Director, Fleet Operations

Job description

Overview: The Director, Fleet Operations leads FuelCell Energy’s centralized, 24/7 operating capability across the Global Monitoring and Control Center (GMCC) and a new Data Center Reliability Operations Center. Reporting to the Vice President, Generation & Service, this leader is accountable for real-time fleet monitoring, operational control, incident response, escalation governance, operator readiness, and continuous improvement for power generation assets supporting utility, commercial, industrial, and mission-critical data center customers. The role will establish a unified operating model that protects customer load, improves availability and recovery performance, scales with fleet growth, and connects operating insights to Field Service, Asset Management, Reliability Engineering, Quality, Engineering, Supply Chain, Information Technology, and customer-facing teams. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Provide direct leadership for GMCC and the Data Center Reliability Operations Center, including managers, supervisors, and 24/7 shift personnel. Own the fleet operating model, including roles, decision authority, shift handoffs, alarm management, communication standards, escalation paths, and management response for abnormal events. Ensure safe, reliable, and compliant real-time monitoring and remote operation of generation assets while protecting customer load and meeting contractual performance requirements. Serve as the senior operational escalation point for significant alarms, derates, outages, cybersecurity or communications disruptions, and mission-critical customer events; coordinate stabilization, recovery, and executive communication. Implement AI tools for better monitoring, daily reporting and pro-active fleet monitoring to reduce amount of trips Establish NERC compliant operations to support Data Center assets. Establish and maintain standard operating procedures, emergency operating procedures, methods of procedure, operator logs, control-room checklists, and site-specific response playbooks. Define staffing models, shift coverage, training, qualification, certification, and succession plans needed to support current operations and fleet growth. Build a high-performance operating culture centered on safety, procedural discipline, accountability, situational awareness, customer stewardship, and continuous learning. Develop and report key performance indicators including availability, alarm response, restoration time, forced outage performance, event recurrence, operator quality, procedure adherence, and customer-impacting incidents. Lead operator focused reviews, event investigations, root cause analyses, lessons learned, and verification that corrective and preventive actions are implemented and sustained. Use SCADA, historian, CMMS/EAM, analytics, and visualization platforms to improve fleet visibility, detect emerging equipment issues, prioritize response, and convert operating data into actionable recommendations. Partner with Field Service and Asset Management to coordinate dispatch, outage management, maintenance windows, return-to-service decisions, customer notifications, and recovery plans. Partner with Engineering, Reliability, Quality, Supply Chain, and Information Technology to resolve systemic risks, improve alarm rationalization, maintain asset and data configuration, and strengthen control-room tools. Define operational readiness requirements for new projects and data center deployments, participate in design reviews, commissioning, acceptance testing, and construction-to-operations handoff, and confirm readiness before commercial operation. Maintain applicable regulatory, environmental, safety, security, internal control, and offtake agreement requirements for centralized fleet operations. Define impactful key performance indicators (KPI) to drive the Operations organization to the next level Skills/Competencies Demonstrated leadership of multi-shift, 24/7 power generation, remote operations, control-room, or mission-critical infrastructure teams. Strong understanding of power plant operations, electrical and mechanical systems, controls, SCADA, alarm management, and operating risk. Experience establishing operating governance, escalation protocols, emergency response, business continuity, and disciplined shift execution. Ability to make timely, risk-informed decisions during abnormal conditions and communicate clearly with operators, technical teams, customers, and executives. Working knowledge of preventive, predictive, and condition-based maintenance; incident management; root cause analysis; and corrective action systems. Ability to translate operational data into performance trends, risk priorities, and practical improvement plans. Proven ability to recruit, coach, qualify, and retain leaders and operators while strengthening accountability and organizational capability. Strong cross-functional leadership, program management, budgeting and stakeholder communication skills. Experience enhancing workflows via automation and AI, Data Driven Knowledge of mission-critical or data center operating practices, including protection of critical load, redundancy, change control, methods of procedure, and emergency operating procedures. Familiarity with applicable OSHA, environmental, cybersecurity, electric reliability, market, utility, and contractual operating requirements. Qualification Education: Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations Management, Energy Systems, or a related technical discipline required; advanced technical degree or MBA preferred. Equivalent military or extensive mission-critical operations experience may be considered. Experience: Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in power generation, utility, industrial, remote operations, control-room, or mission-critical infrastructure environments, including at least 5 years leading managers, supervisors, or multi-shift teams. Demonstrated experience with 24/7 operations, incident response, fleet performance, operating procedures, and cross-functional reliability improvement is required. Data center critical facilities, distributed generation, high-availability customer operations, commissioning, SCADA/historian platforms, and CMMS/EAM experience are strongly preferred. Physical Requirements/Working Conditions Must be able to work in an office and control-room environment with extended periods monitoring computer systems, alarms, dashboards, and communications tools. Must be willing to participate in an after-hours escalation rotation and respond to significant fleet or customer events outside normal business hours. Must be able and willing to enter power plant, laboratory, construction, commissioning, and customer site environments. Must be able and willing to wear required Personal Protective Equipment as designated. Ability to travel domestically approximately 10-20% to operating sites, data center deployments, vendors, and project locations. Must possess the visual acuity and manual dexterity necessary to review technical information, operate standard office and control-room equipment, and work safely in industrial environments.