Technical Lead, Raw Materials

When Alfred Fain founded a small Rhode Island tire store in 1924, at the time no one could have predicted how Teknor Apex would become an international custom compo under sought out by companies around the world. After a nearly hundred-year journey that’s carried us through acquisitions and expansion, we now have nine U.S. locations, as well as operations in Belgium, Singapore, Germany, and China.

Throughout this global expansion Teknor has remained a privately held company, and today Fain’s grandson sits at the helm, maintaining the family’s tradition of fostering deep employee and customer relationships. These relationships are what allow us—and together—to deliver customized compound solutions and help our customer’s create better products.

“Manufacturing is a team sport, and we work together to achieve our goals.” ~Jon Fain

The Technical Lead, Raw Materials leads technical execution of raw material initiatives in support of Teknor Apex’s raw material strategy across its plastics compounding businesses. This role manages a small technical team while directly driving high-impact projects to identify, evaluate, approve, and implement alternate and next-generation raw materials that improve cost, supply security, performance, compliance, safety, and sustainability. The position partners closely with Technical, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, Regulatory, EHS, Product Stewardship, and business teams to convert raw material opportunities into measurable business results.

• Lead technical project pipelines for the evaluation and implementation of alternative, replacement, and next-generation raw materials across Teknor Apex’s compounding businesses.
• Directly manage high-impact raw material evaluation, qualification, approval, and implementation projects as a hands‑on working manager.
• Lead, coach, and develop the raw materials technical team while setting priorities, providing technical guidance, and ensuring strong execution.
• Standardize and improve raw material evaluation protocols, specifications, testing plans, documentation, and manufacturing implementation processes.
• Review SDS, technical data sheets, supplier documentation, regulatory information, and related records to assess risk, suitability, and implementation requirements.
• Oversee laboratory testing, validate data quality, interpret results, and translate findings into clear recommendations for stakeholders and leadership.
• Partner with Procurement and suppliers to identify alternatives, reduce single-source risk, improve cost and quality, strengthen supply security, and advance innovation.
• Collaborate with R&D, Manufacturing, Quality, Regulatory, Product Stewardship, and EHS to ensure materials meet technical, operational, regulatory, environmental, and safety requirements.
• Manage raw material deactivation, consolidation, rationalization, specifications, project metrics, reporting, and leadership communication.
• Exercise assigned approval authority for vendors, quality-related raw material and product decisions, raw material development projects, direct reports’ technical reports, and direct reports’ expense reports.
• Stay current on new material technologies, relevant AI tools and methods, competitive activity, and intellectual property trends through supplier engagement, conferences, seminars, and trade shows, and guide evaluation or adoption where appropriate.
• This description is a summary of principal responsibilities and is not intended to include all duties that may be assigned.

• Strong technical knowledge of polymers, plastics compounding, additives, fillers, elastomers, or related raw material technologies
• Good understanding of polymer structure-property-processing relationships and how raw material selection influences formulation performance, manufacturability, and end‑use properties.
• Sound technical judgment with the ability to balance performance, cost, supply risk, compliance, safety, sustainability, and business impact.
• Ability to coach technical talent, set priorities, build accountability, and drive execution through a small team.
• Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills,…