Senior Director, Engineering

The Opportunity:

An excellent career opportunity awaits as the Sr. Director, Engineering of USALCO’s business, which is headquartered in Baltimore, MD. This position will report to the Chief Operating Officer and will be responsible for an engineering team comprised of company and contracted engineers to manage and deliver the organizational capital portfolio, including the design and execution of the capital investments. This position will also engage with the leadership team to provide end to end support for the business. This position will be a key member of the Leadership team and will actively engage to develop and drive USALCO’s long term Strategies and Annual Operating Plans.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

This is a key position within USALCO and is responsible for leading the development and optimization of our manufacturing processes and the successful execution of the capital portfolio. The successful candidate must demonstrate strong partnership with Business, Technology and Manufacturing leadership to execute and manage the entire capital portfolio while ensuring it is aligned with the overall business strategy. The successful candidate will provide process and project engineering leadership to deploy consistent engineering design standards and procedures, while always meeting or exceed industry & USALCO EHS&Q standards.

The successful candidate will also lead process engineering efforts to affordably drive pragmatic continuous improvements with existing operations including:

Process Development

• Step change improvement in cost, capital and/or new product application need
• New project definition (PFD’s, Front End Packages/Process Packages, etc.)
• Lab/pilot plant to commercial plant scale up
• New Plant Start-up
• Knowledge Steward of Installed Technologies
• Technology risk reviews
• Required documentation for successful transfer to operations team
• Chemical kinetic and physical plant current operating capacity versus theoretical capacity analysis

Project Development 

• Conceptual capital cost estimates, site selection, economic evaluation
• Technology assessment, acquisition, and competitive analysis
• Make versus Buy versus Toll analysis and R&D support
• Unit cost/capital modeling for manufacturing processes
• Ensuring all industry and USALCO EHS&Q standards are implemented and followed.

Existing Process Optimization (continuous improvement)

• Process de-bottlenecking
• Incremental capacity stretches
• Process Safety / Regulatory Improvement
• Process yield improvements
• Process operations stabilization
• Cost savings through lean and Six Sigma approaches
• Process Engineering on product/plant scale-ups
• Delivery of necessary documentation & training for successful transfer to operations team.

The successful candidate will:

• Have experience managing chemical process design to deliver innovative solutions.
• Have a deep understanding of plant operations.
• Develop and maintain the companies 5-year capital portfolio, lead monthly prioritization meeting and project reports.
• Maintain and report out the monthly capital spending and forecasted cash flow for the organization.
• Establish and maintain monthly engineering metrics by function and project.
• Deliver YoY productivity to the organization that is greater than two times the cost of the engineering department.
• Direct the development of engineering standards and oversee implementation as they pertain to planning and construction, manufacturing, equipment, and operations globally
• Take responsibility for evaluating and integrating development processes, technology, and teams across operating sites.
• Lead technical evaluation and implementation of process design and process safety improvements
• Ensure that a rigorous Front End Loading process is utilized and continuously improved to for robust process design
• Identify process improvements as prioritized to business needs and external benchmarks.  Attack and resolve root causes of problems and inconsistencies.
• Interface with Operations as needed for design, commissioning, and start-up.
• Work with site operations to identify and solve problems, drive lean practices, and improve the productivity, profitability, quality, and customer service levels proactively and cross-functionally.
• Coach and develop employees, including direct and indirect reports.
• Communicate strategic objectives, resource allocation and execution plans globally.
• Knowledgeable with Industry & governmental EHS& Q standards

Qualifications:

Required:

The successful candidate will have 15 plus years of broad technical experience in chemical industry that may include plant operations, process engineering and development and at least 10 years supervisory experience leading professionals.   The successful candidate will have a track record of technology design and scale-up, utilizing people effectively and managing tightly against performance commitments, process engineering, process scale up, and operations experience.

Specifically, the Engineering candidate should:

• Demonstrate strong business acumen with an understanding of the financial implications of new process technology development, scale-up, and process improvement
• Have a proven performance record as a process engineer and as an operational engineering manager who has significantly improved performance of a business.
• Manage an organization involving the staffing, mentoring and development of its personnel.
• Understand the use of technology as a competitive differentiator, specifically driving its use in development of plant strategic plans and implementation leading to continuous improvement in profitability.
• Ensure all projects are subject to rigorous planning and oversight to ensure on-time and on-budget completion that meets or exceeds quality and safety standards.
• Exhibit a strong customer internal orientation with comfort in an organization.
• Demonstrate dedication to process safety, worker safety and environmental stewardship.
• Have well developed verbal and written communications skills.
• An undergraduate degree in Engineering is required.
• Ability to travel.

Preferred:

• Master’s degree in chemical engineering, related discipline and/or MBA preferred.
• Skilled in influencing cultural change and problem resolution
• Assessing, Identifying and resolve root causes of problems and inconsistencies.
• Solid analytical and computer skills
• Strong communication skills
• Outstanding team building and leadership skills.
• Known and respected in the chemical and contractor community.
• Strong leadership and decision-making skills.
• Demonstrated experience in championing and leading change across an organization, including driving Management of Change and Operational Discipline.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Ability to challenge status quo, identify key areas for improvement and implement actions to address.
• Previous management experience in a specialty chemical, heavy industry, intensive asset environment with significant processing equipment and material handling, or equivalent.
• Experience directing Engineering on projects.

Year one critical success factors:

• Learn the priorities necessary for delivering on 2022 Goals / Initiatives / Strategy – Determine revisions as required.
• Create Monthly Cadence for critical reviews, meetings, and updates to Supply Chain Leadership.
• Assess the organizational Engineering capabilities as they exist today, identify gaps and organization needs to create a 2022 plan to standardize the management system and improve the organizational capabilities.
• Meet with key internal customers to understand the as is state and opportunities for improvement.
• Assess the organization’s skills, capabilities, and gaps.
• Identify gaps/issues between existing Engineering plans and actual performance to implement corrective actions.
• Develop a results-driven organizational culture with improved accountability on delivering results to the customer (internal or external).

Compensation:

A highly competitive compensation program will be provided to the successful candidate including base salary, performance-based incentive bonus and additional benefits.

USALCO is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law. As a general policy, USALCO does not offer employment visa sponsorships upon hire or in the future.