Job Description

Job Location: Bothell, WA 98011
Salary Range: $165,000.00 - $175,000.00 Salary/yearDepartment: Vertical Transportation
Lerch Bates is seeking an experienced Area Manager to lead our Vertical Transportation consulting practice within an assigned region. This role combines technical consulting, business development, operational leadership, and people management to drive exceptional client service and business growth.
As the Area Manager, you will oversee consulting services, support project delivery, develop new business opportunities, and lead a team of consultants and technical professionals. You'll work closely with clients, building owners, architects, contractors, and internal teams to deliver high-quality vertical transportation consulting services while fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and technical excellence.
If you are a relationship-driven leader with expertise in elevators, escalators, modernization projects, and consulting services, this is an opportunity to make a significant impact while growing both your team and your region.
About Lerch Bates:
Lerch Bates (LB) is a global technical consulting firm focused on improving how buildings perform for owners, designers, and the people who use them every day. For more than 75 years we’ve partnered on some of the world’s most complex and high-profile projects. Today we provide Total Building Performance expertise that integrates Building Science and Building Flow into a unified delivery model.
Our work spans design, construction, investigation, repair, rehabilitation, management, and modernization with one consistent goal: helping clients make confident, well-informed decisions in an increasingly complex built environment.
We are 100% employee-owned through our ESOP, which fosters an ownership mindset and accountability in everything we do. At Lerch Bates, your expertise matters, your voice carries weight, and your work directly contributes to our shared success as OneLB.
What You’ll Do:
The duties listed below are intended only as illustrations of the various types of work that may be performed in this position. They are not intended to prescribe or restrict the assignments that management may make.
Business Development & Client Leadership
- Develop and execute regional business development strategies to grow consulting services across all Lerch Bates service lines
- Build and maintain strong relationships with building owners, architects, developers, contractors, property managers, and industry partners
- Generate new business through networking, client meetings, industry conferences, presentations, lunch-and-learns, and thought leadership
- Identify opportunities to expand services within existing client relationships
- Support proposal development, contract negotiations, and project planning
Project Consulting & Delivery
- Participate in vertical transportation consulting projects including equipment assessments, modernization projects, maintenance audits, design consulting, construction administration, and technical reviews
- Support project teams to ensure quality, client satisfaction, timely delivery, and effective project execution
- Assist with project planning, scheduling, budgeting, invoicing, and resource coordination
- Review project performance and provide operational support to consultants throughout project lifecycles
- Prepare and review project reports, status updates, billing information, change orders, and project documentation
Operations Leadership
- Lead daily operations for the assigned service area while promoting operational consistency and continuous improvement
- Monitor regional revenue, expenses, project performance, and financial objectives
- Participate in forecasting, budgeting, and operational planning
- Collaborate with leadership and support teams to achieve business goals and improve operational efficiency
Team Leadership & Development
- Lead, coach, mentor, and develop consultants and technical staff
- Provide performance feedback, training, and career development opportunities
- Foster a collaborative, customer-focused culture that reflects Lerch Bates' core values
- Promote workplace safety and ensure compliance with company policies and industry standards
What You’ll Bring:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, Business, or a related field preferred
- 5+ years of experience in the vertical transportation, elevator consulting, construction, engineering, or related industry
- Previous leadership or supervisory experience preferred
- Strong knowledge of elevators, escalators, moving walks, modernization programs, maintenance audits, inspections, and vertical transportation systems
- Working knowledge of applicable industry codes, standards, and safety requirements
- Demonstrated success in business development, client relationship management, and project delivery
- Strong project management, organizational, and financial management skills
- Excellent leadership, coaching, and team development abilities
- Strong written and verbal communication, presentation, and negotiation skills
- Ability to analyze complex problems and develop practical solutions
- Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced consulting environment
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications; experience with CAD or drawing review software preferred
- Ability to travel throughout the assigned region as needed
Why Work with Lerch Bates?
- Competitive compensation
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Paid time off (starting at 17 days annually)
- 9 paid holidays
- 401(k) with employer match
- Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP)
- Paid parental leave
- Professional development and tuition reimbursement
- Performance-based incentives and bonuses
- Employee assistance and wellness programs
Be more than just an employee…
Lerch Bates is 100% employee-owned! Our employee-owners bring a distinct “we own what we do” brand of technical consulting to every project and partnership. When you work with us, you join a company with an ownership mindset. Expect responsibility, service, and performance in everything we do. So, what does that mean for you? After a certain service time, you are eligible for stock ownership, which essentially works as an additional wealth accumulation and/or retirement account!
Core Values
Ownership • Community • Integrity • Respect • Optimism
Working Environment:
This role involves both physical and mental demands and may be performed in various settings, including offices, construction sites, and confined spaces like elevator pits. Tasks often require frequent movement in multiple directions. Lerch Bates will provide reasonable accommodations upon request through Human Resources.
Physical Demands:
While performing the duties of this position, an employee is regularly required to sit; talk or hear, in meetings, in person and via telephone; navigate tight spaces to access elevator pits and elevator car tops; climb ladders; move around construction sites; stretch, reach or other physical motions to take measurements and observe project requirements; travel via car, air or rail to visit customer sites; work at extreme heights; use fingers, hands and arms for functions such as typing, operating elevators from top of car, controlling and reaching interlock switches, asserting 30 lbs. of force on elevator doors; work in confined spaces; see details at within a few feet of the observer.
Mental Demands:
While performing the duties of this position, an employee is are regularly required to use written and oral communication skills; read and interpret complex data, information and documents; analyze and solve problems; use math and mathematical reasoning; arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g. patterns of numbers, objects, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations); apply general rules to specific problems to produce sensible answers (deductive reasoning); combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (inductive reasoning; observe and interpret people and situations; learn and apply new skills and information rapidly; perform highly detailed work on multiple, concurrent tasks with frequently changing deadlines and interruptions; and interact with LB Executives, Project Managers and Administrative Assistants as well as clients, members of governmental agencies, professional and community organizations and committees, the media and the public.
Employment is contingent upon the successful completion of a pre-employment background check and drug test. The drug test includes screening for marijuana, regardless of state or local laws permitting its use. A conditional offer of employment will be rescinded if a candidate fails either the background check or the drug test. This requirement is mandated by federal regulations applicable to our government contracting obligations.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by law.