Job Description

About NVA:

Founded in 1996 by Dr. Stan Creighton, National Veterinary Associates (NVA) offers a full range of veterinary services in more than 907 companion animal veterinary hospitals and 100 pet resorts across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. As part of its mission, NVA believes that veterinary medicine is best practiced when veterinarians craft their own approach to best serve the needs of their local communities. Toward that end, NVA provides cutting-edge tools and resources for its veterinarians to deliver the most advanced high-quality care and client services.

Its 14,000 veterinary professionals improve the well-being of patients by providing progressive and compassionate veterinary care. Its 4,000 veterinarians provide a full range of medical and surgical services and NVA has 2,400 pet resort staff offering boarding, grooming and day care services.

In the core service line, pet hospitals (general practice, Specialty and ER, Equine), success has been predicated on a unique, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM)-friendly model, while those activities that do not interfere with clinical care have been standardized. As a result, nearly half of selling veterinarians from acquisitions over the past 20 years are still employed by NVA today. Veterinarians who join the network gain the advantage of more available time to focus on clinical care as NVA focuses on the administrative processes and provides resources for the veterinarians to embark on practice optimization projects of their choosing.

• 100% of hospitals keep their name, staff, culture and commitment to the community
• 100% use Technology Services Help Desk
• 86% use Client Service Center for appointment reminders
• 96% use social media and online review experts

NVA’s hospitals and pet resorts are served by approximately 630 Support Center team members who are primarily located in Agoura Hills, California. The team’s activities are always in the service of the Company’s “why” (“For the love of animals and the people who love them”) and mission (“To improve the comfort and well-being of pets by providing progressive and compassionate care. We develop a community of animal hospitals and pet resorts that share knowledge to achieve sustainable growth”).

NVA Canada:

NVA entered Canada in 2014 and initially ran the market as an extension of its US business. Today it has 24 hospitals located in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. Given the short and long term potential in Canada, NVA has made the strategic decision to create an independent business unit solely dedicated to capturing the exciting growth opportunity in Canada. Our recently hired CEO, Jim Gabel is working with NVA’s enterprise leadership and the existing Canadian professionals to aggressively build NVA’s business in Canada as part of the Corporation’s global expansion. It is expected with a Canadian specific strategy and passionate team of professionals, NVA’s Canadian business can grow 400-500% in the next 4 years. In order to increase its market share, NVA Canada will continue to grow through the accelerated acquisition of established clinics across Canada, while providing best-in-class service to its clinical operators. In building its Canadian team NVA will appeal to a confident, proactive and commercially astute individuals who thrive in a lean, high-paced and entrepreneurial environment. Successful team members will recognize this is a unique opportunity for personal and professional growth to build on existing successes and accelerate the growth of NVA in Canada.

Position Summary:

Reporting into the VP, Infrastructure Operations & Cloud Transformation as part of the NVA Technology Services organization in California with day to day oversight from the Finance group, the Technology Operations Lead is a newly created role charged with helping grow and support the business.

The position is located in the western part of the GTA and will be responsible for Infrastructure Operations and Support of Field Services as well as Technology Support for HQ. This position will require considerable travel (approximately 75%) and working some weekends once COVID travel restrictions are lifted.

General Summary of Role:

Our Technology Operations Lead is responsible for both overseeing and in many cases, assisting with converting veterinary hospital legacy technology infrastructure and systems to NVA standard technology infrastructure and systems. This person must be eager to learn, grow, and to work both independently and as part of a team.

The position will supervise and work closely with the Field Service Engineer (FSE) to coordinate, plan and execute the upgrades and then ongoing support of the hospitals. In doing so he/she will travel to different facilities nationwide to install, configure, troubleshoot, and maintain veterinary technology products and systems. With the FSE, the Technology Operations Lead must identify, analyze, and repair system failures, and then order and replace parts as needed. Be knowledgeable and professionally answer customer questions about product features, issues and upgrades. Performs start up testing and customer training on features and general maintenance of product.

The position will also supervise Desktop Support Analyst (DSA) and be responsible for technology support for the GTA based Support Center.

Essential Job Functions

• Coach and develop the FSE, DSA and other team members that may join in the future.
• Plan, coordinate, budget, set timelines and then execute hardware and network upgrades at the hospitals and GTA based Support Center.
• Manage the overall technology budget for Canada and key vendor relationships
• Act as the primary technology resource, or team contributor, for onsite technology upgrades, refreshes, and new network builds of veterinary facilities. Delivering complete and sound network environments including LAN, WAN, VM, wireless, and software platforms.
• Partner closely with enterprise infrastructure technology managers to ensure alignment with technology standards and processes.
• Partner closely with the Director of Enterprise Technology Support Services to ensure Service Desk function is providing the necessary level and quality of support to Canadian sites.
• Help drive ITIL and HDI process acceptance and drive exceptional service levels.
• Act as a point of escalation for support needs between hospital managers and the Service Desk.
• Part of a team responsible for advanced data gathering (e.g., site surveys), integration planning, and onsite project management.
• Managing third-party technology infrastructure vendors for onsite cabling, wireless access point installation, and deployment of ancillary support infrastructure.
• Manage and Support the deployment of physical and virtual servers, workstations, and network devices.
• Create and maintain process and procedure documentation as well as end-user guides needed for continuous improvement.
• Manage multiple installations or upgrades at a time and prepare weekly status report of completed and upcoming projects/installations
• Be able to travel regularly and possibly for weeks at a time. Ability to work long hours as needed.
• Provide support for Canadian Support center technology infrastructure with FSE when not travelling and working on NVA hospital implementations

Required Skills

• Be an ambassador for Technology, working across NVA and with clients, to provide effective communication on Technology matters.
• Ready to contribute towards the development of team and department goals and procedures.
• Experienced with the following areas of network field services:
  • Desktop Windows / Mac applications and operating systems
  • Microsoft Windows Server
  • Active Directory: concepts, structure, objects, Group Policy, Sites, etc.
  • Layer 2 and 3 networking (wired and wireless) switches, Access points, controllers
  • In-depth knowledge of WAN/LAN technologies and support.
  • Experience activating and testing ISP circuits, creating IP schemas, VLANS, DHCP
• Awareness of ITIL or HDI process and metrics measurement.
• You must be a “people person” and have a sense of humor. Half the battle with Technology is communicating with non-technical people in a way that does not insult or intimidate them
• Strong project management skills
• Strong vendor management skills
• Financial and cost management experience to manage the Canadian Technology Budget
• Experience in coaching and developing other team members

Personal Qualities/Attributes

• Demonstrates exceptional customer service skills and empathy.
• Maintains professional and technical knowledge
• Works well with colleagues, customers and supervisors
• Ability to work calmly in highly urgent or stressful situations (Supporting hospitals where the end users could be in a panic/angry)
• Ability to work individually and in teams. Knowing when to lead and when to follow and how to make a positive contribution to the team
• Punctuality, the ability to meet deadlines, and a good grasp and use of common courtesy and appropriate manners
• Advanced ability to diagnose problems and develop thoughtful and appropriate solutions
• Self-motivated and directed.
• Proven advanced analytical and problem-solving abilities.

Experience/Education

• College or University degree
• Typically requires 3-6 years of related Technology Infrastructure management and support
• CompTIA A+, Network+ certification, HDI Certification.
• Internal/company certification on specialized systems.
• Preferred experience in veterinary or medical field, or large scale retail expansion or other multisite location businesses.

NVA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran or disabled status, or genetic information. This role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

*This role is not open to receiving agency candidates and any contingent submissions will not be honored.