Proposal Manager

The incumbent for this position is responsible for overseeing the entire proposal development process, including analyzing Requests for Proposals (RFPs), coordinating cross-functional teams, and crafting compelling proposals that meet customer requirements while ensuring the timely submission of quality products to secure new business opportunities. The Proposal Manager will be responsible and accountable for submission compliance and meeting deadlines for USRA. The Proposal Manager's duties are grounded in widely recognized and accepted industry practices for the proposal development life cycle. This position works in collaboration with the Director of Strategic Growth and the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. 

Essential Duties/Responsibilities: 

Establish a proposal process consistent with industry best practices (Shipley/APMP). Critical to this position is the ability to ensure compliance with government acquisition strategies for targeted opportunities in consideration of customer needs and USRA core competencies and bid criteria.

Develop proposal teams and schedules for meeting USRA’s target prospects and customers’ goals, missions, and objectives.  He/she will execute actionable steps and develop complete and compliant proposals to position USRA for success.

Identify, select, and initiate relationships with proposal contributing partners, leading to mutually beneficial proposal assignments that provide the strongest possible proposal for success.

Coordinate with the Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, VP of Science and Technology, and relevant functional Directors to secure subject matter expert (SME) resources from Contracts, Finance, HR, IT departments, and consultants to form the Integrated Project Team (IPT) to develop discriminating win themes, proposal strategies, and actionable tasks for generating winning technical and management proposals.

Create a proposal calendar of milestones, brief the executive team on the proposal status, and lead the development of the outline, compliance matrix, storyboards, annotated outline, and questions and/or comments on the RFP.  

Manage the proposal documents and ensure exacting compliance with all formatting, structural, and due-date requirements. 

Oversee all proposal editing and production and support proposal gate review activities.  After submission, ensure the proposal was received by the procuring party on time. 

Responsible for holding and facilitating color review kickoffs to set stakeholder expectations and ensure high-quality review cycles provide meaningful and actionable improvements to increase proposal strengths and scoring. 

Work with senior management to ensure proper resources are allocated for the proposal.  They work with the Capture Manager for a seamless transition from the capture phase to the proposal stage.

As required by customer RFP instructions, he/she contributes to the development and rehearsal of the oral presentation. 

Oversee post-proposal activities, including collecting lessons learned and working closely with the Program and Transition Manager to phase in the new contract. 

Provide written and oral reports to senior management on capture status, identifying improvements in the capture process, and lessons learned.

Required Qualifications: 

 Education:  

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline, engineering, and/or business.                  

Experience: 

• 7 years of related work experience serving in proposal management, business development/capture management, or technical program management roles within the federal government contracting arena.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:  

Attributes:

• Self-starter, with ability to proactively work autonomously to complete tasks. 
• Proven success and experience generating compliant proposals with one or more of the following government agencies with particular focus on DoD: NASA, NOAA, EPA, NSF, DOE, FAA and DoD.
• Demonstrated experience in managing full proposal development lifecycle, including creation and management of milestone calendar, outlines, compliance matrices, storyboards, formatting and editing, proposal production, gate reviews, and overall proposal team communications.
• Demonstrated experience leading proposals with total contract values of at least $50M for single award federal contracts. 
• Comprehension of, and experience with, the Federal procurement process and regulations (e.g., FAR).
• Evidence of a successful track record of high quality, high scoring proposals.
• Ability to use cross-organizational knowledge and network to adapt to new opportunities.
• Ability to manage geographically dispersed proposal teams.
• Excellent team building and networking skills, with proven ability to manage high-performing professionals.
• Ability to multi-task and manage multiple efforts simultaneously.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to interact effectively with others.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to speak in public forums.
• Excellent organizational skills, meticulousness, and proven ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Knowledge of proposal development and technology that supports innovative technical solutions identifying and responding to written formal procurement opportunities.
• Ability to develop opportunity pursuit strategies, win themes, technical discriminators, and ability to communicate effectively with technical leaders, procurement/legal principals, architects, and business leaders.

 Technology:

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and its applications.
• Experience working with Proposal Management Systems; e.g. Teams and SharePoint.
• Strong technical acumen.

Working Conditions: 

This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, etc. Extensive online usage. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit and use hands. Keyboarding for large time spans each day will be a significant part of this position. 

Telecommute: Washington, DC, or close proximity to current/potential customers preferred; remote possible

Travel: Up to 25%

Applicants should apply to the posting at USRA Careers and include a letter of interest, resume, or curriculum vitae. 

Additional information on USRA can be found at http://www.usra.edu  

USRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer: Minorities / Females / Protected Veterans / Disabled / Sexual Orientation / Gender Identity.

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