Senior Chemist

THE OPPORTUNITY

• Join a family-owned industrial coatings manufacturer with more than 55 years of proven market presence, and step into the highest-level technical role in the company — reporting directly to ownership with genuine authority over your domain.
• Bring your formulation expertise to a place that will actually use it. There are no layers of approval, no bureaucratic stage gates, and no corporate politics standing between a good idea and a real product. Previous chemists have converted personal technical interests into revenue-generating product lines — and been recognized for it.
• Work in a culture built on trust, autonomy, and mutual respect. This is a team where a delivery driver’s field observation matters as much as a chemist’s lab result. If you’ve spent years being told to stay in your lane, this is a different kind of place.
• Inherit a stable, well-established portfolio in waterborne and solvent-borne industrial maintenance coatings for structural steel — and have the freedom to grow it. There is low-hanging fruit: approvals to pursue, product-line gaps to fill, and a potential entry into oil and gas infrastructure coatings where the raw material capability already exists.
• Earn upside on what you build. Ownership is open to a performance incentive tied to the commercial success of formulations you develop and commercialize — something a large corporation simply won’t offer.
• Enjoy a genuinely flexible work environment. Half-day Fridays are standard. A full-Friday arrangement has been accommodated before. Your birthday is a paid day off — a tradition started by the founder. The owners answer the phone. This is not a corporate environment dressed up as a family one.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Serve as the company’s primary technical authority: troubleshooting formulations, resolving out-of-spec batches, and being the first call when something goes wrong — in the lab, on the production floor, or at a customer’s facility.
• Own the customer-facing technical relationship. Work directly with fabricators and applicators to diagnose application problems, recommend solutions, and represent the company’s technical credibility in the marketplace.
• Manage and mentor the lab team, creating an environment where knowledge flows freely to batch makers, QC staff, and anyone else who needs to understand what’s happening technically and why.
• Drive product approvals — pursue and maintain third-party certifications (MPI and similar) for products that already meet the standards but haven’t been formally submitted.
• Lead targeted new formulation development: filling product-line gaps, building out a primer/topcoat system capability, and exploring entry into adjacent markets where the company’s raw material base gives it a running start.
• Maintain and continuously improve lab documentation, QC processes, and batch records — bringing structure and efficiency without disrupting what already works.

THE RIGHT CANDIDATE

Education & Technical Skills

• Degree in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or a related field. Advanced degree is a plus but is secondary to hands-on formulation depth.
• Minimum 10–15 years of industrial coatings formulation experience. Background in waterborne industrial maintenance coatings is particularly relevant; experience with solvent-borne and epoxy systems is also important.
• Comfort working across the full technical range: formulation, batch quality, customer problem-solving, raw material evaluation, and lab management. This is a generalist technical leadership role, not a specialist position.
• Experience with product approval processes (MPI, SSPC, or similar third-party specifications) is a meaningful plus.
• Prior exposure to oil and gas infrastructure coatings is highly desirable.

Personal Traits & Attributes

• A servant leader — someone who earns their standing through competence, availability, and helpfulness, and who naturally becomes the person the whole team wants to go to for answers.
• High emotional intelligence, with demonstrated ability to work effectively with people at every level — from ownership to hourly batch operators — treating everyone’s input as worth taking seriously.
• A collaborative change agent: genuinely excited by the prospect of improving things, and experienced enough to bring people along rather than running ahead of them.
• Low ego, high accountability. You solve problems without defensiveness and own mistakes without drama.
• A genuine love of sharing knowledge — explaining not just what to do but why, and finding satisfaction in helping the team around you understand the chemistry.
• At a career stage where freedom, trust, and the chance to make a real, visible contribution matter more than title or corporate advancement. Whether you’re a few years from retirement and not ready to stop, or a mid-career chemist who’s had enough of the corporate grind — if this is what you’re looking for, this is the place.