St Louis, Missouri, United States
Enhance Efficiency, Reduce Cost, & Improve Product Quality Through Hands-On Technical Knowledge & Cross-Functional Collaboration Develop chemical processes, troubleshoot production issues, and manage chemical plant operations across highly regulated industries, including industrial chemicals, coatings, food, and pharmaceuticals. Lead with hands-on approach, thrive in plant environments, embrace new challenges, simplify complex processes, and bridge communication across all organizational levels leveraging strong leadership skills and self-driven approach. Quality Management | Operations Management | Continuous Improvement | Research & Pilot Production | Budgeting & Cost Control | SAP | Management of Change | ISO 9001 | EHS
Oversaw Silica Gel production plant, including managing and training 13 union employees for 24/7/365 continuous operation. Balanced site budgets and reported KPIs on weekly, monthly, and yearly basis using SAP & Power BI. Scheduled production and assisted with delivery logistics for global customer base. • Assumed additional responsibilities covering customer service operations for 6 months, ensuring seamless order fulfillment and customer support alongside regular duties. • Contributed to site improvement projects focused on increasing production yields, launching new products, and supporting compliance with evolving EHS regulations. • Maintained exceptional quality and safety standards, achieving only 1 customer complaint and 0 recordable injuries during tenure. • Reduced annual packaging supply costs by +$30K by sourcing and vetting new vendors. • Led introduction of 4 new products within 6 months, expanding site’s product portfolio. • Designated as site specialist for ISO 9001 compliance and document control, ensuring alignment with quality management standards. • Passed audits by FDA, OSHA, MO-DNR, ISO 9001, RC14001, and multiple customers with no non-conformances identified, maintaining full regulatory compliance and upholding industry standards.
Oversaw production quality and QC laboratory operations at coatings plant with 8 liquid reactor systems and portfolio of 250+ products. Provided 24/7 technical support for production and laboratory activities. Led programs, including incident investigation, root cause analysis, rework of off-specification material, quality review meetings, monthly reporting, and development / maintenance of SOPs / batch instructions. Managed product formula updates in SAP, including assignment of new product codes. • Collaborated with the corporate technical group on initiatives, targeting cycle time reduction, capacity increases, new product scale-up, product quality enhancement, and filtration requirement reduction. • Improved total production time for alkyd emulsion products by 25% through process optimization. • Led successful scale-up of 12 new products in pilot reactor, supporting launch and commercialization efforts. • Updated 250 batch formulas in SAP with revised raw material weights and SKUs within 2-month timeframe, ensuring data accuracy and production readiness. • Designed new sample collection apparatus, enabling safe batch sampling at temperatures exceeding 200°C.
Responsible for managing 4 production lines and oversaw 8+ employees at a chemical manufacturing plant. • Collaborated with sales personnel and engineers to discuss production priorities and deadlines. • Troubleshoot maintenance issues and oversee completion of repairs for equipment including reactors, centrifuges and other advanced drying equipment, fluid & vacuum pumps. • Scaled up ferrous sulfate process from laboratory development to full-scale production, enabling commercial production.
Technical specialist with R&D group, collaborated with engineering, production, QA, and sales to improve quality and efficiency of onsite manufacturing facilities. • Assessed potential new products and raw materials for feasibility and benefits to current production. • Developed bench top scale experiments to emulate plant processes to assist with scale up and equipment selection. • Performed quality investigations into failed batches and customer complaints to determine root causes and corrective actions. • Investigated and identified root causes in 4 separate cases of product contamination, supporting corrective actions for performing equipment repairs and operator re-training.
Oversaw daily activities, process development, and scale-up initiatives as lead engineer for pilot plant operations. Assisted construction crew with installation, retrofit, and deconstruction of pilot plant. • Served as key contributor on research team that optimized series of organic synthesis reactions, enabling design of high-output chemical manufacturing plant planned for 50M pounds of annual production. • Assembled new laboratory and benchtop reactor system within limited budget <$100k, supporting research and development operations. • Assist construction crew with the installation, retrofit, and deconstruction of pilot plant systems. • Determined safety limits for chemical processes, programmed safety interlocks and installed safety equipment • Prepared SOP’s, job safety analysis, experimental write-ups and data documentation. • Received multiple awards for meeting important deadlines for research projects.