$180,000 - $200,000 a year

Position: Equipment Director

Our diversified family of companies provides specialized forestry management, disaster recovery services and low-impact environmental restoration services to commercial, private, municipal and government organizations.

Position Summary: Director will oversee the equipment division. The division has 30+ full-time employees; a fleet of 1,600+ (excluding attachments) pieces of heavy earthmoving, materials processing equipment and commercial trucks/trailers with an acquisition value approaching $96 million. The director will serve to extend the reach and effectiveness of Ceres equipment and assets and provide leadership to the equipment team. This person is responsible for maximizing Ceres’s operating performance by optimizing the methods and materials rendered in support of each subsidiary mission. Support is provided to a diverse group of companies and locations, including: Ceres Environmental, Inc (dba Ceres Environmental Operations (CEO), a Florida-based company; The Ground Up, a Texas-based company; Tree Services Unlimited, and CTL, both California-based company; Ceres Caribe, a Puerto Rico-based company; with offices in California, Louisiana, Florida, Minnesota and Texas. The Ceres family of companies also includes an international presence with Ceres New Zealand Ceres Canada.

Reports to: Vice-President

Supervisory Responsibilities: Yes

Duties:

• Lead the development and finalization of the annual equipment division budget including: fleet maintenance and repair; capital planning for fleet expansion and turnover; vehicle cost and exception reports; internal equipment rental rates; repair decisions, lease versus buy analyses, including tax and accounting implications. Make recommendations for equipment sales, utilizing established corporate process, including yearly fleet lifecycle evaluation.

• Responsible for all divisional administrative matters including work orders, purchase orders, payroll, employee records, maintain records of all preventive and corrective maintenance performed, ensure the appropriate recording of all information into company software packages, prepare and submit the budget for approval, set departmental goals to align with the targets and performance objectives established by the division's leadership team.

• Calculate a billable labor rate structure to encompass expenses related to the repair labor and shop equipment used for the repair expectations and use an electronic time program to track logged repair time to a workorder.

• More efficiently manage personnel resources (i.e., overtime) by evaluating necessary manhours for projected repairs. Assess other maintenance options including outsourcing, internal staffing, or balancing repairs between the shops.

• Oversee and ensure effectiveness of maintenance and repair efforts including scheduling, preventative maintenance activities, repair diagnostics, execution, reporting, and maintaining historical records.
• Develop and review established maintenance schedules to ensure established production schedules are met while operating at the highest efficiency possible.
• Implement a data-driven approach (i.e. Teletrac/Navman) to review trends in on-road repair issues impacting the company's fleets.

• Responsible for all safety and environmental policies/standards are upheld and in compliance; certificates are valid and safety concerns reported and addressed with the Safety Director. This includes maintaining all records and documentation.
• Oversight of corporate compliance with FMSCA/DOT, IFTA, etc. regulations.
• Maintain adherence to all Corporate policies, reporting systems.
• Continuous improvement of processes and systems.

• Encourage and promote operating in a continuous improvement environment, while taking into consideration the unique requirements of subsidiaries and business units.
• Review and analyse requests for all asset purchases and purchases in excess of manager limits.
• Responsible for supervising and managing the selection, maintenance, repair, inventory, mobilization, relocation, costs, etc., of all equipment.
• Uphold corporate policies and procedures related to inventory and asset management.
• Interface with Director of Operations and Project Managers to provide the necessary assets in the needed timeframe to support emergent operational needs.
• Interface with Business Development & Proposals to assess the ability to provide assets in support of potential new work. In working with Business Development, understand contractual requirements to source vendors to meet the needs that are outside of Ceres asset inventory.
• Provides equipment costing and utilization information to senior management on a bi-annual basis.
• Prepare yearly business plan with the Equipment Department team to forecast revenues, expenses, fleet ROI, utilization and overall growth.

• Collaborate with the analytics team to deliver a weekly report/dashboard with key metrics, Aged Open Work orders by Job Damage Work Orders, PM Work Orders, Normal Wear and Tear, Catastrophic failure, and Vendor Work order.
• Serve as the primary intermediary between all shops.
• Help the accounting team deliver valuable and actionable reports for the equipment division and senior management.
• Travel regularly to shops, job locations, subsidiary leadership, and corporate offices.
• Other duties may be assigned.

Essential Qualifications:

• Good financial management and planning skills; ability to understand financial terms, budgets, tables and reports. Ability to develop realistic, comprehensive plans to make efficient use of resources.
• Experience in creating and establishing fleet policies and procedures.
• Thorough knowledge of FMSCA/DOT, IFTA, etc.
• Strong computer skills and the ability to enhance the company's software-based maintenance and repair tracking program.
• Past or current experience with the equipment management/maintenance software and demonstrated ability to learn new technology quickly.
• Minimum of ten years of professional experience with heavy equipment, heavy equipment maintenance, rental and/or logistics ideally in a comparable ($50M+) self-performance construction environment including no less than five years of management experience.
• Bachelor's degree in relevant discipline (e.g., mechanical engineering) strongly preferred although alternative education with relevant work experience may be considered.
• Strong experience with and/or understanding of shop operations, purchasing, inventory and equipment budgets, capital expenditure justification, advanced root cause problem solving.
• Critical thinking: the ability to ask the right questions, separate facts from assumptions, and determine what is relevant and what is not in the decision-making and negotiating process.
• Must earn the respect of equipment/asset managers, mechanics, technicians, welders, operators, etc. by demonstrating knowledge, experience and comfort level with their various disciplines and duties.
• Past experience and success managing teams across multiple projects and geographically disparate locations.
• A servant leader champion of employee engagement

• Analyse workforce requirements and assist equipment operations on hiring, scheduling, and assigning field and shop mechanics and service personnel.
• MS Office Suite - it is imperative for the leader in this role to navigate at an advanced level within all MS Office programs.
• Conduct performance appraisals and provide coaching and guidance.
• Hire, develop, lead and empower all employees to make sound business decisions.

• Detail oriented, data driven and analytical.

Desired Qualifications:

• Ability to anticipate business needs and plan accordingly to ensure that equipment, employee and fiscal resources are utilized in the most efficient manner
• Excellent oral, written and interpersonal communication, leadership skills including the ability to communicate in an effective, professional and positive way to employees, vendors and customers.
• Effective time management, organization and multi-tasking skills including the ability to analyze information, make decisions, problem solve, prioritize assignments and lead an ever-changing work environment.
• Self-starter with a positive, can-do attitude, strong motivation and initiative; a person who appreciates and can operate in an entrepreneurial and fast-paced environment
• Strong analytic capability and experience with metrics and metric reporting
• Proven ability to create cost savings via root cause analysis
• Experience with Trimble Vista Viewpoint construction accounting software
• Strong customer service orientation

Physical Demands:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; use hands to manipulate, handle, or feel and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.

May vary from site to site and in some cases be greater or lesser than indicated here.

Work Environment:

While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions and outside weather conditions. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate. 

Ceres Environmental is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability status, or protected veteran status

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