New Bedford Research & Robotics

Director of Operations

New Bedford, MA   |   Full time, onsite   |   $85,000 to $110,000

Opportunity

New Bedford Research & Robotics (NBRR) is a nonprofit innovation center where advanced technology and creative work happen on a downtown campus. We help entrepreneurs advance new products, run education and workforce programs, and support research. Founders, students, artists, and engineers work in the same rooms and use the same machines.

On any given day you might see a teenager learning industrial robotics, a marine robotics startup testing a vehicle, an artist in residence making a ceramic bowl with a robot, and an engineer refining a new process. Our campus comprises four buildings on “innovation alley” in New Bedford, and will expand from 15,000 to 33,000 square feet this year when we expand our headquarters.

Our home is a legacy site, the old Glaser Glass building, where for many decades people cut and fit glass for this city's cars, houses, and boats. The tools have changed. What happens inside has not: people learning a trade, testing an idea, and finding out whether it works.

This new role is coming at a time of growth at NBRR. We are looking for a person who understands NBRR’s mission and vision, and has the experience and operational leadership skills to scale, balance, and innovate.

About NBRR

New Bedford Research & Robotics’s programs are designed to stand on their own and to make each other better where they overlap:

• Industry R&D: aerospace, manufacturing, marine tech, architecture and construction, e-mobility
• Startups in residence: marine robotics, advanced manufacturing, medical, fashion, data, construction
• Research: AI, robotics, design, new materials
• Community: paid internships, a lecture series, artist and designer residencies
• Education and workforce development: marine robotics, industrial robotics, STEAM

NBRR’s staff of engineers, designers, and educators work across all of it, which is how ideas move between a classroom, a startup, and a manufacturer’s research problem.

Today we have seven full-time staff, two fractional discipline leaders, 20 to 30 interns a year, and a startup membership on track to reach 25 companies in 2027, alongside partner organizations, universities, and schools. Late fall we will open 18,000 square feet of newly fitted out space.

The Role

This new position will be the senior operating role at NBRR - focused on orchestrating and systematizing the ecosystem of programs and people that bring our mission to life.  Our campus and technology set the stage for NBRR’s team, startups, interns, research partnerships, and community impact. We’re in pursuit of an experienced and vision-driven person who can maintain balance and contribute to growth across our programs.

How This Works With the CEO

You would report to Mark Parsons, our Founder and CEO. Here is how we see the roles:

• The CEO owns vision and strategy, fundraising, major external relationships, and the board.
• You would own execution and the daily running of the organization: operations, administration, and facilities. 
• You would make routine operational, vendor, and personnel decisions within the approved budget. 
• You and the CEO will keep a standing cadence to align on priorities, risks, staffing, and what is coming next.
• You would prepare for and present to the Board of Directors at its quarterly meetings.

Your Areas of Responsibility

People and administration

• Turn organizational priorities into plans with owners, timelines, and follow-through.
• Build and manage the operating team, including a site manager, as we grow.
• With the CEO, hold a culture built on clear communication, accountability, collaboration, and honest feedback.
• Support our department leaders in delivering their programs. 
• Serve as first line contact to outside HR, finance, IT, and other providers.
• Make sure the way we recruit interns, hire staff, and fill programs reaches the whole community.
• Keep HR practice current with our HR partner: policies, documentation, onboarding, and performance conversations.

Systems

• Build the annual operating calendar, the workflows, and the accountability systems that make follow-through visible.
• Evolve and maintain the policies and standard operating procedures a growing organization needs, sized to the organization we actually are.
• Own contracts, insurance, risk management, records, and compliance.
• Name capacity problems early and bring the staffing, vendor, or process answer.

Community and members

• Own what it feels like to be here. The member experience is the systems plus everything else: how fast someone gets an answer or whether a new member knows five people by their second week.
• Make sure our 20 to 30 interns a year continue to have a home that is well-run so they can have a genuinely transformative experience here. They contribute to research and operations, and they are part of the work rather than adjacent to it.
• Support relationship building with community members and partner organizations, coordinating with the CEO and our organizational leaders.

Campus

• Run the four-building, 33,000 square foot campus, located next to the downtown cultural district, a $2B deep water port and the new rail station for the train to Boston.
• Set the facility practices that keep the place efficient, safe, secure, clean, well used, and earning revenue.
• Oversee IT, capital equipment, and building systems, along with the service agreements behind them.

What Success Looks Like in the First Year

• The expansion into NBRR’s new headquarters is successful. The new space opens and settles, the campus absorbs growth toward 25 startups, and the member and staff community strengthen as the organization scales.
• The site manager is hired, onboarded, and running the buildings effectively.
• Every staff member knows who they report to, what they own, what they are aiming at, and connects with you regularly.
• Core HR, facilities, and operating policies exist in writing, are current, and are followed. Operational priorities are documented and progress is visible, so problems surface early instead of being diagnosed after the fact.
• The CEO’s calendar has visibly changed. He is spending his time on vision, fundraising, outside relationships and oversight of the domain leaders of Start Ups, R&D and Education, because you have the campus and operations, and trusted relationships across the organization, in the community and with NBRR’s members. 
• Members renew, interns ask to come back, and the people who work here stay.

Qualities and Capabilities We Are Looking For

• Seven or more years running operations, including at least three supervising people. We care more about what you have run than about the sector you ran it in.
• Experience running a complex physical site: a building, a plant, a campus, a facility. Vendors, systems, safety, capital equipment.
• A record of building systems that set an organization up for the long term.
• Strong people management: setting expectations, coaching, giving feedback, and handling the hard conversation with respect.
• The ability to work with a founder or visionary leader. You can execute someone else’s priority and originate your own, and you do not need every boundary drawn before you will move.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with a wide range of people, from an eighteen-year-old intern to a manufacturer’s VP to a city official.
• Commitment to New Bedford and the Southcoast. You know this region and the people in it, or you have a clear and specific reason for planting yourself here. This role is fully onsite and we do not offer relocation assistance.

Additional Terrain

All of the below is part of the work. We recognize nobody arrives strong in every one of them. Help us learn which you are strong in and which you would be learning.

• Background in business administration, nonprofit management, or operations management.
• Financial management, budgeting, capital projects, or vendor management.
• HR practice: recruiting, onboarding, staff development, performance management, or working alongside outside HR professionals.
• Google Workspace, HubSpot, OfficeRnD, or comparable membership, CRM, and project management platforms.
• IT systems, data security, and audiovisual equipment, or a track record of managing good vendors in those areas.
• Curiosity about robotics, advanced manufacturing, marine technology, and whatever our members are building this month.

Working Here

• Full time, with occasional evenings and weekends for pitch nights, events and the occasional building problems.
• Primarily on site, with occasional work from home when it makes sense.
• Part of this job is on its feet. You will walk the campus most days, inspect buildings, and help set up for events, which occasionally means lifting or moving something up to 25 pounds.
• Because we run programs for young people, this role requires CORI and SORI background checks.
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this role. If you need an accommodation at any point in the hiring process, tell us and we will work it out with you.

Compensation

$85,000 to $110,000, depending on experience, plus three weeks of paid time off and all federal holidays. We do not currently offer health insurance. It is a priority as we grow.

How to Apply

We review applications as they arrive and we are looking to fill this role as soon as we find the right person. After reviewing applications, we'll invite some candidate to submit video responses to questions, followed by live interview rounds, including time on the campus with the team. We'll make sure you get to know us as much as we get to know you, so that by the end of the process, you'll be ready to make a decision should we extend you an offer.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

Equal Opportunity

NBRR is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, including natural and protective hairstyles, color, religious creed, sex, pregnancy or a pregnancy-related condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, criminal record, receipt of public assistance, active military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal or state law. We encourage applications from people whose capabilities and perspective would add something we do not already have.