Technical Services Manager

Full Time Exempt Grainville, IL, US

Salary Range: $70,000.00 To $80,000.00 Annually

Job Title:Technical Services Manager

Department:Technical Services

Reports To:General Manager

FLSA Status:Exempt

Summary: The Technical Services Manager is responsible for the plant health program across the entire Granville facility:
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) scouting and reporting, pesticide and biological application scheduling and supervision, pesticide recordkeeping and regulatory compliance, in-house media and water testing, outside laboratory sampling and diagnostics, and chemical and fertilizer storage and inventory. The Technical Services team is the early-warning and quality-control system for the growing operation, giving the Head Growers and Section Growers accurate, timely information so pest, disease, and nutrition problems are corrected before they affect saleable product.

As a member of the Granville leadership team reporting directly to the General Manager, the Technical Services Manager sets the standards for scouting, testing, and application; builds the team, schedules, and records that deliver them; and ensures every finding is turned into a written action plan with the growing team and followed through to completion. This is a new management position that assumes all plant health duties previously performed by the Technical Services Supervisor, with expanded responsibility for program development, staffing, budget, and compliance.

Success in this role rests on the fundamentals of entomology, plant pathology, and plant nutrition; attention to detail and consistency across the team; and a strong sense of urgency for time-specific tasks.

• Be a key cultural ambassador and champion of the company – always promoting and articulating our company values.
• Lead, coach, and develop the Technical Services team – scouts, testing technicians, and licensed pesticide applicators/spray teams – and build a culture of accountability, consistency, and complete documentation.
• Determine, hire, and develop the proper number of technicians and applicators to complete scouting, testing, and application work on schedule. Train and cross-train irrigators and Section Growers on delegated tasks (hanging sticky cards, tagging soil-test results, maintaining indicator plants) and build redundancy to cover absences or changes in workload.
• Develop and manage the Technical Services budget – crop protection chemicals, biological controls, fertilizer, testing supplies and meters, outside laboratory fees, PPE, and application equipment – and forecasted results.
• Participate in staff meetings and be a key solution-oriented contributor.

• Own the facility-wide IPM scouting program. Establish and publish the scouting schedule by zone and crop so every house is scouted on a defined cadence, with sensitive crops and any compliance-agreement crops scouted at a higher frequency.
• Perform and supervise daily scouting for insects, mites, diseases, and physiological disorders. Mark any crop issue in the house with a red-and-white checkered flag and report the problem the same day.
• Manage the sticky-card monitoring program – four cards per house (about one per 10,000 sq ft), yellow and blue cards placed, dated, counted, and replaced on schedule – and record counts by location, crop, week, and pest so pest pressure trends and the effectiveness of control measures can be tracked over time.
• Maintain indicator (bean) plants and distribute them through the growing zones on schedule for early detection of mites and thrips.
• Enter all scouting and testing results into the Technical Services record file (Excel) and email the scouting…