Chief Executive Officer - Commercial Laundry

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nSurfside Commercial LaundryPanama City Beach, FloridaFull-Time | Executive Leadership PositionThe Opportunity\nSurfside Commercial Laundry is seeking an experienced, hands-on Chief Executive Officer to lead our growing multi-location commercial laundry operation across Northwest Florida and South Alabama.\nSurfside currently operates five commercial laundry facilities, including two locations in Panama City Beach, Florida; one in Destin, Florida; one in Foley, Alabama; and one in Robertsdale, Alabama. Our facilities serve hospitality and other commercial customers in high-volume, time-sensitive environments where reliability, quality, equipment performance, labor efficiency, and customer service are critical.\nThis is not a traditional corporate CEO position removed from daily operations. We are looking for an experienced commercial laundry operator and executive leader who understands the business from the plant floor to the P&L.\nThe CEO will have overall responsibility for the performance of the company, including operations, plant leadership, engineering and equipment reliability, logistics, labor management, financial performance, customer relationships, safety, quality, capital planning, and long-term operational strategy.\nThe successful candidate will be comfortable walking a plant floor, identifying a production bottleneck, discussing an equipment failure with maintenance personnel, reviewing labor productivity with a plant manager, analyzing a P&L, meeting with a key customer, and developing a long-term capital strategy—all within the same role.\nSignificant commercial or industrial laundry leadership experience is required.\n\n \nWhat You Will LeadMulti-Site Operations\nProvide executive oversight and operational leadership for all five Surfside Commercial Laundry facilities.\n\n Establish consistent operating standards, expectations, procedures, and accountability across all locations.\n Ensure each facility achieves established goals for production, quality, labor efficiency, service, safety, equipment reliability, and profitability.\n Regularly visit and evaluate facilities throughout Florida and Alabama.\n Identify operational weaknesses and implement corrective action quickly.\n Standardize best practices across locations while recognizing the unique production and customer requirements of each market.\n Establish clear reporting structures and ensure plant leaders understand their responsibilities and performance expectations.\n Create a culture in which managers actively manage their operations rather than simply respond to daily problems.\n Ensure facilities are appropriately staffed and scheduled based on production volume and customer demand.\nCommercial Laundry Production & Process Management\nUse industry expertise to continuously improve productivity, throughput, quality, and cost per pound.\nThe CEO will be expected to understand and actively manage key commercial laundry performance indicators, including:\n\n Pounds processed per labor hour/operator hour\n Pounds processed per production hour\n Labor cost per pound\n Total processing cost per pound\n Plant capacity and equipment utilization\n Rewash and reject rates\n Linen damage and loss\n Chemical consumption and cost\n Utility consumption\n Equipment downtime\n On-time completion and delivery\n Overtime\n Customer claims and service failures\n Production bottlenecks and workflow efficiency\n\nEvaluate workflows from soil sort through washing, drying, finishing, folding, packing, staging, and distribution to identify opportunities for improved efficiency.\nDevelop processes that allow management to understand production performance in real time and respond before operational issues become customer-service issues.Engineering, Equipment Reliability & Preventive Maintenance\nEquipment reliability is a major priority for this position.\nThe ideal candidate will have strong technical knowledge of commercial laundry equipment and/or significant experience managing engineering and maintenance functions within commercial or industrial laundry operations.\nResponsibilities will include:\n\n Establish and enforce comprehensive preventive maintenance programs across all facilities.\n Improve equipment uptime and reduce emergency repairs and production interruptions.\n Develop maintenance schedules and accountability systems for critical equipment.\n Evaluate the condition, performance, remaining useful life, and replacement needs of laundry equipment.\n Ensure maintenance records, parts inventories, service histories, and equipment documentation are properly maintained.\n Establish priorities for repair versus replacement based on operational and financial impact.\n Manage relationships with equipment manufacturers, service technicians, chemical providers, contractors, and other technical vendors.\n Ensure critical spare parts and supplies are maintained where appropriate.\n Develop contingency plans for major equipment failures and production disruptions.\n Work closely with plant leadership to prevent deferred maintenance from becoming operational emergencies.\n Evaluate new equipment and technology based on productivity, reliability, labor savings, utility consumption, lifecycle cost, and return on investment.\n\nHands-on engineering, mechanical, electrical, controls, boiler, wastewater, or commercial laundry equipment experience is a significant advantage.\nExperience with equipment such as tunnel washers/CBWs, washer-extractors, dryers, ironers, feeders, folders, conveyors, finishing equipment, boilers, air compressors, water systems, chemical dispensing systems, and associated plant equipment is highly desirable.Financial & P&L Leadership\nAssume full accountability for the financial performance of Surfside Commercial Laundry.\n\n Develop and manage annual operating and capital budgets.\n Review financial results by facility and for the organization as a whole.\n Establish operating KPIs and scorecards that connect plant performance to financial results.\n Analyze labor, utilities, chemicals, linen, repairs, transportation, insurance, and other major operating expenses.\n Identify opportunities to improve EBITDA and operating margins without sacrificing quality or customer service.\n Establish appropriate purchasing controls and approval processes.\n Evaluate vendor contracts and negotiate pricing and service agreements.\n Develop business cases and ROI analyses for equipment and capital investments.\n Provide ownership with clear, concise reporting regarding operational performance, financial results, risks, capital needs, and strategic opportunities.\n Develop forecasts and operational plans based on volume, customer demand, seasonality, and business growth.\nCapital Planning & Operational Strategy\nDevelop a forward-looking operational strategy that allows Surfside to grow efficiently and sustainably.\n\n Assess current and future production capacity.\n Develop long-term capital expenditure priorities.\n Evaluate equipment technology, automation, workflow design, plant layout, material handling systems, and opportunities to consolidate or improve processes.\n Participate in facility planning, equipment selection, workflow design, capacity modeling, and major capital projects.\n Work with engineers, architects, equipment manufacturers, contractors, vendors, and ownership on significant operational projects.\n Evaluate automation opportunities that can improve production capacity, labor efficiency, consistency, safety, and reliability.\n Ensure capital decisions consider both immediate operational needs and the company's long-term growth strategy.\n\nExperience participating in the design, expansion, relocation, modernization, or commissioning of a commercial laundry facility is highly desirable.Transportation & Logistics\nEnsure finished product moves efficiently and reliably between facilities and customers.\n\n Oversee transportation and delivery operations.\n Evaluate route efficiency, vehicle utilization, staffing, fuel usage, and delivery performance.\n Ensure appropriate scheduling and coordination between production and transportation teams.\n Develop contingency plans for production or transportation interruptions.\n Maintain appropriate fleet maintenance and replacement strategies.\n Ensure applicable DOT and safety requirements are followed.\n Improve communication between drivers, plant operations, customer service, and customers.\nQuality & Customer Service\nCreate a culture in which quality and reliability are viewed as operational responsibilities—not simply customer-service issues.\n\n Establish companywide standards for finished linen quality.\n Track rejects, rewashes, stains, shortages, damages, misdeliveries, and customer complaints.\n Develop root-cause processes for recurring quality and service issues.\n Ensure corrective actions are implemented and measured.\n Maintain strong relationships with major customers.\n Participate directly in resolving significant customer concerns.\n Understand customer linen requirements, volumes, pars, seasonal patterns, delivery expectations, and service needs.\n Work with customers and internal teams to anticipate changing volume requirements.\n Protect and strengthen Surfside's reputation for dependable service.\nLeadership & Organizational Development\nBuild a strong management structure capable of supporting a growing multi-location organization.\n\n Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable plant managers and department leaders.\n Establish clear expectations and measurable goals for every operational leader.\n Recruit strong leaders when organizational needs require it.\n Develop succession plans and internal leadership talent.\n Establish effective management meeting and reporting processes.\n Ensure managers understand both operational performance and financial performance.\n Develop a culture of urgency, accountability, continuous improvement, teamwork, and ownership.\n Build systems and processes that reduce dependency on individual employees and improve organizational consistency.\n Partner with Human Resources on recruiting, retention, training, performance management, and employee relations.\n Ensure labor is scheduled and deployed efficiently based on production requirements.\n\nThe successful candidate must be equally comfortable developing people and holding people accountable.Safety, Compliance & Risk Management\nEstablish safety as a fundamental operating expectation throughout the organization.\n\n Ensure compliance with OSHA and applicable federal, Florida, Alabama, and local regulations.\n Maintain strong lockout/tagout practices and equipment safety procedures.\n Establish training and documentation requirements for equipment operation.\n Monitor workplace injuries and identify opportunities to reduce risk.\n Ensure facilities maintain appropriate standards for housekeeping, chemical handling, PPE, ergonomics, machine guarding, and emergency procedures.\n Partner with HR and management to build a proactive safety culture.\n Ensure appropriate regulatory compliance involving wastewater, boilers, chemicals, environmental requirements, transportation, and other applicable areas.\n\n \nRequired Qualifications\nCandidates must have:\n\n Significant leadership experience within the commercial, industrial, hospitality, healthcare, linen supply, or textile rental laundry industry.\n Direct experience overseeing commercial laundry production operations.\n Strong understanding of commercial laundry workflows, equipment, production standards, and performance metrics.\n Demonstrated experience leading managers and hourly workforces in high-volume production environments.\n Multi-site leadership experience or experience managing a large, complex laundry operation with multiple departments.\n Strong P&L, budgeting, forecasting, and financial management experience.\n Demonstrated success improving productivity, labor efficiency, quality, equipment reliability, and/or operating margins.\n Experience establishing and managing operational KPIs.\n Strong knowledge of preventive maintenance and equipment reliability practices.\n Experience managing customer relationships in a service-oriented commercial environment.\n Ability to analyze problems quickly, identify root causes, and implement sustainable solutions.\n Strong organizational, communication, negotiation, and leadership skills.\n Ability and willingness to travel regularly between Surfside facilities in Northwest Florida and South Alabama.\n Ability to work on-site in Panama City Beach, Florida.\n\nThis position cannot be effectively performed remotely.\n\n \nHighly Preferred Qualifications\nExceptional candidates may also possess:\n\n Direct engineering or maintenance leadership experience in a commercial or industrial laundry.\n Strong working knowledge of commercial laundry equipment and production systems.\n Experience with major laundry equipment installation, replacement, commissioning, or plant upgrades.\n Experience designing or improving commercial laundry plant layouts and workflows.\n Experience with laundry automation and labor-reduction technology.\n Experience with tunnel washer/CBW systems and automated finishing systems.\n Experience evaluating equipment based on lifecycle cost and ROI.\n Experience with utility management, including water, natural gas, electricity, steam, compressed air, and wastewater.\n Experience managing large capital expenditure projects.\n Experience opening, expanding, consolidating, relocating, or modernizing commercial laundry operations.\n Experience in hospitality linen processing.\n Experience operating in a highly seasonal market.\n Bachelor's degree in business, operations, engineering, industrial management, or a related discipline.\n\nRelevant industry experience and demonstrated results will be given significant consideration in place of formal education.\n\n \nThe Leader We Are Looking For\nThe right CEO for Surfside will be a builder and operator, not simply an administrator.\nWe are looking for someone who:\n\n Goes to the plant floor to understand a problem rather than managing exclusively from reports.\n Understands that production, engineering, transportation, customer service, and financial performance are interconnected.\n Uses data to make decisions but also understands what the numbers should look like because of prior commercial laundry experience.\n Creates systems that prevent problems rather than repeatedly solving the same emergencies.\n Understands the importance of preventive maintenance and does not accept chronic equipment failure as normal.\n Sets high expectations while giving managers the training, resources, and accountability necessary to achieve them.\n Can distinguish between a people problem, a process problem, an equipment problem, and a capacity problem.\n Understands both today's operation and what the company will require several years from now.\n Communicates directly, professionally, and transparently with ownership.\n Takes ownership of results.\n Is comfortable entering an operation, identifying opp