Senior Manager, Maintenance Operations

Responsibilities

• Provide visionary leadership to a diverse technical workforce, including 5+ front-line supervisors and 50 skilled union craft employees (machinists, electricians, pipefitters, oilers), ensuring strong succession pipelines, skill development, and a high-accountability culture.
• Build a unified reliability organization through strategic workforce planning, capability mapping, and the deployment of standardized work systems.
• Serve as the primary safety integrator for all maintenance activities in a high-risk, heavy-industrial environment. Ensure full compliance with OSHA, EPA, environmental permit requirements, hazardous energy control, and all food-contact packaging regulations including SQF and GMP.
• Lead comprehensive risk assessments and implement engineering/administrative controls to eliminate hazards and elevate risk-prevention maturity.
• Manage a multi-million-dollar maintenance and capital budget, optimizing cost performance through labor strategy, overtime governance, contractor management, inventory optimization, and total-cost-of-ownership methodologies.
• Shape long-range capital plans, asset replacement strategies, and financial justifications in partnership with Operations, Finance, and Engineering.
• Architect and deploy a plant-wide Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and Condition-Based Monitoring (CBM) strategy utilizing advanced technologies (vibration analysis, thermography, ultrasonic, oil analysis, PLC analytics).
• Own the development of predictive maintenance roadmaps and KPI structures to reduce unplanned downtime, increase asset life, and improve OEE.
• Integrate TPM methodologies, Work Execution Management principles, and digital maintenance systems to deliver continuous improvement in maintenance workflow performance.
• Forge deep partnerships across Safety, HR, Finance, Quality, Operations, Engineering, and Supply Chain to align priorities, resolve systemic issues, and drive operational excellence.
• Maintain proactive engagement with Union leadership to ensure constructive labor relations, dispute resolution, and adherence to contractual guidelines.
• Develop and deploy advanced KPI systems to monitor asset health, workforce productivity, schedule compliance, downtime drivers, and reliability performance.
• Serve as a key driver of plant transformation initiatives, leading structured problem-solving, Lean/TPM events, and high-impact improvement projects.
• Establish consistent maintenance governance systems, standard operating procedures, and best-practice frameworks to elevate technical rigor across all shifts.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Business, or relevant work experience in lieu of a degree.
• 8+ years of progressively responsible leadership experience in heavy industrial maintenance within aluminum, steel, paper, chemical, or equivalent high-hazard continuous-process industries.
• 5+ years leading large, diverse teams including unionized skilled trades, with demonstrated success in building capability, improving performance, and driving transformation.
• Proven expertise in reliability engineering, predictive technologies, and capital asset planning.
• Expert ability to diagnose complex mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, and automation issues and lead cross-functional problem solving.
• Strong labor relations leadership and experience operating in unionized environments.
• High proficiency in SAP PM, CMMS systems, and data-driven maintenance planning tools.
• Exceptional communication and executive-level influence skills.
• Demonstrated mastery of Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, and continuous improvement methodologies.
• Strong project management competency with proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams through large-scale technical upgrades, shutdowns, and capital deployments.
• High ownership mindset with the ability to perform under pressure, manage multiple priorities, and deliver results against aggressive operational targets.

Benefits

• USD $127,700.00 - USD $185,150.00 /A Bonus Eligibility
• Role is eligible for 18% annual incentive provided the business meets financial goals and the individual meets their performance goals, subject to plan administration guidelines.