Project Manager Defense Systems

Overview Job Summary The Project Manager is responsible for leading assigned projects from contract award or project authorization through delivery, acceptance, and closeout. This role provides disciplined project leadership across scope, schedule, cost, risk, quality, resources, stakeholder communication, change control, and business performance. The Project Manager coordinates cross-functional execution among Engineering, Certification, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Operations, Finance, Customer Experience, Customer Support, and other business functions to ensure projects are planned, baselined, executed, monitored, controlled, and closed in alignment with contractual requirements, internal business objectives, customer commitments, and applicable regulatory or quality system requirements. The Project Manager serves as the primary project execution leader and is accountable for maintaining project visibility, driving timely decisions, identifying and mitigating risks, managing project performance to approved baselines, and escalating constraints that may affect cost, quality, schedule, scope, compliance, customer satisfaction, or business performance. Essential Functions and Responsibilities include the following: Develop, maintain, and manage project execution plans for assigned projects, including scope definition, work breakdown structure, schedule baseline, cost baseline, resource planning, communication cadence, risk management approach, quality expectations, change-control process, and closeout requirements. Lead cross-functional project execution through Engineering, Certification, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Operations, Finance, Customer Experience, Customer Support, and other stakeholders to ensure project work is properly planned, sequenced, resourced, monitored, and completed. Manage integrated project schedules, including milestone planning, dependency management, critical path awareness, schedule status, recovery planning, and timely escalation of constraints affecting project delivery. Monitor project cost, revenue, margin, earned value, budget performance, estimates at completion, and financial risk in coordination with Finance, Operations, and functional leaders. Identify unfavorable trends and lead corrective-action planning to protect project and business performance. Maintain project risk, issue, action, and decision logs. Assign owners and due dates, track mitigation and recovery actions, ensure timely closure, and escalate unresolved risks or decisions through appropriate governance channels. Manage project scope and change-control discipline. Identify out-of-scope requests, coordinate impact assessments, support internal and customer change decisions, and ensure approved changes are reflected in project scope, schedule, cost, delivery commitments, and stakeholder communications. Provide clear, timely, and accurate project status reporting to internal and external stakeholders, including performance to plan, schedule health, cost performance, risks, issues, actions, decisions needed, recovery plans, and customer impacts. Coordinate delivery readiness, customer acceptance, contractual or project closeout, lessons learned, transition to post-delivery support, and customer satisfaction feedback. Support continuous improvement of project management processes, tools, reporting methods, governance routines, and project execution standards. Other Duties as assigned Additional Job Requirements Regular schedule attendance Indicate the percentage of time spent traveling (up to) – 20% Subject to applicable laws and Air Methods’ policies, regular attendance is an essential function of the position. All employees must follow Air Methods’ employment practices, policies, safety requirements, and applicable quality system procedures. Supervisory Responsibilities This position may directly supervise project coordinators, customer service representatives, or other assigned personnel depending on organizational structure, project volume, and business need. This position is expected to exercise strong matrix leadership across assigned project teams. The Project Manager may not directly supervise all project team members but is responsible for coordinating project execution, assigning and tracking project actions, facilitating cross-functional alignment, identifying resource constraints, escalating unresolved issues, and driving accountability to approved project commitments. When direct supervisory responsibilities are assigned, the Project Manager carries out those responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities may include interviewing, selecting, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees. Qualifications Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional aerospace or defense programs from contract award through delivery and closeout, with full accountability for scope, schedule, cost, risk, and performance outcomes. Proven capability to operate as the primary execution authority within a matrixed organization, driving alignment across engineering, certification, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, operations, and customer stakeholders. Strong working knowledge of project management disciplines, including integrated master scheduling (IMS), work breakdown structures (WBS), baseline management, earned value or cost/ schedule performance tracking, and structured risk and issue management. Ability to translate contractual and technical requirements into executable project plans and maintain disciplined change control throughout the program lifecycle. Demonstrated experience operating within regulated aerospace environments, with practical understanding of certification, quality systems, configuration control, and traceability expectations. Ability to manage projec