Vice President Operations

Multi-Site | Truck Upfitting & Body Manufacturing

Captains Club is an executive search firm placing operations leaders, GMs, and Presidents for owner-operated and PE-backed businesses across the Southwest. We are starting to work heavily in the work truck ecosystem: upfitters, body manufacturers, and truck equipment distributors.

We are actively building our candidate bench and looking to meet YOU. This industry is consolidating fast, and the seat that opens 90 days after every deal closes is the same one: someone who can run four shops as one company instead of four companies. When the right search opens, we move fast and draw from a curated circle of leaders we already know, like, and trust.

Let's build that foundation now.

As the multi-site operations leader, you are the person who turns a collection of shops into an operating system. You sit between ownership (or the sponsor) and the plant floor, standardizing how work gets done without breaking what made each location good in the first place.

In the $15M–$150M companies we partner with, this seat typically owns:

• Multi-Site Standardization: The title may be VP Operations, but you're the one making sure a service body built in one facility is built the same way in the next one. Common processes, common metrics, common expectations.
• Site Leadership Development: GMs and plant managers report to you. You're building their bench, not just managing their output.
• Throughput & Chassis Flow: Owning the constraint. Chassis arrival, bailment pool discipline, WIP aging, and the scheduling reality that determines whether you ship on time.
• Integration: When ownership buys the next shop, you're the one who lands it. First 90 days, systems, people, and the culture you don't want to blow up.
• Quality, Safety & Compliance: FMVSS, weight and spec accuracy, shop safety. The stuff that costs real money when it goes wrong.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Bridging sales, engineering, purchasing, and the shop so quoted lead times and actual lead times are the same number.
• P&L Ownership: Deeply fluent in labor efficiency, material margin, and accountable to EBITDA targets.

• Proven Seat Time: You have run (or currently run) operations across two or more facilities. Not one site with ambition.
• The Sweet Spot: $15M–$150M owner-operated, family-owned, or PE-backed companies.
• Industry Fluency: Truck body manufacturing, upfitting, vocational truck equipment, fleet services, or emergency vehicle upfitting. You know what a bailment pool is and why it matters.
• Deal
  
  Experience:
  
  You've integrated an acquisition, or you've been on the acquired side and lived through it. Either counts.
• Roots: Southwest preferred (AZ, NV, CA, UT, TX, CO). Open to strong operators elsewhere with a real relocation plan.

This industry has almost no dedicated search coverage, which means most of the best leaders in it have never been recruited and that's a problem worth fixing. A future client of ours will be glad you did. At a minimum, we can talk about your future, your goals, and what we're seeing on comp right now.