Training Manager

Job Title: Training & Development Manager Department: Quality **The Mission** Riverbend Energetics is seeking an experienced, hands-on Training & Development Manager to build and lead a comprehensive workforce development program from the ground up. This is a high-impact role for a professional who thrives on creating structure, developing people, and driving measurable results in a demanding, highly regulated environment. You will serve as the architect of a learning culture that spans from the production floor to the leadership team — designing curriculum, building systems, and instilling training discipline across the organization. In our industry, the stakes are high: training is not a checkbox exercise. It is a critical pillar of safety, quality, and operational excellence. If you are energized by the challenge of building something meaningful and lasting, this role is for you. **Core Responsibilities** *Program Design & Curriculum Development* - Design, develop, and continuously improve training programs for two distinct workforce populations: - **Hourly/Production Workforce:** Job-specific technical skills, standardized work instructions, safety protocols (OSHA, LOTO, energetic materials handling), and quality procedures aligned with AS9100 and customer requirements. - **Salaried/Leadership Workforce:** Supervisory skills, leadership development, emotional intelligence, performance management, and cross-functional communication. - Apply formal instructional design methodologies (ADDIE, SAM, or equivalent) to ensure all training content is structured, effective, and audit-ready. - Develop competency matrices and skills gap assessments to identify and prioritize training needs across all departments. *Onboarding & New Hire Integration* - Own and continuously improve the new hire onboarding experience, ensuring all employees are properly oriented, safety-trained, and operationally ready before assuming independent responsibilities. - Partner with department supervisors to establish role-specific onboarding roadmaps with defined milestones and sign-off checkpoints. *Training Delivery & Facilitation* - Facilitate high-impact training sessions across a range of formats — classroom instruction, hands-on floor demonstrations, small group coaching, and one-on-one development conversations. - Build and execute a Train-the-Trainer program that equips frontline supervisors to deliver consistent, effective on-the-job training within their teams. - Model best practices in adult learning and coaching, raising the overall quality of training delivered at every level of the organization. *Systems, Tracking & Compliance* - Administer and optimize the Learning Management System (LMS) as the single source of truth for all training records, certifications, and compliance documentation. - Establish and maintain training matrices that ensure every employee has completed required training for their role, with no gaps. - Ensure 100% audit readiness for safety certifications, quality system requirements (AS9100), and any applicable regulatory or customer-mandated training obligations. - Generate regular reporting on training completion rates, certification currency, and program effectiveness for Quality and Operations leadership. *Continuous Improvement* - Conduct periodic assessments of training effectiveness using measurable criteria — knowledge checks, skills observations, production quality data, and safety metrics. - Identify trends in safety incidents, quality escapes, or performance issues that may indicate training gaps, and respond with targeted interventions. - Stay current with best practices in workforce development, instructional design, and adult learning to ensure Riverbend's program remains best-in-class. **Qualifications & Skills** - **Experience:** 5 years in a training, workforce development, or organizational development role, with demonstrated experience building or significantly improving a training program. Background in manufacturing, defense, aerospace, or another regulated industrial environment strongly preferred. - **Education:** Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Education, Organizational Development, or a related field required. A graduate degree (M.Ed., M.S. in Organizational Development, or equivalent) is a plus. - **Instructional Design:** Proficiency in formal curriculum development frameworks and adult learning theory. Ability to translate complex technical or procedural content into clear, learnable training materials. - **Systems Proficiency:** Hands-on experience administering an LMS platform. Familiarity with building and maintaining training matrices and compliance tracking tools. - **Communication & Facilitation:** Equally effective presenting to a room of production operators and briefing senior leadership. Strong written communication skills for procedure development and training documentation. - **Regulatory Awareness:** Familiarity with OSHA requirements, quality management systems (AS9100 preferred), and training obligations in regulated industries. - **Mindset:** A builder's mentality — comfortable working in an environment where not everything is defined yet, and energized by the opportunity to create lasting systems and structure. **Reporting Structure** This position reports to the VP of Quality and works in close partnership with Operations, Safety, and HR leadership.

Key Requirements

• Builder's Mentality with Structured Execution: Riverbend explicitly states this program is being built 'from the ground up.' A candidate who only maintains or improves existing programs will struggle. In a 150-person defense contractor with high regulatory stakes, the person must create structure without losing rigor — ambiguity cannot become an excuse for gaps in a safety-critical environment.
• Regulated Industry Training Expertise with Safety Acuity: Energetic materials — detonators, CAD/PAD systems — carry life-safety consequences if training fails. Unlike most manufacturing environments, a training gap at Riverbend is not a quality escape; it is a potential fatality or mission-critical failure. The candidate must treat compliance and safety training as non-negotiable, audit-ready obligations, not administrative tasks.
• Instructional Design Discipline Applied to Hands-On Technical Content: Riverbend needs training that actually changes behavior on the production floor, not slide decks that satisfy a checklist. The candidate must be able to take highly technical, procedural content — such as energetic materials handling or LOTO protocols — and translate it into training that operators with varying literacy levels and learning styles can genuinely absorb and apply.
• Cross-Level Credibility and Facilitation Range: This role requires the same person to command respect on the production floor with hourly workers and present data-driven training metrics to the VP of Quality and Operations leadership. At a 150-person company there is no team to delegate either audience to — the Training Manager is the program, and their personal credibility determines whether supervisors buy in and leaders invest.
• Data-Driven Continuous Improvement Orientation: Riverbend's Quality department owns this role, which signals an expectation that training will be measured and tied to operational outcomes — not just completion rates. In a defense environment with AS9100 obligations, the Training Manager must be able to connect training gaps to quality escapes, safety incidents, or audit findings and design targeted interventions, not broad retraining campaigns.
  
  

About Riverbend Energetics

Riverbend Energetics is a defense and industrial manufacturer based in Alton, IL. We develop and produce energetic materials and specialty munitions for U.S. defense and allied customers. Our mission-critical work demands precision, safety, and a commitment to excellence.