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Salary: USD 192,000 - 280,000 / annual
Phoenix Tailings is a venture-backed clean mining and metals production startup building the Freedom Facility in Rochester, New York—a commercial-scale rare earth separation facility designed to expand U.S. domestic capacity for processing and separating rare earth materials. Rare earths are critical inputs for electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, advanced electronics, aerospace systems, and defense applications. The facility will produce thousands of tons of separated rare earth oxides annually, strengthening domestic supply chains and reducing reliance on foreign processing.
The Plant Director will build and lead the operating organization for the facility, with full responsibility for preparing the site and workforce for startup and then leading site safety, production, quality, staffing, and overall plant performance once operations begin in 2027–2028. This is a ground-up opportunity to establish departmental responsibilities, staffing plans, and leadership routines for both startup and sustained operations.
Key responsibilities include: building and leading the site operating organization with clear departmental structure and staffing plans; preparing the workforce and plant systems for commissioning and startup, coordinating readiness reviews with the capital projects organization; establishing operating procedures, workforce training, maintenance coordination, and performance systems for safe and reliable continuous production; owning site safety, environmental performance, product quality, and production results with clear accountability; managing site budgets and staffing against the operating plan using cost, uptime, throughput, and quality metrics; resolving production bottlenecks and reliability issues by working across operations, engineering, maintenance, and support teams; and developing site leaders and a working culture centered on safe execution, accurate reporting, operator capability, and timely follow-through.
Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Industrial Management, or a related field
- Significant leadership experience in chemical manufacturing, refining, mining, metals, specialty chemicals, or another continuous-process industrial environment
- Demonstrated success leading plant operations or a complex manufacturing organization with accountability for safety, quality, production, and operating performance
- Experience supporting commissioning, facility startup, operational readiness, or major production scale-up, including coordination with project teams and equipment partners
- Ability to build operating organizations, develop site leaders, and establish procedures and training systems for a growing workforce
- Working knowledge of industrial safety, environmental performance, process equipment, maintenance reliability, and the controls needed for consistent production
- Experience managing staffing and operating budgets and using production, cost, and reliability metrics to prioritize improvements in a developing facility
