Operations Leader

Pilot Plant Leader

Company: The Lubrizol Corporation

Location: Avon Lake, OH

Job Type: Full‑time, onsite

The Lubrizol Corporation, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is a specialty chemical company whose science delivers sustainable solutions to advance mobility, improve wellbeing and enhance modern life. Founded in 1928, Lubrizol owns and operates more than 100 manufacturing facilities, sales, and technical offices around the world and has about 8,000 employees. For more information, visit

Unleash Your Potential. At Lubrizol, we’re transforming the specialty chemical industry and looking for exceptional talent to join us on this journey. If you are ready to join an international company with talent around the world and want to make a real impact, we want you on our team.

The Pilot Plant Leader has responsibility and accountability for Pilot Plant assets, EH&S, personnel, unit technical oversight and the achievement of the plant related business goals. This role provides unit, business, technical and people leadership and leads the unit’s development to be a work‑process driven and empowered team. Unit technical oversight includes task and activity coordination, operations‑specific training development, turnaround optimization, quality performance, and compliance with regulatory and external technical requirements.

• Ensure the Pilot Plant/site EH&S program delivers performance to meet EH&S goals and relevant permit/regulatory requirements. Build a proactive EH&S culture, leading by example with a commitment to EH&S as a value.
• Serve as the key representative for the Pilot Plant in functional and site goal setting and functional strategy discussions, as well as communication of both within the unit.
• Accountable for meeting annual goals, objectives, and KPI improvements, including costs, asset reliability, and asset utilization.
• Drive implementation of work processes, operating discipline, management systems and roles.
• Ensure necessary resources and capabilities are in place to meet technical project and market development requirements. This includes ownership of the Pilot Plant capital plan.
• Provide leadership and expectations for the personnel in the goal‑setting processes.
• Ensure individuals set, monitor and achieve goals aligned with business, site and Global Pilot Plant strategies.
• Create an environment that allows team and individual empowerment to grow and flourish. Model expected behaviors for an empowered organization.
• Ensure the operating discipline and standards are in place to produce quality experimental runs and products safely that meet internal and external customer needs.
• Provide administrative leadership to Pilot Plant personnel on role expectations, compensation and personal development.
• Collaborate with Training Coordinators to develop operator/technician process and equipment training materials.
• Ensure that all unplanned events (e.g., safety, quality, reliability) that meet the RCA trigger criteria are thoroughly investigated and that any identified management system improvements are communicated to site and functional leadership.
• Ensure the deployment, execution, optimization and sustainability of a robust operations task and activity list that considers internal and external requirements.
• Collaborate with Maintenance, Reliability, and Improvement to resolve issues and identify opportunities to improve unit performance.
• Provide effective engineering and technologist coverage to assist operators with process and equipment technical performance issues.
• Lead prioritization, preparation, and scheduling of maintenance and capital repair and process improvements.
• Ensure effective start‑up and shutdown planning and procedure development.
• Drive disciplined scope development, adherence, and planning for turnarounds.

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university in engineering; chemical or mechanical engineering preferred.
• 10 years of operational experience within a chemical plant.
• 5+ years’ experience leading/managing cross‑functional teams with at least 3 years managing shift‑based employees.
• Demonstrated ability to…