Maintenance Manager, Pulp & Utilities

About the role

About The Opportunity At Ahlstrom’s Thilmany Mill, our teams work together to safely manufacture essential fiber-based materials while strengthening the reliability and long-term performance of our operations. We value practical leadership, technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement. We are seeking an experienced Maintenance Manager to lead maintenance strategy and execution for the Pulp and Utilities areas at our Thilmany Mill in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. This role provides onsite leadership to the maintenance organization supporting these critical operating areas and works closely with Operations, Engineering, Reliability, and other mill leaders. The Maintenance Manager will build and lead a high-performing team, champion culture change, reinforce consistent adherence to company policies and work practices, and establish clear expectations and accountability. This leader will also improve equipment reliability, strengthen planning and execution, develop team capabilities, manage outages and planned work, and deliver sustainable improvements in asset performance.

Responsibilities

• Lead all maintenance activities for the Pulp and Utilities areas with an uncompromising focus on employee safety, environmental compliance, quality, and operational reliability.
• Develop and execute preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance strategies that improve equipment availability and reduce unplanned downtime.
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing maintenance organization by setting clear priorities, defining roles and expectations, coaching leaders and employees, and ensuring timely follow-through on commitments.
• Lead culture change by modeling company values, engaging employees in improvement efforts, addressing resistance constructively, and reinforcing behaviors that support safety, reliability, collaboration, and operational discipline.
• Drive accountability through measurable goals, routine performance reviews, visible follow-up, recognition of strong performance, and prompt, consistent action when expectations are not met.
• Ensure consistent adherence to company policies, maintenance standards, safe-work procedures, environmental requirements, and applicable collective bargaining agreement provisions.
• Partner with Operations to establish equipment priorities, coordinate maintenance windows, and strengthen communication between operating and maintenance teams.
• Improve planning and scheduling discipline, work-order quality, backlog management, job readiness, and schedule compliance.
• Lead shutdowns, outages, major repairs, and contractor activities from scope development through safe execution and post-work review.
• Use reliability data, equipment history, root-cause analysis, and performance measures to identify recurring failures and implement lasting corrective actions.
• Develop and manage the maintenance budget, including annual planning