Operations Manager Jobs in Gaffney, SC (NOW HIRING)

The Company

NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC)is backed by dedicated leadership and investment, with a clear mission as it operates at the bleeding edge of technology. Its goal is to scale and enhance the high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud infrastructure that supports its clients' research, production, and delivery, enabling breakthroughs that shape the industries of tomorrow. Its engineers build critical infrastructure to eliminate friction in scientific research, simulations, analysis, and decision-making, accelerating discovery and driving faster innovation.

The Position

The Mission-Critical Power Plant Operations Manager is a senior authority and governance lead for a natural-gas-fired, self-generation power plant that directly supports a mission-critical High Performance Comute Center (HPCC).

While day-to-day operations and maintenance will be executed by a fully outsourced, best-in-class O&M service provider, this role is responsible for owner oversight, operational governance, risk management, safety leadership, and assurance of performance, reliability, and compliance.

This position serves as the primary interface between the Company and the Power Plant O&M Service Provider, ensuring that all operations are executed in alignment with the Company's safety standards, availability objectives, operational philosophy, and HPCC uptime requirements.

Responsibilities:

• Act as the Company's accountable authority for power-plant operations, and outsourced execution.
• Provide strategic direction, oversight, and performance governance to the O&M service provider.
• Establish and enforce clear operational expectations, boundaries, and escalation paths.
• Review, approve, and monitor operating plans such as staffing models, training programs, maintenance strategies, outage planning and execution.

• Chair or participate in monthly and quarterly operational reviews with the O&M provider.
• Serve as the Owner's safety and risk champion for the power-generation program.

• Ensure the O&M provider's safety program meets or exceeds Company, regulatory, and industry best-practice standards.
• Lead and/or oversee HAZID and HAZOP studies, Job Safety Analyses (JSA), Management of Change (MOC) processes, and Arc-flash, gas safety, confined space, and LOTO programs

• Validate that risk assessments are current, actively used in operations, and reflected in SOPs, MOPs, and EOPs

• Participate in near miss reviews, incident investigations, root-cause analyses, and corrective-action tracking.
• Ensure the power plant consistently meets HPCC load demand requirements, availability and reliability targets, and start-time and ramp-rate commitments

• Monitor and validate key performance indicators (KPIs), including: forced outage rate, availability and capacity factor, maintenance compliance, and safety performance.

• Provide Owner concurrence for major operational decisions that may impact HPCC uptime or redundancy.

• Act as the power-generation SME within the broader HPCC Operations & Infrastructure organization.

• Ensure seamless coordination between power plant operations, HPCC electrical distribution, UPS, BESS, and load-shedding strategies

• Support integrated commissioning, black-start and island-mode testing, and emergency operating procedures across power plant and HPCC systems

• Participate in tabletop exercises and live simulations involving grid loss and contingency events.

• Ensure compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local regulations, environmental permits, air emissions and fuel-handling requirements

• Oversee regulatory inspections and audits in coordination with the O&M provider.
• Review compliance documentation and corrective-action plans.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical) or equivalent experience.

• 10+ years of power-generation experience, with significant exposure to natural gas-fired generation and critical infrastructure environments
• Demonstrated experience overseeing or governing outsourced power-plant O&M services.

• Strong working knowledge of gas turbines and/or reciprocating engines, balance-of-plant systems, and protection, controls, and plant automation

• Proven leadership in safety management, HAZID, and risk mitigation.
• Experience supporting mission-critical or data-center-integrated power plants.
• Familiarity with islanded and black-start capable generation, BESS integration, grid interconnection and utility coordination
• Formal training or certification in HAZOP / HAZID, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and Incident Command or Emergency Response

It is impossible to list every requirement for, or responsibility of, any position. Similarly, we cannot identify all the skills a position may require since job responsibilities and the Company's needs may change over time. Therefore, the above job description is not comprehensive or exhaustive. The Company reserves the right to adjust, add to or eliminate any aspect of the above description. The Company also retains the right to require all employees to undertake additional or different job responsibilities when necessary to meet business needs.

Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Benefits & Perks:

• Company-Paid Lunch Stipend: Lunch is provided via GrubHub

• Company-Paid Benefits: 100% Employer-Paid Medical in our High Deductible Health Plan, Dental and Vision benefits for employees and their families, 16 weeks of Paid Parental Leave, Employee Assistance Program, Life insurance, Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability

• 401(k): Company will match 100% of your contributions up to 6%

• Optional Employee-Paid Benefits: Medical insurance in our PPO plan and a variety of other benefits such as Health Savings Accounts (with Company Contribution!), Flexible Spending Accounts, Supplemental Life Insurance, Wellhub and more.

• Time Off: 25 days of Paid Time Off plus 12 company holidays

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

NORTHMARK STRATEGIES LLC IS AN EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. THE COMPANY'S POLICY IS NOT TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ANY APPLICANT OR EMPLOYEE BASED ON RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENDER, AGE, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY OR EXPRESSION, MARITAL STATUS, MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DISABILITY, AND GENETIC INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER BASIS PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THE FIRM ALSO PROHIBITS HARASSMENT OF APPLICANTS OR EMPLOYEES BASED ON ANY OF THESE PROTECTED CATEGORIES.