Land Acquisition Specialist

Senior Right-of-Way (ROW) & Permitting Project Manager

• Duration: 1 Year Contract / Project-Based
• Location: Hybrid (On-site Monday & Tuesday at our innovation and engineering hub in the Pomona, CA area)
• Interview Process: 1 Virtual Panel Round

Core Role Responsibilities

• Workload & Volume: Manage approximately 50+ active right-of-way (ROW) land right and permitting projects in flight, alongside tracking and coordinating around 100 pre-construction projects through to execution.
• Scope of Work: Negotiate land rights and agreements, acquire complex railroad and utility permits, handle conditional clearance memos, schedule safety training for field crews, coordinate railroad and transit crossings, process invoices and payments, and proactively manage end-to-end project timelines.
• Onboarding & Support: Approximately 1 month of structured overlap with the departing team member, fully supported by an experienced 3-person core team.

Candidate Profile & Qualifications

Must-Have / Essential Requirements

• Primary Skillset: Demonstrated expertise in utility ROW or real estate land acquisition, complex contract and agreement negotiation, and robust project management capabilities.
• Non-Negotiable Qualities: Proven ability to juggle high-volume and complex workloads, high resourcefulness (proactive communicator who surfaces bottlenecks early), and excellent stakeholder communication skills.

Experience & Target Backgrounds

• Ideal Candidate: 5+ years of utility ROW or real property acquisition experience (Electric, Gas, Water), with openness to candidates possessing 1–2 years of specialized transit/rail entity experience if highly coachable and flexible.
• Target Agencies & Ecosystems: Prior experience coordinating with major rail and transit entities (such as Union Pacific, BNSF, regional transit authorities like SBCTA, OCTA, LA Metro, or equivalent regional transit/rail agencies).
• Preferred Industry Focus: Specialized railroad permitting and right-of-way coordination.

Flexibility & Trade-Offs

• Rail Experience: Highly preferred, but not a hard requirement if the candidate brings 5+ years of deep utility or telecom ROW acquisition background.
• Administrative Workflow: Invoice and payment processing are components of the workflow, but the role heavily prioritizes high-level agreement acquisition and land rights negotiations over pure administrative processing.
• Travel: Minimal (approximately 10% or less, reserved for occasional site visits if needed).