Director, Category Management - Contract Labor Services

Drive enterprise value through innovative commercial strategies, including master service agreements, alliance partnerships, and performance-based contracting models that strengthen supplier relationships, improve operational performance, and mitigate business risk.

About the role

Lead the enterprise sourcing strategy for contract labor and field services, ensuring skilled craft availability, schedule certainty, contractor performance, and execution excellence in support of maintenance, turnarounds, and capital projects. Reporting to the VP, Procurement, this role provides enterprise leadership for the contract labor and field services category, establishing sourcing strategies and commercial partnerships that enable safe, reliable, and cost-effective operations across refineries, pipelines, and terminals.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute enterprise-wide category strategies across the contract labor and field services portfolio for refining, pipeline, and terminal operations.
• Identify and deliver value through master service agreements, alliance models, bundled service strategies, crew productivity improvement, scope optimization, total installed cost reduction, and commercial excellence.
• Lead complex multi-site RFx events, rate negotiations, contracting strategies, and commercial model transformation including time-and-materials, unit-rate, lump-sum, target-price, and performance-based agreements.
• Ensure category strategies support turnaround readiness, capital project execution, planned and emergency maintenance, regulatory inspections, and business continuity across all sites.
• Lead, coach, and develop Category Managers, Sourcing Specialists, Contract Administrators, and field services analysts.
• Establish clear goals, performance expectations, and talent development plans aligned to refining and midstream business priorities.
• Support a culture of safety leadership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Drive succession planning and organizational capability development for craft labor and field services sourcing.
• Prioritize team resources across turnarounds, capital projects, and run-and-maintain demand cycles.
• Partner with senior leaders across Refining Operations, Logistics, Capital Projects, Maintenance and Reliability, Turnarounds, HSE, Inspection, Engineering, Finance, Legal, and Risk.
• Present category strategies, contractor market intelligence, labor availability outlooks, and risk mitigation plans to executive leadership.
• Serve as executive sponsor for strategic contractor relationships and alliance partners.
• Influence cross-functional decisions related to contractor selection, contracting model, scope packaging, schedule, and site execution strategy.
• Lead executive governance with key contractors and service providers across the labor and field services portfolio.
• Implement contractor scorecards measuring safety performance (TRIR, leading indicators), schedule adherence, productivity, quality, cost, workforce qualifications, and ESG.
• Negotiate complex master service agreements, evergreen alliance contracts, turnaround execution contracts, performance-based agreements, and equipment rental frame agreements.
• Drive contractor accountability, continuous improvement, and pre-qualification compliance through the company’s contractor management and HSE qualification systems.
• Own risk management strategies including multi-contractor coverage, regional and craft pool diversification, surge capacity planning, and labor availability contingency.
• Monitor craft labor market conditions, wage and benefit inflation, union and prevailing wage exposure, immigration and per-diem regulations, contractor financial health, insurance and bonding adequacy, and OSHA and PSM compliance posture.
• Lead response plans for unplanned outages, emergency maintenance events, force majeure, weather impacts, and turnaround schedule disruptions.
• Monitor contractor compliance with PSM, OSHA, DOT, EPA, and site-specific safety and environmental requirements.
• Maintain strong market knowledge across U.S. Gulf Coast, Mid-Continent, West Coast, Hawaii and other regional craft labor markets, contractor capacity, wage trends, and equipment rental markets.
• Build should-cost models, crew composition benchmarks, productivity factors, and unit-rate libraries for major service categories.
• Identify new contractors, emerging field service technologies, and competitive opportunities.
• Benchmark commercial models, rates, and contractor performance against industry peers and Solomon-type studies.
• Lead a multi-category enterprise sourcing organization for contract labor and field services.
• Develop annual operating plans, value delivery targets, and turnaround sourcing plans.
• Build leadership bench strength and succession pipelines.
• Support contractor safety, ethics, inclusion, and sustainability.
• Improve sourcing governance, contractor management systems, analytics, and processes.
• Sponsor major cross-functional transformation programs including alliance models, integrated services, and digital field execution.
• Support Procurement in executive planning forums for turnarounds, capital projects, and operations.

Requirements

• Legal authorization to work permanently in the United States for any employer without requiring a visa transfer or visa sponsorship.
• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Construction Management, Business, Finance, or related field required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive experience in strategic sourcing, supply chain leadership, construction, maintenance, turnaround management, or field operations in refining, midstream, petrochemical, or heavy industrial environments required.
• Minimum 10 years leading teams and developing leaders required.
• Demonstrated success managing large, complex contract labor and field services spend portfolios and enterprise negotiations required.
• Strong commercial acumen with ability to influence senior stakeholders in operations, maintenance, turnarounds, and capital projects required.
• Working knowledge of contractor safety management, PSM, OSHA, and refinery site execution practices required.
• Experience in downstream refining, midstream pipelines, terminals, petrochemicals, or heavy industrial construction preferred.
• Direct experience with turnaround sourcing, alliance contracting, and master service agreement portfolios preferred.
• Knowledge of craft labor markets, prevailing wage, union environments, and contractor productivity benchmarking preferred.
• Experience with performance-based contracts, integrated services, and digital field execution tools preferred.
• Knowledge of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI technologies and their practical application to strategic sourcing, procurement, category management, contract management, spend analytics, and process optimization to improve business performance and decision-making preferred.
• Familiarity with contractor pre-qualification platforms (e.g., ISNetworld) and PSM-covered process compliance preferred.

About Us

At Par Pacific, we own and operate market-leading energy and infrastructure businesses in logistically complex markets. We have built a team of downstream industry veterans and subject matter experts to lead our organization with an entrepreneurial spirit and a collaborative, problem-solving approach. We bring our diverse strengths and motivation to complex markets where we seek out diamonds in the rough. As a nimble, growing organization, we actively pursue new opportunities with corporate financing know-how, respond to local market demands, and adapt to changing external environments.

Benefits

• Competitive salary.
• Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Robust allotment of paid time off.
• 401(k) with company match and retirement savings plans.
• Educational reimbursement.
• Voluntary critical illness, accident, life/AD&D insurance.
• Flexible Spending Account and Employee Assistance Program.
• Employee Stock Purchase Program with discounted company stock prices.