Alex Van Vlaenderen
Minneapolis
Summary
Results-oriented telecommunications professional with over 7 years of extensive experience in zoning, permitting, and project management across various regions of the United States. Proven expertise in building municipal relationships, negotiating favorable terms, and enhancing production capacity. Adept at efficiently managing multiple projects under tight timelines while consistently delivering with precision on forecasted schedules. Demonstrated track record in navigating complex regulatory landscapes, coordinating cross-functional teams, and ensuring compliance for successful fiber optic buildout and telecommunications infrastructure projects.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Site Acquisition Project Manager
Gigapower
12.2024 - Current
- Establish and maintain communication channels with 14 municipalities across the south metro Minneapolis area, successfully building relationships with 12 new municipalities within 3 months to facilitate project coordination and address jurisdictional concerns.
- Serve as primary liaison between municipalities, general contractors, and engineering partners to address field construction issues and resolve design concerns, ensuring seamless project execution and timely resolution of challenges.
- Manage our engineering vendor to oversee permit application and submission processes, while tracking permitting timelines to guarantee deliverables are completed before construction commencement.
- Lead competitive analysis initiative by reviewing multiple databases to identify potential competitor activity in upcoming build areas and coordinating with construction managers for field confirmations, successfully preventing overbuild scenarios and optimizing market deployment strategy.
- Leverage established municipal relationships to negotiate favorable project terms, including doubling allowed buildable footage per month, extending build seasons by one week across three municipalities, and expanding simultaneous working areas from three to five locations in two municipalities, directly contributing to enhanced production capacity.
- Mitigate construction disruptions through proactive municipal engagement, successfully reducing a week-long shutdown resulting from subcontractor error to one day, minimizing project delays, and maintaining positive jurisdictional relationships.
- Collaborate with our lobbyist and governmental affairs teams to identify and advocate for municipal policy changes that enhance production efficiency and streamline project delivery across jurisdictions.
Site Acquisition Specialist
Crown Castle
12.2017 - 12.2024
- Meticulously prepare and submit zoning and permitting applications for telecommunications construction, ensuring accuracy and completeness.
- Monitor the progress of municipal applications, proactively addressing any issues and facilitating jurisdictional requests for additional information to expedite approvals.
- Conduct in-depth research and comprehension of state and local telecommunications municipal codes, ensuring thorough understanding and compliance when coordinating zoning/permitting applications.
- Collaborate closely with interdepartmental teams to guarantee that permit submittal packages align with both local and statewide municipal requirements and customer project scopes, fostering seamless project execution.
- Effectively communicate with external vendors to maintain timely receipt of deliverables and facilitate necessary revisions to ensure adherence to project specifications and on-time completion.
- Utilize project management tools to organize and digitally track the status of zoning and permitting tasks, enhancing workflow efficiency and transparency.
- Attend weekly deployment meetings with customer facing project managers to communicate project progression in-depth and coordinate efforts to address gating items, leading to a high level of success on project delivery.
Engineering Technician
City of Fargo
03.2016 - 09.2017
- Responsible for City engineering code enforcement and assessment of subcontractors conducting underground directional drilling for the Midco cable company's fiber optic build-out in Fargo, ND.
- Conducted reviews of City engineering codes and existing utility maps in order to develop drilling routes in coordination with subcontractors in the field, leading to zero collision incidents with city utilities.
- Assessed city Right-of-Way and utility easement parameters and restrictions prior to underground cable installation, communicated with relevant municipal departments, and developed route plans for installation with contractors based off the preliminary information that was gathered.
- Documented contractor progression via route mapping and kept a field summary log of completed work and concerns needing to be addressed.
- Used utility locating equipment in conjunction with existing City utility GIS maps in order to locate City of Fargo underground utilities for upcoming excavation and underground directional drilling operations.
- Responsible for analyzing proposed drilling routes for potential compliance issues with City codes as well as writing excavation permits for contractors once preliminary analyzation was completed and approved.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Environment Science, Policy, and Management
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN01.2015
Certification
- Notary Public
- Minnesota Secretary of State
- 2022
Timeline
Site Acquisition Project Manager
Gigapower
12.2024 - Current
Site Acquisition Specialist
Crown Castle
12.2017 - 12.2024
Engineering Technician
City of Fargo
03.2016 - 09.2017
Bachelor of Science - Environment Science, Policy, and Management
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities