Plant and Operations Manager for manufacturing plant in Portland Oregon. Plant is responsible for manufacturing EZFlow water management products for the West Coast Markets. Infiltrator Water Technology is a subsidiary of Advanced Drainage Systems, the market leader in thermoplastic water management solutions and the largest recycler of post-consumer plastic in the USA. I am responsible for managing all the operations of this remote facility. This includes all production, logistics, HR, and Facilities management. I was brought in when the previous plant manager left in the middle of a relocation project moving the facility across Portland. As such I had to complete the commissioning of the facility, develop a totally new team of production associates from zero employees, and restart manufacturing operations during the busiest part of the year. Recruited and trained a new production team, whilst returning the plant to profitability within 3 months. Oversaw development of production processes that increased production volumes back to prior year quantities within 4 months. Identified and resolved numerous commissioning issues with equipment and the facility, bringing the project to a close inside the required timeframes and budgets. Completed the install and commissioning of new fully Automated production module as part of a multi million dollar manufacturing automation project.

Lead the executive team that acquired the rights for the IP and production assets of Carbtex LLC, (a manufacturer of Bi-Regional Carbonified Fiber) out of bankruptcy. Identified the opportunity to rebuild and restart the company in October of 2020 and put together a refinance package with the largest creditor. It also required the implementation of new workflows and a plant and operations redesign to improve productivity, quality and safety. Despite achieving a successful launch of the business, securing customers and sales, the business stopped trading in May 2022 due to Russian supply chain sanctions caused by the war in Ukraine. Lead the Executive team, responsible for managing all areas of the business including strategy, operations, production, sales and engineering. Created and lead the business strategy to start the company and restart the manufacturing facility, including significant capital investment and complex asset refurbishment and reactivation. Designed and implemented process, equipment and control improvements resulting in doubling plant throughput while reducing operating hours required by 50%. Identified and solved critical failure points leading to significant QC improvements and operational efficiency.

I was made director of Business Development in 2017 and then additionally became Director of the Engineering Research and Development team in 2019. These two parts of the business made up the team which was responsible for all Innovation projects for Sunbrella in the Americas. This involved managing approximately 25 multi-million dollar projects at any given time. The projects ran using large cross functional teams to develop capital expenditure, partner licensing, product development, research engineering and strategic ideation and execution. Integrating these projects into Manufacturing was a particular focus for the group that involved working very closely with the production side of the business.Highlights: Introduced Agile project management techniques to the team to dramatically improve project speed and remove existing inertia  Designed and implemented division-wide Project Stage Gate process, allowing cross-functional teams to manage projects more efficiently. This new tool allowed senior management teams significantly higher visibility of, and more influence over, the project cycle. Reduced budgeted expenditure by 15% due to improved team management, effectively increasing future product value pipeline by 50% while decreasing time to completion ratio.  Managed 3-year development project of new product category for company, including technical design and redevelopment for the upgrade of a major manufacturing facility. Project represented Glen Raven’s single largest product launch in 20 years.  Used Change management to develop a culture within the teams to improve focus on strategic alignment, resource allocation and planning, progress reporting and ‘fail fast’

• Managed US Manufacturing facilities, product Management team and marketing team for a large Australian manufacturer of consumer retail home products. • Managed the projects to refurbish the CA production facility, and project managed the construction of second facility in FL.