Plant Manager

Lancaster, South Carolina

Gateway Group Personnel has been retained by a leading manufacturer serving the electrical utility infrastructure industry to recruit a Plant Manager for its Lancaster, South Carolina manufacturing operation.

This is an opportunity to lead a successful, profitable steel fabrication facility with more than 200 employees, an experienced leadership team, and significant plans for future growth.

The incoming Plant Manager will inherit a stable operation—not a turnaround—and will be responsible for sustaining current performance, developing the team, increasing capacity, and helping guide a multimillion-dollar facility expansion.

Our client is an established industry leader in the engineering and fabrication of steel structures used in electrical transmission, distribution, and infrastructure applications.

The Lancaster facility operates in a high-volume, welding-intensive manufacturing environment. Manufacturing processes include steel plate cutting, forming, fitting, welding, outfitting, and heavy material handling.

The Plant Manager will have overall responsibility for safety, quality, production, maintenance, distribution, staffing and retention, cost management, continuous improvement, and plant profitability.

The successful candidate will join an operation that is performing well and has a strong existing team. Initial success will come from learning the business, earning the team's trust, and protecting what is already working.

• Provide overall leadership for a 200+ employee manufacturing facility
• Maintain a safe workplace and ensure regulatory and company compliance
• Lead plant performance across production, quality, maintenance, safety, distribution, and cost
• Establish clear expectations and accountability for results
• Retain, develop, and strengthen the existing leadership and hourly teams
• Build a collaborative culture grounded in respect and empowerment
• Identify opportunities to improve throughput, capacity, workflow, and equipment utilization
• Lead Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement initiatives
• Develop and manage operating and capital budgets
• Partner with maintenance leadership to improve equipment reliability
• Coordinate with engineering, project management, purchasing, finance, and human resources
• Improve production planning, delivery performance, inventory management, and manufacturing flexibility
• Help plan and execute a significant future facility expansion and capacity investment
• Develop future leaders and potential successors

Our client is open to considering either an experienced Plant Manager who has successfully led a comparable industrial manufacturing operation or a high-potential Assistant Plant Manager/Operations Manager who is ready to assume full plant leadership.

Direct utility-industry experience is not required. The most important qualification is the ability to lead people and produce results in a demanding industrial manufacturing environment.

• Progressive leadership experience in manufacturing operations
• Responsibility for a facility or business unit of meaningful scale
• Leadership of safety, quality, production, maintenance, and cost performance
• Heavy industrial, steel, metal fabrication, or welding-intensive manufacturing experience
• Lean Manufacturing and continuous improvement
• Plant budgeting or P&L responsibility
• Capital projects, equipment installations, or facility expansions
• Workforce retention and leadership development
• Skilled-trades or multi-shift manufacturing environments
• Engineered-to-order or complex manufacturing processes

Experience with steel plate processing, fitting, welding, press brakes, plasma tables, CNC equipment, cranes, or related fabrication machinery is beneficial but not required.

A bachelor's degree is strongly preferred.

The ideal candidate will be a credible, visible plant-floor leader who combines strong operational and financial discipline with an approachable leadership style.

We are particularly interested in leaders who are comfortable inheriting a successful team rather than rebuilding one, developing strong direct reports, driving…