Corporate Director of Safety; North America

Corporate Director of Safety (North America)

Job Category
:
Operation & Manufacturing

Requisition Number
: CORPO
005028

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• Posted :
  January 15, 2026
• Full-Time

Showing 1 location

Job Title

Corporate Director of Safety (North America)

Reports To

Director, Corporate Manufacturing Engineering and Advanced Technology

Location

Thomasville, GA with frequent travel (40-60%) to manufacturing plants

Position Summary

The Corporate Director of Safety provides strategic leadership and enterprise-wide governance of occupational safety programs across multiple heavy manufacturing plants in North America. This role is responsible for developing, implementing, and sustaining a world-class safety management system that protects employees, contractors, and visitors while ensuring regulatory compliance and supporting operational excellence.

The Director serves as a key advisor to executive leadership and plant management, driving a proactive, data-driven safety culture aligned with the company’s business objectives, OEM manufacturing risks, and continuous improvement philosophy.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Governance

• Develop and execute a North America–wide safety strategy aligned with corporate values, operational goals, and risk profile of heavy OEM manufacturing.
• Establish standardized safety policies, procedures, and management systems across all plants while allowing for site-specific risk controls.
• Serve as the corporate authority on safety governance, escalation, and decision-making.
• Lead the evolution of the company’s safety culture from compliance-based to proactive and prevention-focused.

Regulatory Compliance & Risk Management

• Ensure compliance with all applicable safety regulations and standards, including OSHA (U.S.), provincial OHS (Canada), Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS), CSA, ANSI, NFPA
  , and relevant industry standards.
• Oversee regulatory inspections, audits, citations, and corrective action plans.
• Anticipate regulatory changes and assess their impact on manufacturing operations.
• Lead enterprise-level risk assessments for high-hazard activities (e.g., machine guarding, LOTO, confined space, cranes/rigging, robotics, welding, foundry/forge operations).

Manufacturing Safety Programs

• Direct the design and implementation of critical safety programs, including:
• Machine safeguarding and automation safety
• Lockout/Tagout (LOTO)
• Contractor and visitor safety
• Powered industrial vehicles and material handling
• Ergonomics and human factors
• Electrical safety and arc flash
• Hot work, confined space, and working at heights
• Development of plant specific annual safety training that meets with the regulatory agency requirements.
• Partner with Engineering and Operations to integrate safety into equipment design, capital projects, and new product introductions.
• Develop a Cleaver Brooks specific training certification program for engineers, supervisors and other floor level leadership positions.
• Establish and maintain leading and lagging safety metrics, dashboards, and performance targets.
• Thoroughly investigate lost time and recordable incident investigations, determine actionable root cause analyses, and enterprise-wide corrective actions.
• Ensure lessons learned are shared and standardized across all facilities.
• Champion near-miss reporting and hazard identification programs.

Leadership, Coaching & Culture

• Lead, mentor, and develop a regional safety team supporting plant-level safety professionals.
• Influence plant managers and operations leaders to own their safety performance.
• Drive leadership safety engagement, including safety walks, reviews, and accountability systems.
• Support labor relations and union environments where applicable.
• Support, drive and execute a continual training system
• Implement and optimize safety management systems (SMS), digital reporting tools, and analytics platforms.
• Use data and trends to prioritize risk reduction and resource allocation.
• Integrate safety into Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Benchmark safety performance against industry peers and best practices.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate closely with Operations, Engineering, HR, Legal, Risk Management, and…