Executive Director. Reports to: Board of Directors as a whole. Supervisory responsibility: all employees, directly or through designated supervisors; oversight of contractors and professional advisers within approved agreements. The President is the ordinary Board liaison, not a substitute for collective Board authority.

FLSA classification: Exempt only while the actual duties, salary basis, and applicable salary requirements meet a lawful executive or administrative exemption. CHWW shall document and communicate the classification under Handbook Section 1.C. In the absence of a documented valid exemption, the position is nonexempt and all compensable time must be recorded and paid.

Position Summary

The Executive Director is CHWW's chief employed administrator and is accountable for the overall management, financial stability, safe and reliable water service, personnel, regulatory coordination, member service, and execution of Board policy. In a small rural utility, the role includes both management and hands-on administrative work, filling reasonable operational gaps, and developing dependable backup systems. The Executive Director is expected to anticipate needs, bring material issues to the Board early, and obtain appropriate professional assistance rather than perform unlicensed work or assume unrestricted authority.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

1. Leadership, planning, and daily administration. Translate the mission and Board decisions into work priorities, procedures, budgets, and measurable objectives. Coordinate treatment, distribution, billing, customer service, finance, HR, technology, and administrative functions. Resolve cross-department issues; assign work; monitor completion; and maintain continuity when staffing is limited. Recommend organizational improvements and sustainable service standards.

2. Board and corporate governance. Prepare agendas, management reports, budgets, proposed policies, and decision materials with the President and Secretary-Treasurer. Present accurate operational, financial, compliance, personnel, and risk information without obscuring adverse developments. Support meeting notices, elections, membership records, minutes, corporate filings, and required member communications while preserving the Secretary-Treasurer's accountability. Implement approved actions and maintain an action-item record. Obtain counsel's advice on governing documents, records requests, open-government applicability, major transactions, and disputed authority. Maintain a current governing-document and amendment register, distinguish charter requirements from ordinary bylaw quorum rules, and obtain legal review of election terms and adoption thresholds. Maintain complete approval records for each election, amendment, and corporate action.

3. Financial stewardship. Develop annual operating and capital budgets and multiyear financial and asset-replacement plans. Monitor revenue, cash flow, costs, reserves, debt service, covenant compliance, and budget variances. Coordinate bookkeeping, payroll, tax filings, financial statements, and the independent annual audit with qualified staff and advisers. Recommend rates, fees, deposits, and financial policies to the Board with supporting cost and affordability information; implement only lawfully adopted changes. Ensure invoices and payroll are accurate and timely, and maintain independent approval and reconciliation controls even when personally covering financial tasks.

4. Funding, grants, and lender relations. Identify suitable financing, grants, technical assistance, and reimbursement opportunities. Coordinate applications, feasibility information, matching resources, environmental and procurement conditions, reporting, draw requests, and closeout. Track restricted funds and avoid commitments before required approval. Maintain productive relationships with lenders, grant administrators, and financial advisers. Do not promise funding or eligibility before verification or incur debt outside Board authority.

5. Drinking-water and environmental compliance. Maintain a complete register of the utility's facilities, permits, operating conditions, sampling and reporting duties, inspection findings, and renewal dates. Ensure adequate licensed treatment and distribution staffing and backup coverage appropriate to each system classification. Coordinate compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act, applicable Florida DEP and other public-health requirements, Northwest Florida Water Management District requirements, and other applicable authorities. Require qualified review of sampling, operational logs, consumer confidence reports, public notices, water-use reports, cross-connection control, and corrective actions. Track applicable lead and copper, PFAS, and other rule changes with qualified advisers, identifying each adopted requirement and its effective date. Oversee continuing service-line inventory verification, updates, customer notices, replacement planning, and related funding documentation. Maintain current compliance and funding records.

6. Operations and infrastructure. Oversee source-water availability, treatment, storage, distribution pressure, water quality, metering, asset condition, preventive maintenance, inventory, fleet readiness, and water-loss control through qualified staff. Review work orders, outages, repairs, inspections, alarm response, and maintenance backlogs. Plan timely replacement or expansion of wells, tanks, mains, pumps, controls, and other assets. Ensure current maps and asset records, physical security, appropriate easements and access, and reliable supply and repair arrangements. Do not promise fire-flow capacity, system extensions, or new connections without technical and legal verification. Require field verification of mains recorded as inactive or abandoned, reconcile system maps and material inventories, and maintain valve, hydrant, backup-power, and surge-protection programs. Evaluate meter modernization and water-loss information against documented baselines and verified performance data.

7. Capital projects and development coordination. Define project needs and scopes with licensed engineers and other qualified professionals; recommend procurement methods, schedules, budgets, funding, and risk controls. Administer authorized contracts, change orders, insurance, permits, inspections, progress payments, acceptance, warranties, and records. Coordinate developer inquiries, extension agreements, easements, right-of-way matters, and interconnections. Submit matters requiring Board or member approval before commitment. Professional design, engineering certification, legal advice, and licensed construction remain with properly qualified professionals. Maintain the subdivision/development intake package, including capacity-reservation forms, material specifications, payment agreements, milestones, and acceptance requirements. Obtain qualified capacity and hydraulic evaluations before commitments. Coordinate planning and funding for new wells, main replacement or upsizing, office/shop facilities, and advanced metering infrastructure as authorized priorities, with current schedules, funding status, and completion records. Establish lawful fee terminology and authority with counsel.

8. Personnel and workplace management. Recruit, select, orient, supervise, train, evaluate, and when needed discipline or separate employees within the staffing budget and delegation. Maintain accurate job descriptions, reporting relationships, salary and overtime classifications, timekeeping, leave, benefit administration, eligibility verification, and personnel records. Address accommodations, safety concerns, and employee relations lawfully and consistently. Arrange appropriate investigation of complaints not involving the Executive Director; promptly route complaints involving the Executive Director or a director to a disinterested Board officer or counsel. Develop qualified backup staff and succession capacity and prevent dependence on a single person for critical accounts or functions.

9. Customer, member, and billing services. Oversee accurate meter-to-bill processing, collections, deposits and refunds, service requests, account changes, billing disputes, and customer communications. Ensure rates, late fees, shut-off procedures, leak adjustments, and payment arrangements follow the governing documents and approved policies. Resolve escalated concerns fairly within delegated authority; refer appeals and exceptional waivers appropriately. Maintain reliable membership and voting information separate from mere account counts. Coordinate emergency outreach and access for customers requiring effective communication or lawful accommodation. Reconcile actual water recipients with charter membership, identify legal-entity representatives and household voting arrangements, preserve route/account-number history, and oversee periodic commercial-account and meter-to-rate audits. Refer disputed classification, eligibility, and historical adoption questions to counsel and the Secretary-Treasurer before changing disputed membership records.

10. Procurement, contracts, and internal controls. Administer purchasing, inventory, contracts, travel, cards, electronic payments, and vendor relationships under Board-approved limits. Obtain required competition and document emergency or sole-source exceptions. Verify receipt before payment, monitor contractor performance, and protect against fraud and conflicts. Maintain separation among initiation, approval, payment release, and reconciliation, or documented independent compensating review. Obtain disinterested approval for personal compensation, expenses, related-party matters, and other conflicts. Do not split purchases, pledge assets, grant liens, or bind CHWW outside authority.

11. Risk, safety, insurance, and claims. Coordinate appropriate property, liability, vehicle, workers' compensation, crime/fidelity, cyber, and directors-and-officers coverage with advisers and the Board. Promptly notify carriers and counsel of claims or circumstances requiring notice. Maintain required safety programs, training, incident reporting, hazard correction, and contractor controls. Arrange competent-person, licensed, or specialist services when required. Encourage prompt reporting rather than suppressing incidents or treating a lack of reports as proof of compliance.

12. Emergency preparedness and continuity. Maintain an actionable emergency response and continuity program for hurricanes, freeze events, power loss, flooding, contamination, cyber incidents, main breaks, and staffing interruptions. Establish authority, contacts, staffing rotations, mutual aid, alternate suppliers, fuel and generator readiness, customer notification, and restoration procedures. Coordinate drills, post-event review, and corrective actions. Verify whether federal risk-and-resilience assessment and emergency-plan certifications apply based on population served and track their actual deadlines. Ensure emergency procurement, hours worked, damages, and recovery costs are documented. Required protective action or agency notification must not wait for a Board meeting.

13. Information, records, and security. Oversee reliable business and operational technology through qualified support, including access controls, backups, recovery testing, vendor access, incident escalation, and separation of business and water-control systems as appropriate. Maintain document management, retention, privacy, and legal holds; coordinate member and public-records requests with counsel when needed. Protect customer, employee, payment, infrastructure-security, and privileged information while honoring lawful access and protected reporting. Ensure corporate accounts and credentials are recoverable by authorized successors. For advanced metering infrastructure and other new technology, evaluate customer-data ownership and retention, billing integration, access permissions, vendor support, cybersecurity, acceptance testing, backups, and lifecycle cost before procurement and implementation.

14. External relationships and communication. Serve as CHWW's principal management contact with members, customers, regulators, local governments, emergency responders, lenders, associations, neighboring utilities, suppliers, and professional advisers. Represent CHWW accurately within Board policy, prepare approved public information, and maintain constructive community relationships. Coordinate official notices with qualified personnel and avoid unsupported assurances about water quality, capacity, funding, or legal rights.

15. Hands-on support and other duties. Personally perform appropriate administrative, customer-service, financial-coordination, and project tasks when needed; arrange trained operational coverage rather than undertaking work requiring an unheld license or unsafe physical response. Perform other related duties reasonably assigned by the Board or needed to carry out the approved mission, including anticipated regulatory, technology, staffing, and growth needs. Notify the Board when resources, authority, workload, or qualifications are insufficient to meet an obligation and recommend a workable solution. Material duty changes require review of compensation, classification, training, and support.

Authority and Accountability

Manage staff and routine operations, approve budgeted expenditures, and sign instruments only within the Board's delegation. Rates, major borrowing, unbudgeted material commitments, reserved corporate actions, and the Executive Director's own employment terms remain with the proper approving body. The Executive Director may recommend but may not independently amend Bylaws or override the Board. Emergency authority is limited to the written emergency policy and applicable law, with prompt reporting and documented review.

Minimum Qualifications

Demonstrated ability to manage a water utility or a comparably regulated, operationally complex organization, including budgeting, personnel, contracts, compliance coordination, and public-facing service. Normally at least five years of progressively responsible utility, business, financial, or operational management experience, including three years of supervisory or substantial program-management responsibility; the Board may accept an equivalent combination of education, training, and directly relevant experience.

Ability to read and apply financial information, contracts, operating reports, permits, and governing policies; exercise sound judgment; communicate clearly; manage competing deadlines; and recognize when licensed or legal assistance is needed. High school diploma or equivalent is required; a relevant bachelor's degree is preferred, not an automatic bar to an otherwise qualified experienced candidate.

A valid license and acceptable driving record are required if business driving is an essential assigned function. A treatment, distribution, engineering, or other professional license is required only when the Executive Director is separately assigned duties legally requiring it. Management responsibility alone is not a substitute for that credential.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with a Florida rural or member-owned nonprofit water utility; drinking-water regulatory programs; utility rate and capital planning; Board relations; USDA or other public financing; grants and audits; emergency operations; and utility management certification or relevant continuing education.

Physical Requirements and Work Environment

Primarily office and meeting work with regular communication, computer use, reading, and review of detailed information. Periodic local travel and site visits may involve walking on uneven ground and exposure to ordinary field conditions under site safety rules. Occasional movement of files or supplies up to 25 pounds may be accomplished with assistance or equipment. Essential functions are performed with or without reasonable accommodation; the position does not inherently require trench entry, chemical response, climbing tanks, or heavy repair work.

Schedule and Emergency Responsibilities

Normally works the approved administrative schedule, with evening Board or member meetings, necessary community or regulatory meetings, and scheduled availability for significant incidents. The Board and Executive Director shall maintain acting coverage, escalation protocols, and a reasonable succession plan. Emergency coverage shall include appropriate relief and handoffs. Pay, leave, accommodation, and safety requirements remain applicable.

Pay: $75,000.00 - $110,000.00 per year

Benefits:

401(k)
401(k) matching
Dental insurance
Health insurance
Life insurance
Paid time off
Vision insurance

Education:

Bachelor's (Required)

Experience:

Nonprofit management: 3 years (Required)
Accounting: 5 years (Required)
Budgeting: 3 years (Required)

Work Location: In person

Cottage Hill Water Works

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