Lead Maintenance Specialist – Electrical & DCS

Ascend Performance Materials; Decatur (AL); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Ascend Performance Materials seeks a Technical Specialist Maintenance Leader to guide a diverse team of high-voltage, analyzer, and DCS technicians in safe daily maintenance, troubleshooting, and reliability improvements.

You will drive readiness for turnarounds, develop technical talent, and partner with Operations, Engineering, and Reliability to optimize asset performance. Strong leadership and safety culture are essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor or AS in electrical, instrumentation, or related technical discipline preferred.
• 7–10 years in chemical, petrochemical, refining, pulp and paper, power generation, or heavy industrial environments.
• 2+ years of supervisory or leadership experience preferred.
• Experience supporting electrical distribution, analyzers, instrumentation, PLCs, and DCS in an industrial setting.
• Reliability-centered maintenance, turnaround execution, and maintenance work processes preferred.
• Six Sigma/Lean Manufacturing experience desirable; CMRP certification preferred.
• Familiarity with NFPA 70E, NEC, OSHA regulations and related standards.

Responsibilities

• Ensure safety and environmental performance of technicians and contractors, complying with NFPA 70E, NEC, PSM/ISA84, EPA, OSHA requirements.
• Lead the team, set expectations, develop skills, and ensure accountability for action items.
• Drive reliability-centered maintenance using RCA/5-Why, predictive maintenance, and defect elimination.
• Advance a proactive maintenance culture focusing on predictive, preventive, and corrective maintenance to improve asset reliability.
• Supervise installation, maintenance, troubleshooting, calibration, and testing of electrical/instrumentation systems (MCCs, panels, switchgear, DCS, analyzers).
• Manage budgets, contractor utilization, and resource allocation aligned with site goals.
• Review performance metrics with safety, reliability, and maintenance execution in mind.

Skills

Leadership

Safety leadership

Maintenance planning

Reliability engineering

Six Sigma/Lean

Root cause analysis

Project management

Communication

SAP CMMS

Industrial automation

Education

Bachelor or AS in Electrical/Instrumentation

Tools

SAP

CMMS

DCS/PLC systems

Job description

Ascend Performance Materials seeks a Technical Specialist Maintenance Leader to guide a diverse team of high-voltage, analyzer, and DCS technicians in safe daily maintenance, troubleshooting, and reliability improvements.

You will drive readiness for turnarounds, develop technical talent, and partner with Operations, Engineering, and Reliability to optimize asset performance. Strong leadership and safety culture are essential.