Director Health Safety

Tredegar Corporation•Chesterfield, VA

About The Position

The Director, Health & Safety is Tredegar’s senior enterprise leader for health and safety strategy, governance, management systems, and performance across its manufacturing businesses, support functions, and operating locations. The role establishes the enterprise vision, risk-reduction strategy, policies, standards, assurance processes, and performance expectations to prevent serious injuries and fatalities, protect workforce health, and maintain regulatory compliance. It translates enterprise priorities into an operating system with clear accountability from executive leadership through frontline execution. The Director serves as a strategic advisor to executive and business leadership and partners with Operations, Plant Management, Human Resources, Engineering, Environmental Leadership, Maintenance, Legal, and Finance. The position provides enterprise direction for workers’ compensation and injury care management in partnership with Human Resources, Legal, Finance, and site leadership, coordinating injury response, claims management, and return-to-work processes. It influences capital priorities, operating decisions, talent capability, and resource allocation where material health and safety risk is present. The role leads health and safety across Tredegar’s manufacturing footprint, including Bonnell and High-Performance Films operations. It builds a sustainable culture through visible leadership, employee ownership, disciplined execution, organizational learning, and continuous improvement. Environmental technical ownership remains a separate function, with the Director coordinating integrated EHS governance where appropriate.

Requirements

Minimum 10 years of progressive health and safety leadership experience in manufacturing, including significant enterprise- or business-level responsibility.
Demonstrated success designing, deploying, governing, and sustaining enterprise health and safety management systems.
Proven success improving safety performance and safety culture across multiple manufacturing locations.
Experience leading OSHA compliance programs and regulatory audits.
Strong understanding of risk management and serious injury prevention methodologies.
Proven ability to advise, influence, and hold senior operational leaders accountable within a matrix organization.
Experience leading enterprise cultural transformation and translating strategy into measurable, sustained operating results.
Experience developing executive and Board-level health and safety reporting and recommendations.
Demonstrated judgment managing significant incidents, regulatory matters, and high-consequence operational risk, including overseeing workers’ compensation claims, injury care coordination, and return-to-work programs in partnership with Human Resources and site leadership.
Experience building and developing a distributed team of health and safety professionals and strengthening succession pipelines.
Ability to integrate health and safety risk into capital planning, acquisition due diligence, operational change, and business decision-making.
Critical leadership competencies: safety leadership, strategic thinking, organizational influence, executive presence, change leadership, talent development, risk management, communication excellence, employee engagement, systems thinking, coaching and mentoring, and team leadership.

Nice To Haves

Preferred three years leading multi-site health and safety programs, with demonstrated responsibility for strategy, governance, talent, and performance across a complex organization.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Industrial Hygiene, Occupational Health, Environmental Health & Safety, Operations Management, or a related technical discipline is preferred; candidates actively pursuing a degree in one of these disciplines, or with equivalent progressive safety leadership experience, may be considered.
Certified Safety Professional (CSP).
Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH).
OSHA Authorized Trainer.
ISO 45001 Lead Auditor.
Enterprise-wide EHS leadership experience.
Global manufacturing operations experience.
Experience in aluminum extrusion, films, packaging, engineered materials, or related industries.
Safety culture transformation program experience.
World-class safety management systems deployment experience.

Responsibilities

Set the enterprise health and safety vision and multi-year strategy; own the Health & Safety Management System, including governance, standards, policies, assurance, audits, management review, and accountability; secure executive alignment and ensure consistent deployment.
Lead the enterprise risk portfolio, prioritizing serious injury and fatality prevention, critical-risk controls, high-risk work, process and equipment hazards, contractor risk, and risk elimination through engineering and capital investment; escalate material exposures and drive timely closure.
Advise and challenge senior leaders on health and safety performance, risk, and accountability; establish expectations for visible leadership, employee engagement, stop-work authority, learning, and ownership; sponsor and measure enterprise culture initiatives.
Provide enterprise direction for occupational health, industrial hygiene, medical surveillance, ergonomics, and workforce wellbeing.
Lead workers’ compensation and injury care management with Human Resources, Legal, Finance, and site leadership, including timely injury reporting, claims oversight, coordination with insurers, claims administrators, and care providers, and medically appropriate return-to-work programs; monitor claim trends, duration, and costs while protecting employee medical confidentiality.
Maintain enterprise oversight of OSHA and other applicable requirements; establish compliance assurance, audit protocols, corrective-action governance, and management review; deliver executive and Board-level reporting on performance, critical risks, trends, and required interventions.
Set enterprise requirements for incident reporting, classification, investigation, root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and learning; oversee governance for fatalities, serious injuries, high-potential events, and significant compliance matters, and replicate lessons across the enterprise.
Define the health and safety organization, competency model, staffing expectations, career paths, and succession needs; coach business and site leaders, develop health and safety professionals, and establish leadership training and qualification expectations for critical roles.
Own standardized scorecards, leading and lagging indicators, targets, data quality, and governance reviews; translate performance data into enterprise priorities, intervention plans, resource decisions, and accountability actions.
Partner with Environmental, Operations, Engineering, Human Resources, Legal, and Finance to integrate health and safety requirements into business planning, capital projects, acquisitions, change management, contractor management, and operating processes while maintaining separate environmental technical ownership.
Benchmark leading manufacturing practices, monitor emerging risks and regulatory developments, and institutionalize improvements across facilities; represent Tredegar with regulators, industry groups, insurers, and external partners when appropriate.