Senior Water Resources Planner

Days tend to mix senior planning work, stakeholder engagement, and team mentoring — leading multi-decade water-supply planning analyses, supporting major matters (regional water plans, drought contingency, integrated resource planning), sitting with senior stakeholders on planning strategy, mentoring junior planners. Plan advancement, stakeholder buy-in, and team development shape the visible measures.

What gets demanding is the multi-stakeholder politics of water planning — water-resources planning touches utility customers, agriculture, environmental interests, industry, and tribes, and senior planners navigate that constituency landscape across long arcs. Variance across employers is wide: large urban-water utilities run with sophisticated planning groups; smaller utilities and agencies carry senior planning across broader scope; consultancies support multiple client utilities.

The role tends to fit folks who carry deep water-supply planning experience, comfort with political and stakeholder dimensions, and the patient project-leadership instincts that long-arc planning requires. AICP, PE, and senior water-resources planning credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the public-process dimension of water planning and the multi-decade timelines that the work spans.