Regional Practice Director

Description

The Opportunity

RETTEW is seeking a Regional Director to lead a large, multidisciplinary Planning & Design team across Region 1. This key leadership position is responsible for driving the continued performance and growth of Land Development, Municipal, Survey/GIS, and Transportation services throughout southeastern Pennsylvania.

The strongest candidate will bring technical expertise, business-development acumen, and a strong understanding of the engineering-consulting business, including financial performance, operational management, and client service. Success in this role depends equally on exceptional people leadership.

We are looking for someone who builds trust, develops leaders, strengthens collaboration, and creates an environment where people can do their best work and grow their careers. This leader will model RETTEW's core values through transparent decisions, follow-through, accountability, and respect.

Reporting to the Vice President of Planning & Design, the Regional Director will collaborate with the leadership team to develop regional priorities aligned with practice and company strategy and remain accountable for regional execution, employee development, client relationships, and project delivery.

What You'll Do

• Lead the regional Planning & Design business, aligning Land Development, Municipal, Survey/GIS, and Transportation teams around clear priorities, shared goals, strong accountability, and coordinated client service.
• Coach, mentor, and support direct reports and emerging leaders; establish clear expectations, provide useful feedback, address performance issues, and build succession and career-development plans.
• Stay meaningfully connected to employees across the region, listen to team needs, remove barriers, strengthen engagement and retention, and create opportunities for people to expand their skills and responsibility.
• Develop and execute regional growth and business-development plans; strengthen key client relationships, identify must-win pursuits, expand services with existing clients, and build strategic relationships in the market.
• Maintain visibility in the regional engineering, municipal, development, transportation, and surveying community and use market knowledge to guide investments, staffing, client pursuits, and office strategy.
• Guide Municipal services that include engineer-of-record relationships with municipalities, counties, and authorities as well as water and wastewater engineering services.
• Own regional financial and operational performance, including annual planning, budgets, sales, backlog, utilization, project performance, staffing, and other key metrics.
• Foster collaboration across teams, offices, regions, and practices so RETTEW deploys the right expertise, delivers consistent quality, and presents a unified experience to clients.
• Provide technical and project leadership on high-profile, complex, or strategically important assignments while ensuring teams follow RETTEW quality and risk-management practices.
• Build workforce plans that anticipate business needs, identify capability gaps, support recruiting, and develop the next generation of technical, project, and people leaders.
• Model RETTEW's core values - Act Like an Owner, Value Relationships, and Exemplify Excellence - through transparent decisions, follow-through, accountability, and respect.

Why RETTEW

• This is an opportunity to shape the future of a strategically important region while building a leadership culture that strengthens both business performance and employee growth.
• Lead four complementary service areas with meaningful opportunities for collaboration and growth.
• Influence regional, practice, and company strategy, client development, workforce planning, and leadership development.
• Build a strong bench of leaders and create lasting opportunities for employee-owners.
• Join a multidisciplinary, 100% employee-owned company where long-term value is shared.

Work Environment

Workplace Designation: Hybrid - Minimum three days per week in a Region 1 office

Locations: Berwyn, Lancaster, or Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania

This leadership role combines in-office collaboration, client and industry engagement, project and team meetings, focused work, and travel throughout Region 1. A minimum of three days per week in a Region 1 office is required. Because this position leads teams across multiple offices and disciplines, the Regional Director is expected to maintain a visible and consistent in-person presence with employees and clients throughout the region. Occasional travel to other RETTEW locations may be required.

About RETTEW

RETTEW is a 100% employee-owned engineering consulting firm that has been helping clients solve complex challenges since 1969. Our multidisciplinary teams deliver practical solutions that strengthen infrastructure and support the communities we serve.

Our culture is grounded in our core values: Act Like an Owner, Value Relationships, and Exemplify Excellence. RETTEW offers an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, comprehensive medical, dental and vision benefits, disability and life insurance, a 401(k) with company match, paid time off and holidays, and professional-development opportunities.

RETTEW is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at jperalta@rettew.com to request assistance.

Requirements

What We're Looking For

Required

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, surveying, geomatics, geographic information systems, landscape architecture, or another technical field directly related to RETTEW's Planning & Design services.
• At least 10 years of progressively responsible experience in Land Development, Municipal engineering, Survey/GIS, Transportation, or a closely related engineering-consulting environment, including significant project-management and people-leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated success leading and developing managers, technical professionals, and multidisciplinary teams, with evidence of coaching, succession development, engagement, and retention.
• Strong business-development experience, including building senior client relationships, leading strategic pursuits, expanding services, and contributing to measurable growth.
• Technical credibility in at least one relevant Planning & Design discipline, with the judgment to lead across multiple disciplines without needing to be the subject-matter expert in each.
• Accountability for driving business performance, including strategy, budgeting, forecasting, staffing, operational metrics, financial performance, and results.
• Ability to collaborate with other leaders, lead through influence, communicate difficult decisions clearly, resolve conflict, and build trust across teams with different priorities and specialties.
• Professional registration or certification relevant to the candidate’s discipline.
• Knowledge of southeastern Pennsylvania’s public- and/or private-sector markets, clients, and business environment.
• Ability to work from Berwyn, Lancaster, or the Lehigh Valley and travel regularly throughout Region 1 and to other RETTEW locations as business needs require.

Preferred

• Leadership experience in an employee-owned, multidisciplinary engineering, surveying, GIS, or related technical-consulting firm.
• Experience overseeing more than one service line, office, or market and integrating teams around common regional goals.
• Established relationships in southeastern Pennsylvania and experience with municipal, transportation, land-development, or survey/GIS clients.
• Experience leading organizational growth or change while maintaining employee engagement, service quality, and financial performance.