R&D Manager - Electronics

Chase Corporation•Westwood, MA

5d•$100,000 - $150,000

About The Position

The Manager, R&D – Electronics leads product innovation, formulation development, and commercialization for Chase Corporation’s Electronic Materials Solutions business. This hands-on leadership role supports laboratory, pilot, and manufacturing environments to develop, optimize, and scale protective electronic materials, including conformal coatings, adhesives, encapsulants, and related system-level solutions. The role leads new product development, supports commercialization, enables technology transfer into manufacturing, and aligns R&D priorities with commercial objectives. It works cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Operations, Quality, Manufacturing, and Supply Chain, serving as the technical bridge between customer needs, product strategy, application requirements, and manufacturing execution. The EMS portfolio supports high-reliability applications in Automotive, Aerospace, Defense, Renewable Energy, and Industrial Electronics.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience in product development, formulation development, application development, or new product introduction within electronic materials, specialty chemicals, protective coatings, adhesives, polymers, or adjacent industrial markets.
At least 3 years leading technical programs, managing R&D projects, or supervising technical staff.
Strong background in electronic materials or related protective material technologies.
Experience implementing or working within structured product development processes, including stage-gate or similar project management tools.
Strong collaboration skills and ability to partner across R&D, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, and Supply Chain.
Commercially aware technical leadership, balancing technical depth with business priorities, customer needs, and manufacturing realities.
Hands-on, results-oriented leadership and a track record of improving execution, developing technical talent, and delivering projects in fast-paced or change-oriented environments.
Willingness to travel up to 25% to support manufacturing sites, customer engagement, technical collaboration, and product validation.
Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Polymer Science, or a related technical discipline.

Nice To Haves

Experience with conformal coatings, adhesives, encapsulants, PCB assembly materials, or high-reliability electronics applications.
Advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and develop the R&D team, fostering accountability, execution discipline, technical rigor, and innovation.
Align R&D portfolio priorities with business strategy, customer requirements, regulatory standards, and commercial growth objectives.
Manage new product development projects using structured stage-gate processes, including scope, timelines, documentation, resource allocation, and execution tracking.
Coordinate cross-functional pilot trials, product validation, commercialization, and technology transfer.
Develop and optimize formulations and application-level solutions for electronic materials, including conformal coatings, adhesives, encapsulants, and related protective technologies.
Translate market, customer, and application requirements into differentiated, manufacturable products.
Provide hands-on technical leadership to accelerate innovation, improve performance, expand applications, and reduce time-to-market.
Lead experimentation, validation, qualification, and testing protocols to ensure commercial viability and customer readiness.
Support the development and maintenance of technology roadmaps connecting current capabilities with future market and customer needs.
Provide technical support across multiple manufacturing sites, including scale-up, troubleshooting, cost optimization, and process improvement.
Collaborate with Manufacturing and Operations to ensure solutions are scalable, cost-effective, production-ready, and aligned with quality requirements.
Ensure compliance with applicable regulatory requirements and ISO 9001 standards, and support internal, external, and customer audits.
Promote and reinforce safety standards in R&D, laboratory, pilot, and manufacturing environments.
Represent R&D in cross-functional business, product, and strategic planning forums.
Partner with Marketing and Sales to turn customer needs, market insights, and application challenges into differentiated technical solutions.
Develop and report KPIs related to portfolio health, speed-to-market, project execution, cost performance, and innovation pipeline value.
Identify and leverage synergies across business units to share technologies, platforms, processes, and best practices.
Improve R&D effectiveness, execution discipline, and predictability through structured processes, prioritization, documentation, and performance tracking.