Vice President of Engineering and Construction

Bakery Feeds, by Darling Ingredients•Cold Spring, KY

About The Position

The Vice President of Engineering and Construction is an enterprise executive leadership role responsible for directing the strategic development, engineering governance, and on-site construction execution of the organization’s annual Capital Expenditure (CapEx) program. The role connects executive capital allocation strategy with site-level engineering and field execution across a multi-site, heavy continuous-process industrial footprint, including rendering, agricultural processing, biofuels, and specialty ingredients. The VP oversees the full project lifecycle, from Front-End Loading and conceptual design through detailed engineering, procurement, construction management, and operational commissioning. In close partnership with Business Unit Leaders, Plant Operations, EHS, Reliability, and Finance, the VP ensures capital assets are delivered safely, on schedule, within budget, and designed for long-term operational reliability and lowest total cost of ownership. Darling Ingredients transforms materials from the animal agriculture and food industries into valuable ingredients that nourish people, feed animals and crops, and produce renewable energy. The company is an equal opportunity employer.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Industrial, or a related field.
At least 15 years of progressive leadership experience leading engineering and construction operations in continuous-process industries such as animal byproduct rendering, agricultural processing, biofuels, chemical manufacturing, food ingredients, or heavy industrial processing.
At least 7 years in executive or senior leadership, with substantial experience leading multi-site or global reliability, asset management, and continuous process improvement organizations.

Nice To Haves

Master of Business Administration or Master of Science in Engineering Management.
At least 8 years of senior executive scope with direct accountability for enterprise-scale annual capital programs of $100 million or more across multi-site regional or global operating networks.
Documented success delivering major greenfield builds at individual project scales of $50 million to $250 million or more, and complex brownfield modifications within operating continuous plants.
Extensive experience selecting, negotiating with, and managing major EPC/EPCM firms, specialized design engineering houses, equipment fabricators, and general construction contractors.

Responsibilities

Establish and champion a strong safety culture across job sites, enforcing EHS contractor management standards, pre-qualification criteria, and site-level compliance audits.
Direct the multi-year capital investment pipeline, prioritizing and executing greenfield, major brownfield expansion, facility modernization, environmental compliance, and asset replacement projects.
Establish and enforce a project review system to verify scope clarity, constructability, realistic scheduling, and capital risk mitigation before capital commitment.
Partner with executive management and business unit leadership to develop technical and financial business cases, including NPV, IRR, and payback analyses.
Develop, mandate, and improve enterprise engineering design specifications, process safety requirements, and equipment standards across mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and controls, and civil/structural disciplines.
Partner with R&D, process technology leaders, and plant teams to evaluate and scale innovative continuous-process technologies.
Champion Design for Reliability, Design for Maintainability, and energy efficiency principles during FEED in coordination with Reliability and Asset Management teams.
Provide executive oversight for on-site construction managers and project directors, addressing field bottlenecks, permitting roadblocks, union/labor issues, and stakeholder alignment challenges.
Oversee project controls, including WBS, EVM, capital cash-flow forecasting, contingency drawdown management, and change order governance.
Direct strategic sourcing of long-lead process equipment and bulk materials in coordination with Corporate Procurement to leverage enterprise buying power and optimize delivery milestones.
Establish post-project reviews to assess actual capital against budget and operational performance against the investment thesis, and apply lessons learned to engineering design guidelines.
Serve as the principal engineering authority before corporate executive leadership, municipal authorities, state and federal environmental regulators, and local communities.
Perform other duties as assigned.