The Opportunity
- Technical leadership opportunity within a long-established small company specializing in thin film coatings for demanding aerospace and defense applications
- Join an organization with a strong reputation for customer support, technical depth, and quality discipline
- Step into a succession planning role with the chance to learn alongside a highly experienced leader before taking full ownership of the function
- Customer facing role with the opportunity to become a trusted technical resource for engineers, applicators, and key accounts
- Play a central role in expanding the company’s innovation pipeline, including active initiatives to reformulate away from PFAS and heavy metal pigments, explore high-temperature coating systems, and develop new specialty products in adjacent application areas — the breadth of technical challenge here is real, and the person in this role will never be pigeonholed
- Great work-life balance, strong benefits (company pays 90% of premium for employee AND FAMILY!), charming community right on the Mighty Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area
What You'll Do
- Reporting to the existing TD, initially plan and execute knowledge transfer to ensure you are fully up to speed on all current company technology, methods and priorities.
- Serve as both senior technical contributor and manager of the 2-person lab tech team
- Drive R&D and new product development, with a primary focus on direct formulation work — working hands-on with epoxy bake systems (epoxy melamines, epoxy phenolics) and thin film technologies across a diverse range of metal substrates; in the near term, active projects include aerospace fastener coatings and a military product reformulation aimed at improving manufacturability and applicator ease
- Own raw material strategy — proactively identifying and qualifying alternative raw materials to protect the supply chain for niche, low-volume inputs; this includes navigating active regulatory transitions such as PFAS elimination and heavy metal pigment replacement, and attending industry conferences (e.g., the American Coatings Show) to source new options direct from the market
- Manage a dynamic, multi-project lab workload — at any given time, expect to be juggling 10–15 active projects of varying scope and urgency, ranging from multi-year new product developments to 3–6 month reformulations and rapid turnaround samples; priorities shift based on customer need and production demands, requiring genuine flexibility and sound judgment about where to spend time
- Oversee testing, documentation, quality compliance, and cross-functional coordination with production — including hands-on involvement in scale-up trial batches (typical batch sizes 50–200 gallons) and maintaining the company’s AS9100-aligned design control and R&D procedures; the company is audited on these processes, so documentation rigor is non-negotiable
- Serve as the technical point of contact for customers — primarily applicators serving military and aerospace OEMs — providing guidance on application parameters, surface preparation, pretreatment requirements, thinning for correct dry film thickness, and troubleshooting in the field; the ability to ask the right questions upfront and cultivate customer trust is essential to avoiding costly reformulation cycles
- Partner with the sales team to evaluate and prioritize new development requests through a structured intake and risk-scoring process that evaluates technical feasibility, profitability, and strategic fit; new specialty opportunities must clear a defined risk threshold before the lab commits resources — a discipline that keeps the team focused on work that matters
- Manage and direct the lab technician team — including an R&D technician who executes experimental work and sample-making, a QC technician handling batch testing, and a long-tenured technical specialist focused on the company’s proprietary solid film lubricant product line; this is a true player-coach role where the chemist both directs the techs and stays personally hands-on in the lab
The Profile
- Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, Polymer Science, Materials Science, or a related technical discipline is required. Advanced education is helpful, but relevant practical industry experience is most important
- 8+ years experience formulating high performance coatings is required; the most transferable background is OEM-type bake coatings with experience across diverse metal substrates (steel, stainless, titanium, aluminum, brass, copper); hands-on experience with epoxy bake systems (epoxy melamines, epoxy phenolics) across diverse metal substrates is the core requirement; candidates from broader industrial or aerospace liquid coatings backgrounds are fully in scope provided they have genuine hands-on bake system formulation experience; thin film coatings experience is a meaningful plus but is not required; high-temp resin and pigment experience is a plus for future product direction
- Experience supporting aerospace and defense specifications is essential; familiarity with Mil-Spec, AS9100, Boeing, and EN specifications is directly applicable to the work; understanding of corrosion protection testing standards (ASTM) and VOC/HAPS/REACH compliance is expected given the customer base
- Effective project management skills are important, especially as they relate to working effectively in a small team environment dealing with rigorous documentation, testing, quality expectations, and controlled lab practices
- A core requirement is the experience and ambition to step into a succession-based leadership path for a small company, learning the business in depth and ultimately taking ownership of the technical function over time
- Experience in a customer-facing technical role is important, where success depends on responsiveness, credibility, and the ability to guide customers through application or product questions
- High EQ, sound judgment, and the ability to relate effectively to customers, colleagues, and different working styles with professionalism, patience, and a service-oriented mindset
- Creative, intellectually curious formulator who thrives with open-ended technical challenges — the company’s product portfolio is highly niche with limited published reference data, so the ability to experiment systematically, adapt when priorities shift, and avoid rigid adherence to defined formulating systems is genuinely important; this is not a role for someone who needs to stay in their lane
- Comfortable with practical lab and data tools in a small-company environment — the company uses cloud-based formula and batch ticket databases, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel), and MS Access for reporting; familiarity with Access is particularly valued as the incoming chemist will need to take over database administration and report creation currently managed by the Technical Director; the company does not use design-of-experiments software or ERP, and candidates who can be effective without those tools will thrive
- Genuine enthusiasm for small-company life and community — the company is based in a small, close-knit community on the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area of Illinois; this is a wonderful place to raise a family and put down roots, but it is not a big city, and candidates who genuinely want that environment will be happiest and most successful here; willingness to relocate and a real affinity for smaller-community living is essential