Director of Estimating/ Preconstruction

Comfort Temp Company
Gainesville, FL

CT Mechanical, a division of Comfort Temp Company has exclusively retained Kenton Talent Management to lead all associated search efforts. Due to the volume of applicants, only qualified candidates will be contacted.


The Ideal Candidate:

The Director of Estimating at CT Mechanical (www.ctmechanical.us) is a critical and visible leadership role within a well-funded, high-growth business. Reporting directly to the CEO, the ideal candidate is a business scaler who is both technically proficient (as an operationally oriented Estimator), as well as a people-first leader who enjoys coaching and scaling winning teams. This individual will demonstrate how an estimating team can and should impact the business as they transform the function into a best-in-class, end-to-end Preconstruction department.


This key department leader influences all front-end processes and standards, from capture strategy, to Estimating, through effective “hand-offs” to operations. This individual guides all short and long-range estimating efforts across commercial, mechanical and plumbing disciplines, and leads bid strategy and department workflows while ensuring estimates are accurate, competitive, timely, and aligned with operational reality.


About Comfort Temp Company (CT Mechanical)

Comfort Temp Company is comprised of two growing businesses: Comfort Temp Heating & Air and CT Mechanical (CTM). CTM is a full-service mechanical and plumbing contractor providing expert HVAC & Plumbing solutions across Central and Northern Florida, with a "family-first" culture that emphasizes high-integrity service. CT Mechanical employs a versatile team of commercial HVAC, plumbing, and refrigeration experts offering full-service mechanical contracting for new and existing buildings since 2014.


The Role:

The right individual will help the organization shift from legacy processes and behaviors to a structured departmental “playbook” that fosters estimating process rigor, discipline, and performance excellence through KPIs, metrics, systems, and data.


This hands-on leadership role is best suited for a “player-coach” who enjoys working alongside the team and leading by example. The Director of Estimating is expected to inspire followership and performance excellence, improve and scale processes/ systems, support major customer and project pursuits, strengthen data and systems discipline. This person will help shape how CT Mechanical pursues and prices work - and prepares all awarded projects for success.


Key Objectives:

  • Transform and elevate the estimating function into a best-in-class preconstruction model/ environment.
  • Direct the estimating department’s organizational structure and daily performance, ensuring all workflows and labor assumptions are standardized across regional offices for maximum submission quality.
  • Manage the full bid lifecycle—from initial invitation review to final turnover—while conducting rigorous quality control reviews to mitigate risk and eliminate preventable estimating errors.
  • Maintain and update historical cost databases, vendor pricing, and market trend intelligence. Optimize vendor and subcontractor selection and performance management structures. Develop high-trust relationships with vendors, and subcontractors while acting as a seamless bridge between the estimating department and field operations.
  • Lead the recruitment, onboarding, coaching, and career pathing of departmental talent, establishing clear performance standards and technical training requirements to support scale.


Who You Are:

  • A strategic thinker who prioritizes building scalable systems and implementing rigorous accountability measures over simple task management.
  • A dedicated mentor committed to "talent velocity": coaching team members and defining clear career trajectories backed by development plans to sustain departmental growth.
  • Analytically minded with a focus on continuous improvement, utilizing win/loss data and historical costs to refine pursuit strategies and pricing accuracy.
  • A hands-on leader and technically proficient Estimator who is willing to conduct site visits to ensure estimates are rooted in physical reality and operational constraints.
  • A company steward who operates with grounded honesty, ethics, and builds trust through reliable execution.
  • An industry expert with roots in Mechanical, HVAC, and Plumbing environments.

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