Assistant Vice President for Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities

We are seeking a highly collaborative leader who can bring together planning, design, real estate, utilities, and institutional priorities into a unified strategy for campus development. This individual must be skilled in developing sound business cases, engaging senior leaders and stakeholders, building consensus, and communicating project vision, value, risks, and outcomes. Success in this role requires the ability to synthesize complex information, navigate governance processes, and guide strategic initiatives from concept to approval, implementation, and completion.

Salary range is $203,300 to $248,500 annually (commensurate with experience), plus a comprehensive benefits package and relocation assistance if necessary.

The Assistant Vice President for Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities (AVP RECPU) provides leadership and strategic vision for a multidisciplinary organization of approximately 165 support staff, including temporary, on-call, and student employees. Reporting as a senior leader within Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, this position is responsible for advancing an integrated planning and asset management model that supports the full lifecycle of university assets—from strategic acquisition, planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, occupancy, and renewal through eventual disposition.

The position is responsible for shaping the organization to reinforce collaboration, accountability, innovation, stewardship, and service excellence while fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment that values continual learning and achievement of results. The AVP RECPU provides executive leadership for the university's capital planning and project delivery programs, utility infrastructure systems, and real estate portfolio. This includes oversight of the planning, design, construction, commissioning, and closeout of capital projects; strategic real estate acquisitions and asset management; leasing and occupancy planning; utility infrastructure planning, operation, and maintenance; and alternative project delivery models, including public-private partnerships.

The position oversees annual operating and capital budgets, including utility operations, fuel, salaries, supplies, services, and major capital investments. The AVP RECPU is responsible for ensuring the reliable, efficient, and sustainable delivery of campus utility services while aligning infrastructure investments with institutional priorities and long-term campus development goals.

The AVP RECPU provides leadership and oversight for the offices of Campus Planning, Planning, Design and Construction, Capital Renewal, Real Estate, Leasing and Property Management, and Utilities. Through this broad portfolio, the position administers the continuum of university infrastructure and asset management, ensuring the strategic integration of campus development, utility systems, capital investments, and real estate initiatives to support the university's academic, research, and operational mission.

The successful leader:

• Demonstrates strengths in strategy and leadership across a variety of teams and functions; promotes and monitors operational excellence; builds consensus and fosters effective teams
• Establishes strategic direction and sets priorities to develop and grow; creates and assesses decision variables and KPIs to monitor performance and support strategic approaches
• Develops, directs, and serves as a centralized point of contact to lead, evaluate, and manage all types of projects and partnerships
• Collaborates with and seeks relevant guidance from campus stakeholders, cultivating a high level of trust and collaboration
• Aligns and elevates the continuum of campus planning and capital planning from inception to completion, connecting capital asset management seamlessly to both emerging and long-range university needs and strategic endeavors
• Collaborates with campus partners to nurture a continuous planning and innovation cycle that aligns with university goals and plans
• Ensures a culture that practices and enables a diverse and inclusive environment, building a participative team climate that assumes a proactive stance and seeks innovation solutions, enhancing partnership with university stakeholders (on campus and across the state), delivering outstanding service and creating value for users
• Broadens the capabilities of the Utilities team to take on more value-added initiatives which improve the effectiveness and efficiency of campus operations across the MSU enterprise
• Sets a tone of fiscal diligence, advancing sound fiscal management and employing effective strategies that balance mission with cost effectiveness, innovative solutions, and high-level service and quality
• Promotes and ensures compliance with university policies, procedures and ordinances, state, and federal laws
• Establishes and builds trusting relationships with customers and campus and community partners

These areas include: 

• Campus Planning

Campus Planning is committed to a comprehensive and continuous land use planning process that results in a flexible framework to guide future decision making. The university will consider the use of resources from environmental, regulatory, operational, economic, historic, and cultural perspectives in support of its teaching/learning, research, and outreach mission.

• Capital Renewal

The Capital Renewal Program is the university's primary annual facility reinvestment program. The program addresses deficiencies in our campus facilities and infrastructure, specially building systems at the end of their life cycle. We prioritize projects that address multiple issues, such as life safety, accessibility, infrastructure performance, resource efficiency, and renewal of critical building systems (e.g., electrical, plumbing, HVAC).  Our objective is to maintain a long-term, multi-year plan for ongoing, strategic reinvestment in the campus facilities.

• Planning, Design, and Construction

Planning, Design, and Construction provides inspection and management services for campus infrastructure and facilities. The department is responsible for the planning, design, and construction of campus capital projects, utility infrastructure, and cost estimating. Regular updates to the MSU Board of Trustees are expected through regular reports and potential presentations to BOT members and other MSU leadership. The department includes an interior design team that provides teaching and learning spaces, athletic spaces, offices, and public areas on campus. In addition, the staff designs and manages landscaping, roads and sidewalks and is responsible for the long-term physical development of MSU's campus. It develops, manages, and implements the future landscape and land use laid out in the Campus Plan, and supports MSU's Energy Transition Plan by working with decision-makers to focus on energy policies, monitoring and verifying energy consumption and performance on campus and identifying energy-use patterns that lead the campus community to solutions.

This department oversees the Campus Infrastructure Planning Work Group (CIPWG), a broadly-based committee which is chaired by a faculty member. The CIPWG committee provides recommendations to the Executive Vice President for Administration, the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Associate Vice President for Strategic Infrastructure Planning and Facilities regarding the compliance of campus-wide and project-specific planning and design efforts with the Campus Plan. The department serves various stakeholders on campus including Athletics, Residential and Hospitality Services, a variety of academic units and Colleges in partnership with Institutional Space Planning and Management (ISPM), as well as the core infrastructure needs for campus.

• Real Estate Operations

Real Estate Operations (REO) provides a suite of real estate, leasing, and property management services to the university. In concert with the AVP RECPU position, its goal is to plan pro-actively and implement a strategic approach to the university’s current and potential future real estate holdings in support of the university’s academic, research, innovation, and outreach mission.

• Power & Water  

Power & Water operates the T.B. Simon Power Plant and the campus potable water system (reservoir and wells), which provide water, steam, and electricity to MSU’s campus. The T.B. Simon Power Plant is a co-generation natural gas-fired plant that provides steam, heat, and electricity for the university. Also known as “combined heat and power,” the plant utilizes steam to generate electricity. Boilers create steam that passes through a turbine generator. The electricity and the steam are then distributed across campus. Steam is mainly used to heat and cool buildings.

As part of their responsibilities, and to add value and assist all levels of administration in achieving university goals and objectives, the Assistant Vice President Real Estate and Capital Planning & Utilities will be responsible for creating a high-performing, transparent and customer-focused organizational group. 

Specific responsibilities include:

• Use Performance Excellence as a planning and evaluation tool to guide, engage and motivate staff to succeed by using T-shape goal development, with a concentration on succession planning and life-long learning
• Recruit and retain a diverse staff of well-qualified and highly performing professionals; Create a positive work environment for employees, incorporating the university’s commitment to equal opportunity and diversity in hiring, retaining, and promoting employees
• Promote employee engagement by coaching and mentoring current staff to develop talent and expertise and empower employees to use their full range of strengths and abilities
• Lead with emphasis on employee engagement by interacting with staff at all levels and encouraging collaborative communication and innovation through teamwork
• Cultivate a team culture that assumes a proactive stance and seeks innovative solutions, enhancing trust and partnership with university stakeholders (on campus and across the state) by delivering outstanding service and creating value for users
• Own the responsibility for articulating and reinforcing the culture of IPF
• Initiate and lead customer engagement initiatives to bridge communication between employees and customers
• Act as a steward to preserve and maintain the campus as a teaching, demonstration, and research resource for university faculty, staff, students, and visitors
• Ensure organizational accountability through consistent adherence to university policies and procedures, with an emphasis on safety, compliance, and responsible use of resources.

• →Lead, oversee, and set direction for reporting units and directors; providing leadership and direction to the Office of Real Estate, Capital Planning, and Utilities ensuring that the team delivers innovative stewardship of university assets and maximizing cooperation among project stakeholders, design teams, builders, and developers from the inception of projects and planning to construction completion and turnover to building occupants
• →Provide fiscal guidance and oversight of assigned areas
• →Advocate and support the development of a strategic asset management portfolio that spans real property management and facilitates high level assessment and strategic decision making
• →Advance a strategic and integrated approach to developing the university facilities; provide leadership in the implementation and execution of the university campus plan, oversee the development of major construction and renovation projects, including relevant public-private and public-public partnership projects
• →Establish and implement short-and-long range goals, objectives, and KPI; monitor and evaluate programmatic and operational effectiveness and implement changes required for improvement
• →Collaborate effectively with other university leaders and campus partners
• →Coordinate with and present to executive leadership, state agencies, the legislature, county, local agencies, and respective communities
• →Determine long-range needs of facilities and proper use of resources while managing expenditures of funds and ensuring all department operations are within annual budget
• →Represent the university with state and federal agency concerns regarding regulatory compliance; provide signature and certification of compliance documents required by the Michigan State University Renewable Operating permit and Safe Water Drinking Act
• →Understand and operate in compliance with regulatory rules for power generation

• Evaluate performance of the business areas by setting key performance indicators (KPI), establishing measurable metrics, and reporting through an IPF balanced scorecard and quarterly reporting
• Assist with problem solving and resolution of budgetary, operational, and staffing accountability activities in the assigned business areas
• Review estimates, plans, specifications, reports, and studies
• Oversee identifying and implementing long-range planning operational objectives
• Execute final approval of unit’s annual Action Plans and their implementation
• Champion a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment; maintain a respectful, positive work environment that supports the professional growth of all personnel

• 10+ years of progressively challenging professional experience, in a functional leadership role managing a team of diverse professionals with varied backgrounds and capabilities all working toward measurable bottom-line results and successes
• Experience with large complex budgets from multiple funding sources, professional facilities planning on a large campus with multiple customers, city scale utility systems including distribution and generation, large capital construction at multiple sites, real estate acquisitions, sales and leases utilizing multiple financing tools including P3’s
• Experience with fuel and energy procurement processes
• Proven track record of excellent project management and strategic planning skills and effectively managing multiple projects with various deadlines and budgets
• Experience with positively and productively leading change with previous organizations/facilities
• Exceptional time management skills with proven ability to meet deadlines
• Outstanding communicator, both written and verbal; especially as it relates to communicating efficiently and effectively with customers, stakeholders, and staff
• Established network connections within field of expertise
• Creative thinker who can attentively and actively listen, and skillfully and knowledgably communicate with the appropriate level of business acumen to all levels within the university to faculty, administration, and staff
• Demonstrated past success in planning, developing, and implementing complex strategic goals and program initiatives that require the effective management of resources over short and long-time frames
• Demonstrated effectiveness in negotiations with internal and external constituencies to meet the needs of the university and arrive at effective solutions
• Ability to work effectively and purposefully during crises and emergency response conditions
• Knowledge of fundamental principles of construction standards and maintenance operations
• Demonstrated experience managing and developing complex budgets, and effective resource management
• Excellent leadership, interpersonal and conflict resolution skills while promoting teamwork
• Exercises good judgment, with integrity, and observes ethical standards ensuring university policies and procedures are being upheld
• Executes professional responsibilities with due care, competence, and diligence in accordance with the standards established for the profession
• Experience in a large, complex organization or facilities
• Experience with analyzing data and developing key performance indicators to develop reports and present findings
• Experience with performance-based budgeting and forecasting
• Experience and a passion for sustainable ecosystems (or environments)

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability or protected veteran status.

Bachelors

Masters

• A bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Planning, Construction, Real Estate, Architecture, Business Administration, a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 10+ years of progressively challenging professional experience leading large and complex teams with a history of demonstrated leadership aptitude; ability to coordinate activities of multifaceted operations that provide support and services to a diverse constituency in a customer service centered manner.
• Experience in largescale procurement and vendor management, large contract negotiation, creation of construction and maintenance metrics, risk assessment, public/private partnerships, strategic planning, and capital financing.
• Experience with managing multiple viewpoints and gathering relevant information through a variety of methods (i.e., surveys, focus groups, industry best practices, benchmarking) to provide recommended action and to build consensus.
• Experience implementing strategic frameworks, mission, vision, values, and action plans.
• Experience leading within a complex, interdisciplinary, union environment that deploys business intelligence tools for reporting, queries, and analysis.

• Licensure as a professional engineer, architect, or landscape architect.
• Master’s degree and/or professional certification such as, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED/LEED-AP) certification, or Certified Educational Facilities Professional (CEFP).
• Experience in developing and implementing alternative delivery models such as public private partnerships.
• Experience in real estate development.
• Knowledge of Environmental Health & Safety regulations.
• Experience in a higher educational setting.
• Experience in contract interpretation, negotiation, grievance process and managing a unionized work force is desired.

A cover letter, resume, and 3 professional references are required. Please note, omitting any of these requirements may disqualify the candidate.

The full position description is available on request. Send your request to IPF.Administration@msu.edu.

https://ipf.msu.edu/real-estate-and-capital-planning

Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 160 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery and forges enduring partnerships to solve the most pressing global challenges while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

Advertised: Aug 7, 2026 Eastern Daylight Time
Applications close: Aug 28, 2026 Eastern Daylight Time

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