Plant Controller

Plant Controller

Own finance at the largest, most complex fiber-packaging site in this manufacturer's North American network — roughly 30 production lines, several hundred employees, and a true seat at the plant leadership table in Waterville, ME.

A global foodservice packaging manufacturer is adding a Plant Controller at its Waterville, ME operation — the flagship fiber-molding site in its North American footprint and, by a wide margin, the most intricate. Where a comparable West Coast facility runs a handful of machines, this plant operates roughly 30, with several hundred employees working under a collective bargaining agreement. The product mix is the kind you've handled without thinking about it: beverage carriers for major quick-serve chains, retail disposable tableware, and school foodservice items, spread across a long list of SKUs. As the site's senior finance leader and a seat-holder on the plant leadership team, you'd report to the Plant Manager with a functional line into the North America Operations Controller. It's a clear step up in scope from a small-plant controllership, and it is fully on-site.

You own the financial story of a machine-dense plant and convert it into moves operations can actually make. The hiring team said it plainly: this is not an AP, payroll, or journal-entry seat. It's cost accounting with your boots on the floor.

• Drive product costing, standards, cost modeling, and variance work, including the cost build-ups behind customer quotes. Quote volume here is heavy, so run speeds, downtime, cycle times, and which asset you put the job on all have to be expressed in dollars.
• Interpret efficiency as it happens. The bar the hiring manager set: if a line is holding 87 percent, you should already know roughly how many dollars of absorption the month will miss.
• Take full ownership of inventory — cycle counting, ERP record accuracy, reconciliations, and coaching others to count correctly. Controllers at smaller sites stay above this detail. Here you won't.
• Build the budget and forecast across dozens of assets and cost centers, then run the monthly performance reviews and surface trends, risks, and upside.
• Evaluate capital requests on cost, cash, return, and asset utilization, then follow the spend and the realized benefit. The automation program underway means a heavier capex load than peer sites carry.
• Treat energy as a lever you manage, not a line you report. Monthly electricity here runs around seven figures.
• Build, direct, and grow the site finance team, setting priorities and holding the line on accountability.
• Back the audit cycle and site compliance work, spanning safety, SQF, and food safety requirements.

The way the hiring manager framed it, this is the biggest fiber-molding finance job in the North American organization, and the complexity backs that up: roughly 30 machines, hundreds of cost centers and budget lines, an organized workforce, a million-dollar-a-month power bill, and a quoting pipeline that never stops. The chair hasn't turned over in over a decade, so you'd be the first outside lens on it in a very long time — and she said outright that new thinking is a big part of what she's hiring for.

The real test is being the self-assured finance voice at the leadership table. Read-outs land in front of plant managers and fellow controllers, and the questioning moves quickly. The number two on the team is technically excellent and will help bring you up to speed, but that fast-paced forum isn't where she thrives — so the site needs someone who finds energy in it.

To land this you'll bring five-plus years as a controller at a complex manufacturing site, serious depth in standard and product costing, hands-on inventory ownership, and real Oracle and Excel rigor. She wants a team builder who sees finance as operations' partner, who can drop everything when the plant manager appears with a problem, and who genuinely wants to build a life in Maine rather than use this as a rung.

You'd report functionally to an Operations Controller responsible for multiple plants — candid, open, and refreshingly easy to talk with. She gives you the straight version without varnish, including where her own team is strong and where the gaps sit. Her own plate is full and she's moving between sites, so she manages hands-off and expects you to be present in the building and genuinely run your plant. She spoke well of the outgoing controller: a strong performer, which is exactly why that person is being promoted, and after a decade in one chair there's natural room for a different viewpoint. The people who thrive under her think like operators, stay close to their teams, and can speak to their numbers without reaching for a file.

A single direct report — the site's Finance Manager — who in turn has one person under her. She's a capable contributor who'll help get the incoming controller oriented, and what she needs above her is a steady leader who communicates well.

The accounting group here has deep tenure, and the plant operates under a collective bargaining agreement. Finance works alongside operations rather than dictating to it, and operations returns the favor. The rhythm is unpredictable: an unplanned request, the plant manager at your door, an audit nobody saw coming. The hiring manager was blunt that anyone who needs tomorrow mapped out before it arrives will struggle in this chair. Production starts early, and the controller is expected to be out in the plant.

The ERP is Oracle Fusion. A legacy AS/400 platform still carries a significant share of the manufacturing data on site, so broad ERP judgment matters far more than familiarity with any one screen. Advanced Excel is a must, and exposure to SQL, BI tools, visualization, and automated reporting is a real plus.

This is an on-site role at the Waterville facility, with steady presence on the floor and with plant leadership. The hiring manager left no ambiguity — remote is not on the table. Expect occasional hours outside the normal window around close, budget cycles, audits, physical inventory, and major operating events.

Base compensation is set at $130,000. Relocation support is on the table for the right person, though the client's preference is someone already established in Maine.

The client is upfront about the career conversation: they'd rather this hire plant themselves in the role than view it as a launchpad into operations — the prior controller spent roughly ten years here before stepping into a plant manager seat. What the job gives you instead is scale. This is the largest and most complex fiber-molding plant in the North American network, and the hiring manager said she'll lean toward the candidate who keeps hunting for better ways to do their own job, not just everyone else's. A bachelor's in accounting or finance is required; a CPA or CMA sets you apart but isn't mandatory.

Waterville is a small central Maine community roughly 20 minutes up the road from Augusta, with Portland and the coastline both an easy drive. Home prices are reasonable by Northeast standards, and the lakes, rivers, and mountains that pull people to Maine start right outside town. Large manufacturing employers are thin on the ground nearby, which makes a role of this scope genuinely rare in the region.

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