be expected to:

• Coordinate day-to-day project and task-order activities with the Project Manager, project staff, and designated Government stakeholders.
• Serve as ASCENSION’s alternate project management point of contact and assume appropriate responsibilities during the Project Manager’s absence.
• Maintain working knowledge of current task-order requirements, priorities, milestones, deliverables, personnel assignments, risks, and Government expectations.
• Track schedules, milestones, dependencies, action items, deliverables, decisions, and due dates across assigned workstreams.
• Prepare recurring and ad hoc project status information describing progress, upcoming activities, risks, issues, decisions, and corrective actions.
• Coordinate preparation of executive-level monthly status reports and supporting project information for assigned task orders.
• Organize project meetings, status reviews, working sessions, and other stakeholder engagements.
• Develop agendas, meeting materials, briefing packages, decision-support information, and related project documentation.
• Capture meeting decisions, action items, responsible parties, dependencies, and deadlines and monitor items through closure.
• Maintain project risk, issue, action, and decision logs and elevate emerging concerns to the Project Manager before they affect delivery.
• Identify potential schedule, staffing, technical, financial, or management concerns and support development of practical mitigation actions.
• Monitor task performance against approved scope, schedules, deliverables, and contractual requirements.
• Coordinate assigned personnel and resources to maintain adequate coverage and continuity of operations.
• Support development and maintenance of task-order project plans, schedules, management documentation, and supporting artifacts.
• Review draft deliverables for completeness, consistency, formatting, grammar, traceability, and compliance before submission.
• Track Government comments and coordinate incorporation of requested revisions within established review periods.
• Support implementation of ASCENSION’s Quality Control Plan and applicable project-level quality procedures.
• Maintain organized electronic project records, correspondence, reports, meeting materials, deliverables, and supporting documentation.
• Prepare management presentations, dashboards, status summaries, trackers, and decision-support materials using Microsoft 365 applications.
• Coordinate across consultants, analysts, subject matter experts, and other assigned personnel to support integrated delivery.
• Facilitate communications among project personnel and stakeholders while maintaining appropriate contractor and Government roles.
• Monitor compliance with applicable contract requirements, internal procedures, and Government direction.
• Support transition activities, including documentation, knowledge transfer, and continuity planning, when required.
• Protect Government and project information and appropriately handle sensitive business and operational information.
• Perform other project-management and executive-support activities authorized within the applicable task order.