Environmental Practice Leader

Days often shift between client pursuits, internal staffing, and senior technical review — sitting on a proposal team for a multi-year cleanup contract, mentoring younger PMs, sanity-checking work plans before client release. You might find yourself walking a major site one week and pitching at an industry conference the next. Practice revenue, utilization, and win rate are the visible measures.

What's harder than people expect is the gravitational pull away from technical depth — once you're running a practice, sign-off becomes most of your technical work. Variance across employers is wide: at large engineering firms you'll have an operations and proposals apparatus behind you; at boutiques you're also the marketing, hiring, and contracts manager.

People who tend to thrive here are comfortable selling, staffing, and signing off with equal credibility. Senior credentials (PE, PG, CHMM, state-specific licensure) anchor the role. The trade-off is distance from the field — you keep the practice viable so younger consultants get to do the work that hooked you.