Maintenance Manager

Position Purpose:
The Maintenance Manager provides strategic leadership and oversight for all maintenance activities across the facility, ensuring safe, efficient, and reliable performance of plant and mobile equipment. This role manages a multi-disciplinary team-including maintenance supervisors, electrical supervisor, planner, scheduler, shutdown coordinator, construction coordinator, and mobile supervisor-and serves as the gatekeeper of maintenance workflow processes, ensuring the team works on the right priorities. The Maintenance Manager is a key member of the site leadership team, driving operational excellence, workforce health initiatives (including reducing blood lead levels), and continuous improvement.

Critical Success Criteria:

• Safety Leadership: Champion a zero-incident culture and ensure all maintenance activities comply with OSHA and company safety standards.
• Workflow Governance: Act as the gatekeeper for maintenance processes, ensuring work orders are prioritized correctly and resources are allocated effectively.
• Health & Wellness: Implement programs and practices to reduce employee blood lead levels and improve overall workforce health.
• Strategic Planning: Align maintenance strategies with production goals, balancing preventive, predictive, and corrective work.
• Leadership Influence: Serve as a strong leader within the site leadership team, collaborating across departments to achieve business objectives.
• KPI Accountability: Monitor and take action on key performance indicators (PM compliance, backlog, MTBF, safety metrics, cost per ton).
• Continuous Improvement: Drive initiatives that reduce downtime, improve asset life, and optimize maintenance costs.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership & Team Management

• Direct and develop a team of supervisors and coordinators, fostering accountability and collaboration.
• Conduct daily leadership huddles and participate in toolbox meetings to reinforce safety and priorities.
• Provide coaching and performance feedback; identify training needs and career development opportunities.
• Ensure staffing plans support operational requirements, including vacation and shift coverage.
• Actively participate in site leadership meetings and contribute to strategic decision-making.

Maintenance Workflow Governance

• Serve as the gatekeeper for maintenance workflow processes, ensuring adherence to planning, scheduling, and execution standards.
• Validate work order prioritization to ensure the team focuses on the most critical and value-added tasks.
• Monitor backlog and drive actions to maintain acceptable levels across all maintenance areas.

Maintenance Strategy & Execution

• Oversee preventive and predictive maintenance programs for plant and mobile equipment.
• Review daily shift reports, incident reports, and safety observations to identify trends and corrective actions.
• Monitor CMMS (Mainsaver) for new work orders, backlog, PM compliance, and safety-related tasks.
• Approve and prioritize work orders; ensure timely execution and accurate documentation.
• Coordinate major shutdowns and construction projects, ensuring scope, schedule, and budget adherence.

Operational Oversight

• Monitor plant performance indicators (e.g., feed rates, furnace production, water systems, baghouse operations) and mobile equipment status.
• Conduct audits of production areas, shops, and warehouses to ensure housekeeping and compliance.
• Review ambient air data, camera audits, and wipe audit results; address any failures promptly.
• Collaborate with operations to align maintenance activities with production schedules and minimize downtime.

Health & Safety Initiatives

• Lead programs to reduce blood lead levels among maintenance personnel through improved hygiene practices, PPE compliance, and engineering controls.
• Enforce strict adherence to safety protocols; verify safe work conditions before job execution.
• Lead incident investigations and implement corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
• Ensure compliance with environmental and regulatory requirements.

KPI Monitoring & Action

• Track and report on key KPIs: PM compliance %, backlog reduction, MTBF, maintenance cost per ton, safety metrics, and workforce health indicators.
• Take proactive action when KPIs deviate from targets; implement corrective measures and communicate progress to leadership.

Continuous Improvement & Reliability

• Analyze downtime data and root causes; Implement reliability-centered (RCM) maintenance practices.
• Monitor asset health, lifecycles and recurring failures; drive actions to improve equipment health and lifecycles
• Drive lean and Six Sigma initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce waste.
• Identify opportunities for cost savings without compromising safety or quality.
• Support Mechanical Integrity and inspection programs by ensuring findings are addressed and translated into sustained improvements

Requirements:

• High School Diploma or GED minimally required
• 8+ years of previous work experience in industrial maintenance
• 5+ years of previous work experience managing multi-disciplinary teams
• Strong knowledge of mechanical, electrical, and mobile equipment systems
• Proficiency with CMMS (Mainsaver preferred) and maintenance planning tools
• Excellent communication, decision-making, and conflict resolution skills
• Strong organizational and project management abilities; capable of managing multiple priorities
• Knowledge of OSHA regulations, reliability principles, and continuous improvement methodologies

Preferred Qualifications:

• CMRP (Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional) or equivalent preferred, but not required
• PMP (Project Management Professional) or Lean Six Sigma certification preferred, but not required

Physical Requirements:

• Willingness and ability to wear a full-face respirator mask directly against skin (e.g. clean shaven if applicable), work in a hot/high temperature production facility, and wear personal protective equipment (PPE) in designated areas with or without reasonable accommodation. Planning work requires spending a majority of work time in the plant production facility.
• Willingness and ability to comply with safety protocols and company-provided decontamination measures which include utilizing private shower facilities upon leaving the plant environment with or without reasonable accommodation.

Compensation Information: Salary Range: $114,237 - $188,384. This position is also eligible for a short-term incentive plan which is determined by the achievement of strategic objectives. The market rate for the role is typically at the midpoint of the salary range; however, variations in final salary are determined by additional factors such as candidate qualifications, relevant years of experience, geographic location, internal pay equity, and prevailing market conditions for the specific role.Benefits: Gopher Resource is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package that promotes the health, wellness, and financial security of our employees. List of benefit offerings include medical & pharmacy, dental, vision, health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), dependent care spending account, life insurance, disability programs, telemedicine, parental leave, tuition support, legal insurance, identity theft protection, gym membership discounts, EAP, 401(k) with a company match, and paid time off (vacation, personal, bereavement, holidays).

Gopher Resource is an Equal Opportunity Employer