Maintenance Area Manager

DuPont•Wimington, DE

About The Position

The Maintenance Area Leader leads maintenance and reliability work processes for DuPont’s Experimental Station (ESL), supporting safe, reliable, and cost-effective facilities and services across a multi-tenant campus of research laboratories, pilot-scale operations, offices, and supporting infrastructure. The role establishes and executes the facility maintenance strategy, leads assigned maintenance personnel, and coordinates internal craft resources and contracted services. In partnership with site leadership, Engineering, Power Operations, Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS), Contract Administration, Procurement, building representatives, and tenants, the leader aligns maintenance priorities with site risk, research continuity, customer requirements, and available resources. The position is accountable for maintenance work management, service delivery, workforce development, budget performance, and continuous improvement within its assigned scope. It strengthens preventive and predictive maintenance, reduces recurring failures and unplanned interruptions, and supports asset renewal and campus changes. Direct ownership and support responsibilities are aligned with the established accountabilities of Engineering, Power Operations, and other site functions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in an engineering discipline or equivalent relevant experience.
Seven to ten years of maintenance, reliability, facilities, manufacturing, research operations, or related experience.
Experience leading maintenance personnel or coordinating multidisciplinary craft and technical resources.
Experience applying maintenance work management processes, managing budgets, and coordinating contracted services.
For responsibilities involving High Hazard Process (HHP) areas, Process Safety Management (PSM) experience is required.
Technical understanding of maintenance in a research, laboratory, pilot-scale, facilities, or similarly complex operating environment.
Working knowledge of building systems, HVAC and refrigeration, building automation, electrical and instrumentation systems, plumbing, utility distribution, and equipment reliability, with ability to engage appropriate technical specialists.
Understanding of maintenance needs for shared campus infrastructure, tenant spaces, and research equipment.
Knowledge of applicable engineering standards, site procedures, safe work practices, environmental requirements, and maintenance-related inspection and documentation requirements.
Understanding of maintenance work management, including work prioritization, planning, scheduling, backlog management, preventive and predictive maintenance, and work closeout.
Budget development, cost control, forecasting, and analysis skills, including management of internal labor and contracted maintenance services.
Ability to coordinate work across Engineering, Power Operations, EHS, Contract Administration, Procurement, building representatives, and tenants without assuming ownership of those functions.
Strong interpersonal, conflict resolution, influencing, and customer-focused skills for balancing competing priorities.
Risk assessment, escalation, and mitigation skills, including management of deferred maintenance and service interruption risks.
Strong written and verbal communication, planning, organization, and time management skills.
Root cause analysis, troubleshooting, auditing, and continuous improvement skills.
Leadership capability in coaching, mentoring, workforce development, and change management.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Demonstrated safety ownership, collaboration, respect and inclusion, accountability, technical discipline, business judgment, and commitment to continuous improvement and development.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting a multi-building research campus, laboratory facilities, pilot-scale operations, or a multi-tenant technical environment.
Experience with building systems, utility infrastructure, and coordination of maintenance outages.

Responsibilities

Lead the assigned maintenance organization and coordinate maintenance engineering, planning, scheduling, craft execution, and contracted support to deliver safe, reliable, and cost-effective services.
Set expectations for safety, work quality, productivity, customer service, and accountability; reinforce compliance with site procedures, permits, job safety analyses, energy isolation requirements, and contractor work controls.
Develop and execute an ESL maintenance strategy addressing asset condition and criticality, research and tenant needs, infrastructure reliability, and long-term maintenance requirements.
Coordinate maintenance for building systems and assigned infrastructure, including HVAC and refrigeration, building automation, electrical and instrumentation systems, plumbing, building components, elevators, fire and life safety systems, and emergency power equipment.
Align maintenance and Research Crafts Organization resources within the assigned scope to support laboratory and pilot-scale equipment, troubleshooting, fabrication, installations, and research-driven modifications.
Partner with Power Operations and Engineering to coordinate maintenance of utility equipment and distribution systems, including work scope, technical requirements, operating interfaces, and return to service.
Implement and sustain applicable Global Maintenance Work Process, Maintain Facility Work Process, and maintenance work management subprocesses.
Prioritize work based on safety, regulatory requirements, asset criticality, service commitments, and consequences of failure; strengthen work identification, scope definition, planning, scheduling, material readiness, execution, closeout, and follow-up.
Coordinate access and outage windows with building representatives and tenants to minimize disruption to research and business activities.
Maintain appropriate staffing and craft coverage, clarify interfaces with Contract Administration and service providers, and use continuous improvement resources to eliminate non-value-added work.
Establish preventive and predictive maintenance strategies with Engineering and equipment owners; review recurring failures and adjust maintenance tasks, intervals, and repair approaches based on performance and risk.
Manage overdue maintenance and inspection work through documented prioritization, escalation, and applicable deviation processes; coordinate approvals with equipment owners, customers, and EHS before work is deferred.
Coordinate building shutdowns, site utility shutdown support, and equipment outages, confirming scope, resource readiness, communications, and completion requirements.
Establish and manage the maintenance budget; monitor labor, materials, repair services, and contractor spending, explain variances, and implement sustainable cost improvements.
Work with Finance, Contract Administration, and tenant-facing teams to improve work-order cost accuracy, labor confirmations, and maintenance-charge allocation under applicable service arrangements.
Maintain reliable CMMS records, including equipment information, work scope, maintenance history, labor and material use, and completion documentation.
Track and act on maintenance and reliability measures, including preventive maintenance compliance, overdue work, backlog age, planned versus reactive work, recurring failures, service delivery, and budget performance.
Develop team technical and leadership capability through coaching, training, qualification planning, cross-training, and succession planning.
Provide maintenance input and appropriate resources for expense and capital projects; partner with Engineering on asset condition assessments, repair-versus-replace decisions, maintainability, commissioning, and transition of new or modified assets into maintenance programs.
Support site consolidation, building shutdown, renovation, and decommissioning activities by adjusting maintenance scope and resources to the approved campus strategy.
Use root cause analysis, work-process reviews, audits, and continuous improvement methods to reduce repeat failures, improve execution, and strengthen service quality.
Apply applicable Management of Change requirements to equipment, system, and maintenance changes, and coordinate technical and EHS reviews with responsible site functions.
Participate in site maintenance and leadership forums, communicate risks and resource needs, and coordinate responses to significant equipment failures and service interruptions.
Ensure agreed maintenance services are delivered to DuPont businesses and third-party tenants within the assigned scope, with clear priorities, timely communication, and effective resolution of service issues.