Associate Director, Maintenance

Associate Director, Maintenance – Wilmington Biologics Site

The Associate Director, Maintenance provides strategic and operational leadership for the development, implementation, and execution of the maintenance program supporting the Wilmington biologics manufacturing campus. This role is accountable for ensuring that facility, utility, laboratory, warehouse, and manufacturing-support assets are maintained safely, reliably, compliantly, and efficiently to enable startup, qualification, commercial readiness, and sustained operations. Reporting to the Director of Engineering, Maintenance & Utilities (EMU), the Associate Director builds and leads the site maintenance organization, including maintenance leaders, planners and schedulers, skilled technicians, and supporting contractors.

The role establishes the maintenance operating model, work-management processes, asset and preventive-maintenance data, spare-parts strategy, performance metrics, and governance required for a greenfield biologics facility. This leader partners closely with Engineering, Reliability, Facilities, Manufacturing, Quality, Validation, Automation, Metrology, EHSS, Supply Chain, Capital Projects, and Global Engineering to ensure an effective transition from design and construction through commissioning, qualification, startup, and routine GMP operations.

• Provide strategic leadership, technical direction, and coaching to the site maintenance organization supporting the Wilmington campus.
• Design, build, and scale the maintenance organization to meet phased facility startup and commercial manufacturing requirements.
• Lead maintenance first-line managers, planners and schedulers, mechanical and electrical technicians, instrumentation support, and contracted maintenance resources.
• Establish clear roles, decision rights, escalation pathways, shift coverage, and on-call support for safe and reliable operations.
• Build organizational capability through recruiting, onboarding, qualification, technical training, succession planning, and employee development.

• Develop and implement the site maintenance strategy, governance model, procedures, standards, and business processes for a new biologics manufacturing facility.
• Create the maintenance readiness plan aligned with building completion, equipment turnover, commissioning and qualification, engineering runs, process validation, and commercial startup.
• Ensure maintenance requirements are incorporated into equipment design reviews, maintainability assessments, vendor packages, FATs, SATs, commissioning activities, and operational handover.
• Establish asset acceptance criteria and verify that technical documentation, recommended spare parts, maintenance instructions, warranties, training, and vendor support are complete before ownership transfer.
• Coordinate phased deployment of maintenance staffing, tools, shops, service contracts, and support infrastructure as the campus becomes operational.

• Own the site maintenance work-management process, including work identification, prioritization, planning, scheduling, execution, closeout, and performance review.
• Establish preventive, predictive, condition-based, corrective, emergency, and shutdown maintenance workflows consistent with cGMP and site procedures.
• Lead daily and weekly maintenance planning and scheduling routines in coordination with Manufacturing, Utilities Operations, Facilities, Quality, and Supply Chain.
• Ensure maintenance work is executed with appropriate job plans, permits, risk assessments, lockout/tagout controls, parts, tools, labor estimates, and quality documentation.
• Develop effective 24/7 response and escalation processes for critical equipment, utility, facility, and infrastructure failures.
• Drive schedule compliance, backlog health, wrench time, first-time quality, and timely closure of maintenance records.

• Partner with Reliability Engineering and system owners to develop asset criticality rankings, maintenance strategies, and lifecycle plans
• Impl…