Vice President of Fleet Technical Operation
Positions on Land - UnCruise Adventures · Seattle, WA
About UnCruise Adventures
We are a small-ship adventure-based travel company dedicated to creating experiences that connect people with nature, wildlife, and local cultures - we kayak among icebergs, travel to hidden waterfalls, and share air with whales. Every team member plays a role in bringing the adventure to life. Operating seven vessels carrying 22 to 86 guests, we explore destinations, including Alaska, Hawaii, Baja California, and Costa Rica.
Job Summary
The Vice President of Fleet Technical Operations provides executive leadership for UnCruise's shipyard, capital project, technical operations, regulatory compliance, and long term fleet asset strategy. This position is directly accountable for technical and capital budgets, drydock execution, major vessel projects, regulatory readiness, and overall fleet reliability.
The VP owns the full lifecycle of major repair and capital work, from long term planning, scope development, budgeting, and vendor negotiation through execution, commissioning, and closeout. The position provides leadership and oversight across Fleet Technical Operations, ensuring vessels are appropriately maintained, technically reliable, regulatorily prepared, and supported by disciplined project and asset management practices.
This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who thinks like a project owner and budget owner while maintaining the technical knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. The successful candidate must be comfortable moving between the engine room, shipyard, budget meeting, and executive discussion. They must understand technical detail, challenge assumptions, ask the right questions, and make sound decisions without becoming the person who personally solves every technical problem.
Strong leadership and accountability are central to this role. The VP is expected to establish clear priorities, define ownership, set measurable expectations, and hold the team accountable for results while providing the authority and support necessary to succeed. They must be willing to make difficult decisions, address performance or execution issues directly, and create an environment where problems are raised early, communicated clearly, and brought forward with proposed solutions.
The VP must be an effective developer of people and teams. This includes recognizing individual strengths, delegating appropriately, building technical and project management capability, mentoring emerging leaders, and creating succession and knowledge sharing within the department. The successful candidate will foster a culture where team members take initiative, collaborate across disciplines, and understand that ownership includes following work through to completion.
The role requires strong communication and cross functional leadership. The VP must be able to translate complex technical issues into clear operational, financial, and business impacts for company leadership while communicating effectively with vessel crews, contractors, regulators, and technical professionals. They must be able to bring stakeholders together, resolve competing priorities, and maintain productive working relationships even when timelines, budgets, or operational demands create pressure.
The VP is expected to lead proactively rather than reactively by anticipating fleet needs, identifying technical and financial risks before they become emergencies, establishing priorities across multiple vessels and projects, and creating systems that improve planning and accountability. During vessel casualties, shipyard challenges, or other high pressure situations, the VP must provide calm, decisive leadership, establish a clear path forward, and ensure the appropriate people remain accountable for execution.
Success in this position requires high personal accountability, sound judgment, transparency, and follow through. The VP should be comfortable taking responsibility for the performance of the department while creating a culture in which leaders at every level take responsibility for their areas. The ultimate goal is to build a Fleet Technical Operations organization that is collaborative, technically capable, financially disciplined, and consistently focused on the long term reliability and improvement of the fleet.
This position works closely with teams throughout the organization as well as vessel leadership, shipyards, vendors, classification societies, flag administrations, and regulatory agencies.
This is a full time exempt position based in Seattle, Washington.
Essential Duties:
Leadership
- Own the vision, standards, and priorities for the entire engineering and facilities function, shipboard and shoreside alike.
- Build and develop a leadership bench capable of taking on more ownership over time, not a team of individual contributors reporting up.
- Establish clear roles, decision making authority, and performance expectations across Technical Operations, Regulatory Compliance, and Fleet Projects.
- Set direction across in-season vessel support and off-season capital work and personally resolve the tradeoffs when the two compete for time, people, or budget.
- Create an environment where technical staff are expected to identify problems, develop solutions, communicate risks early, and take ownership through completion.
- Represent technical operations to executive leadership, translating engineering and project realities into business decisions.
- Model a leadership style that earns trust from crew, shoreside staff, and contractors alike.
Fleet Engineering & Reliability
- Own the technical condition of the fleet year round, including in-season troubleshooting, planned maintenance system oversight, and critical spares strategy.
- Set technical standards and long-term reliability strategy across all vessels and systems, mechanical, electrical, and structural.
- Drive adoption of planned and predictive maintenance practices to reduce unplanned downtime and extend asset life.
- Establish fleetwide priorities that balance operational reliability, regulatory requirements, guest experience, vessel longevity, available resources, and financial considerations.
- Reduce organizational dependency on knowledge held by individual employees or individual vessels by promoting documentation and information sharing.
- Support development of preferred equipment standards and replacement strategies.
Shipyard & Capital Project Leadership
- Own the end-to-end shipyard and repair period lifecycle across the fleet, from off-season scope development and scheduling through project closeout.
- Lead contractor selection, quote evaluation, and rate negotiation for shipyard and major repair contracts.
- Direct planning and execution of major capital scope items, including mechanical system replacements, steel repair, and MSD upgrades.
- Evaluate capital investment based on operational risk, reliability, regulatory requirements, lifecycle cost, maintainability, standardization, and expected vessel service life.
- Set the annual shipyard and capital project calendar and hold the team accountable to timeline, scope, and cost targets.
- Serve as final escalation point on project delays, scope changes, and vendor performance issues.
- Provide leadership with clear information regarding fleet condition, emerging capital needs, and technical risks.
- Monitor approved capital budgets and ensure significant variances are identified and communicated.
- Ensure lessons learned from each yard period are incorporated into future planning.
Budget & Financial Ownership
- Own the technical operations OPEX and CAPEX budgets, including annual planning and in-year tracking.
- Ensure appropriate financial controls are incorporated into technical repairs and project execution.
- Approve and monitor spend against shipyard, repair, and capital project budgets, flagging variances early.
- Build and defend multi-year capital plans for major refits, system replace