Technical Director (Quality/R&D)

Company Description

R.M. Lucas Co. is a diversified manufacturer of professional quality coatings, sealants, and adhesives for exterior building envelopes. The company's products under the LUCAS brand are distributed through various channels across the United States.

Role Description

This is a full-time onsite role for a Technical Director over our Quality/R&D teams at RM Lucas. The Technical Director will play a crucial role in maintaining our competitive edge, ensuring outstanding product quality, driving sourcing and material savings, creating product and application innovation, and discovering new opportunities for growth. Armed with a solid foundation in technology, science, or engineering, and an outstanding track record in a leadership role, you will steer, design, and execute our quality, research and development, and formulation efforts.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned. 

· Align the Technology and Quality teams with all functional teams across RM Lucas to ensure they help achieve goals and objectives in a cooperative, coordinated manner. Cohesive leadership is a must in this role.

· Lead, motivate, and manage a high-performing Quality team to deliver performance as measured by KPI’s and customer satisfaction. This includes quality processes, from incoming raw materials, to production parameters, to final product specifications, to customer complaint investigation, and final root cause corrective action. You will own Quality.

· Lead product innovation from new product concept through product development, production scale up, and product launch. Success will be measured by product line vitality and profitable growth. Innovation will drive growth and profit.  

· Collaborate with stakeholders and partners, both internal and external, to understand industry trends, market opportunities and customer needs. Supplier relationships will be critical in this regard, ensuring they provide RM Lucas with the latest technology and a high level of technical support.

· Manage a cost-effective and efficient laboratory, with annual budget and capex planning. 

· Demonstrate exceptional leadership with your direct reports and more broadly across RM Lucas employees.

Qualifications:

·        Proven experience in managing and directing R&D, Technology and Quality teams.

·        Exceptional technical expertise in the material science and formulation field.

·        Strong leadership and team management abilities.

·        Excellent communication and presentation skills.

·        Superior problem-solving and strategic planning abilities.

·        High energy and effort and act with a purposeful sense of urgency.

·        Strong creativity and passion for learning.

Education/Experience:

A Bachelor's degree in science, technology, engineering, or a related field (required)

with a minimum of 10 years of experience in a research and development role within a similar industry.

Computer Skills:

To perform this job successfully, an individual should have intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel), and/ or Google Suite (Gmail, Sheets, Docs).

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Incumbent will oversee a small team in the R&D group and indirect oversight of the Quality Team as well.