Technical Director, Engineering Research Group

The Heritage Group is a privately held portfolio of companies focused on creating long-term value by building world-class businesses. Under their generations of family ownership, The Heritage Group employs 5,000+ people around the world, with operations across North America, Europe, and China, in the core industries of Environmental and Remediation, Specialty Chemicals and Fuel Products, and Construction and Materials. Driven by innovation and research, The Heritage Group's R&D team, Heritage Research Group (HRG), specializes in helping their diverse set of companies evolve and adapt to a changing marketplace by providing cutting-edge solutions and exploring new opportunities in its state-of-the-art facility. The Heritage Group is a family company at heart, aiming to build long-term relationships with their customers, vendors, and partners so that they can turn big challenges into even bigger opportunities to make a difference in the world.

Innovating to solve problems by leveraging research and development is critical to The Heritage Group's growth and success. Since 1980, Heritage Research Group (HRG), The Heritage Group's in-house R&D laboratory, has helped The Heritage Group companies, customers, and partners evolve and adapt to an ever-changing marketplace. Today, HRG provides innovative products, processes, and training that constantly improve the way their companies serve clients and deliver solutions to address the myriad of challenges their clients face. HRG also creates new technologies that fuel further business opportunities for The Heritage Group.

HRG has been developing environmentally- sustainable solutions for more than 50 years. The Heritage Group has the largest privately held environmental services company in the United States. This services company, Heritage Environmental Services began with a Subtitle C landfill in 1970, the same year the EPA was created. Today, Heritage Environmental Services is a leader in environmental sustainability and a one-stop waste management solution spread across North America. HRG in instrumental in innovating and supporting for this business.

HRG is also an innovative force to support the Construction and Materials Division. The Construction and Materials Division is a collection of companies that provide innovative, high-quality road construction materials and services and scientific research for a wide variety of customers. For more than 65 years, Heritage Construction + Materials companies have been integral in building roads, bridges, and commercial projects across the Midwest, fueled in part by the innovation of HRG.

The Heritage Group brings a focus on sustainability, business excellence, and talent. HRG is core to this mission. For more information, please see https://thgrp.com/

Position Scope

Heritage Research Group is recruiting a Technical Director and People Leader for their Engineering Research Team. The Engineering Research Team consists of 5 technical experts who are passionate about solving problems, innovation, engineering, and process design. The Technical Director will lead this talented team of engineers and scientists to drive and prioritize the innovation pipeline and provide technical support to The Heritage Group companies. This team partners with the businesses to innovate, implement, and commercialize.

The Technical Director will be responsible for the people management, technical performance, and R&D direction of the team. The Technical Director will lead and enable environment for researchers and engineers to make a positive difference through their technical contributions, leadership, and partnership. The Director will work with collaboratively with colleagues in the business and R&D organization to develop leading-edge formulations, process designs, systems, and equipment. S/He will lead and support chemistry innovation, process solutions, engineering design and on-site operations working closely with their business unit peers and external customers.

The Technical Director must possess excellent technical skills, people leadership, mentoring abilities, business acumen, interpersonal skills, and leadership behaviors.

Key Responsibilities

The Technical Director will directly lead the Engineering Research Team, provide technical expertise, and manage engineering projects to ensure project requirements are met.

Specific responsibilities include Technical, Operational and Team Leadership requirements:

• As part of the HRG leadership team, collaborate with senior leaders to establish strategic plans and objectives for HRG and for the Engineering Research Team based on industry best practices and strategic priorities
• Establish goals and KPIs that are aligned with the strategic initiatives and innovation goals
• Define and manage day-to-day operations and budgets
• Manage innovation, plant support, process improvement, and process design for Engineering Research Team projects
• Manage HRG field experiments/trials/pilots/scale up for innovation team projects
• Provide technical support and implementation across the Heritage Group businesses
• Partner across The Heritage Group of operating companies to leverage best practices, knowledge, talent to resolve company-wide R&D issues
• Build relationships with key internal partners and external partners, as well as customers, to effectively develop and deliver products and projects
• Manage relationships across external industry organizations to stay up to date on trends, resources, and support network
• Attract, hire, and retain high performing technical talent to create career paths within and across The Heritage Group of businesses
• Identify talent and capability gaps and develop the team to address those needs
• As a member of the R&D leadership team, collaborate with peers to create a highly engaged, high performing organization
• Exhibit business acumen with an understanding of the financial and market implications of projects
• Ensure HRG maintains a safe and inclusive work environment for all employees and contractors, and brings a mindset for continuous improvement of THG safety culture
• Able to travel up to 40% to job sites and meetings

Professional Experience/Qualifications

The Technical Director will have a minimum of 15 years of process and formulations development experience with at least 5 years of experience managing professionals. S/He will bring experience managing engineering programs and projects. The ability to work in a customer service environment to deliver market leading solutions is a must. The Technical Director must be a strong technical and operational leader with a track record of leading teams and delivering successful, differentiated innovative solutions, utilizing people effectively and managing against performance commitments.

Specifically, the successful candidate should bring Technical, Team Leadership and Business qualifications:

Technical & Operational

• 15 + years working in related field as an engineering consultant or as a lead process engineer with experience leading a team of technical experts
• Experience with chemical processes, water processes, process design, scale up, and related
• Experience with technology and process development, scalability, and process improvement
• Strong project management skills with a proven portfolio of projects completed on time and within budget
• Track record delivering projects which modernize infrastructure, optimize asset use, meet performance goals, reduce costs, and manage risk
• Experience or demonstrated ability to work with federal, state, county, and local agencies
• Industry knowledge of water treatment, environmental solutions and/or construction materials preferred

Organizational Leadership

• Ability to lead, develop, manage, and inspire a high performing team of scientists and engineers
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
• Advanced ability to translate technical data into a format/language suitable for R&D, as well as operations and maintenance personnel
• Ability to identify and connect opportunities between the businesses

Business

• Experience working across multiple industries ideal
• Environmental consulting experience a plus
• Strong business mindset
• USA work eligibility

Leadership Qualifications

• Fit with team and culture are mission-critical for new hires within HRG and The Heritage Group. Specific attributes of successful team members include:
• Creates enduring value
• Builds long-term relationships with mutual trust
• Bets on people
• Does the right thing-always
• Independent thinker
• Keeps eyes open for opportunity
• Tackles big problems
• Customer focused
• Communicates clearly, with purpose
• Rolls up their sleeves

Education

• A Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or similar field of study is required. Professional Engineering License or Master's degree is preferred. A PhD is a plus.

*This position is based in Indianapolis, IN. Qualified candidates must currently reside in the Indianapolis area or be willing to relocate*

The Heritage Group welcomes the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of all to work together to accomplish our goals

EOE/Veteran/Disability

Current Openings for Technical Director, Engineering Research Group Jobs at The Heritage Group