Corporate Process Control Leader

W. R. Grace & Co.•Columbia, MD

13d•$160,680 - $220,935

About The Position

The Corporate Process Control Leader provides strategic, technical, and people leadership for process control across Grace’s global manufacturing network. This role leads the Corporate Process Control Team and the Global Process Control Network, establishes governance and standards, and enables sites and capital projects to select, implement, and sustain safe, reliable, fit-for-purpose automation solutions. The leader balances global leverage with site-specific needs and total lifecycle economics while ensuring safety and regulatory requirements remain non-negotiable. The position is accountable for the global automation portfolio, including control-system lifecycle strategy, modernization, platform selection, support models, and technical risk reduction. It provides technical governance and assurance for capital projects and supports sites with documented architectures, lifecycle roadmaps, capable support paths, backups, training, and access to global expertise. The role partners across operations, maintenance, engineering, process safety, IT/OT cybersecurity, procurement, and project management, and may travel approximately 25% to global manufacturing sites.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, preferably Chemical, Electrical, Controls, or a related discipline.
10 or more years of related experience in industrial process control, automation engineering, manufacturing operations, or capital project execution in process-industry environments.
Demonstrated technical leadership across complex automation projects and multiple sites, including making and defending risk-based architecture and lifecycle decisions.
Working knowledge of distributed control systems, PLC-based controls, safety instrumented systems, industrial networks, control-system cybersecurity, batch and sequence control, alarm management, and operator interface design.
Ability to lead technical professionals, influence without direct authority, develop talent, resolve cross-functional issues, and communicate effectively with technical teams and senior leadership.
Strong written, verbal, facilitation, and technical-documentation skills.
Ability to travel approximately 25% to global manufacturing sites, with intermittent increased travel during major project execution, commissioning, or startup.
Willingness to wear required PPE, including hard hat, protective eyewear, steel-toed boots, hearing protection, Level A suit, and full-face respirator.
Ability to stand, walk, sit, climb, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, crawl, and climb stairs and ladders over 100 feet.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Honeywell Experion or TDC 3000 and Emerson DeltaV control systems.
Experience leading DCS, SIS, BMS, PLC, virtualization, and control-system modernization programs.
Experience with alarm rationalization and management, high-performance graphics, flexible batch libraries, and control-system lifecycle planning.
Knowledge of applicable industry standards and recognized practices, including ISA-18.2, ISA-88, ISA-84/IEC 61511, NFPA 85, and NFPA 86.
Experience developing global standards, governance models, technical communities of practice, and supplier or system-integrator strategies.

Responsibilities

Lead, develop, and set priorities for the Corporate Process Control Team, including coaching technical staff, strengthening succession plans, and allocating specialist resources.
Lead the Global Process Control Network to connect site experts, share lessons learned, reuse proven designs, coordinate training, and pool process-control resources.
Own and communicate the global process-control vision, emphasizing safety, long-term cost, fit-for-purpose architecture, and shared global capability.
Guide sites and projects through technology selection, evaluating site objectives, hazards, constraints, skills, lifecycle stage, safety, reliability, maintainability, cybersecurity, integration, and total cost.
Establish and govern global process automation standards, engineering practices, reusable libraries, templates, and lifecycle requirements.
Provide technical governance and assurance for capital projects with significant automation scope, including DCS, SIS, burner-management systems, PLCs, package controls, operator interfaces, networks, and data historians.
Ensure obsolete and unsupported control systems are identified, risk-ranked, and covered by lifecycle roadmaps for migration, cybersecurity, backups, spares, training, vendor support, and sustainment cost.
Serve as senior process-control technical authority for project reviews, architecture decisions, vendor evaluations, specifications, design reviews, factory and site acceptance testing, commissioning, and startup readiness.
Advance process safety and operational discipline through alarm management, high-performance graphics, interlock and permissive design, sequence control, management of change, and recognized engineering practices.
Partner with site operations, maintenance, engineering, process safety, IT/OT cybersecurity, procurement, and project management to deliver supportable solutions aligned with business objectives.
Sponsor productivity and reliability initiatives using process automation to reduce raw-material and energy consumption, improve quality and production rates, reduce unplanned downtime, and improve operator effectiveness.
Develop strategic relationships with automation suppliers, system integrators, and engineering contractors; define technical expectations, assess execution capability, manage escalations, and improve commercial leverage.
Define success measures for safety, lifecycle value, site ownership, and global leverage, and communicate portfolio risks, resource needs, priorities, and progress to Global Operations leadership.
Provide escalation support for significant control-system events and coordinate cross-site expertise for urgent troubleshooting or recovery.
Provide people leadership, technical direction, workload prioritization, capability development, and delivery accountability for the Corporate Process Control Team.
Lead network governance, knowledge sharing, standards deployment, expert connectivity, and cross-site support.
Set strategic direction for control-system lifecycle, modernization, platform selection, support models, and technical risk reduction across the global automation portfolio.
Ensure sites have documented architectures and lifecycle roadmaps, capable support paths, appropriate backups, training, and access to global expertise.