About this opportunity
Rippling, Inc. lists this Plant Operations Director opportunity in stuttgart, Arkansas. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
Cold Steppe is building a biomass-to-biochar platform that turns agricultural waste, starting with rice hulls from Arkansas's farming communities, into biochar: a carbon-rich material that improves soil health, sequesters carbon, retains water, and supports food system resilience. Our first facility, AR-1, sits in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the heart of rice country. It's a highly automated, continuous-process operation, and it's the foundation for how Cold Steppe expands across new sites and new regions. We're an early-stage company moving fast — the people who join us now will help define how we operate, what we stand for, and how we scale. See what Cold Steppe is building: youtube.com/watch?v=QwQmHqDSF1Q
THE ROLE
The Plant Operations Director is Cold Steppe's operational leader at AR-1, and its most visible face in Stuttgart. Reporting directly to the Co-Founder and COO, you'll own everything that happens inside the facility, and how Cold Steppe shows up in the community around it, including:
Safety and environmental compliance : building a culture where hazards get surfaced before they become incidents, not just a compliance checkbox
Production and operational performance : throughput, yield, quality, and uptime on a continuous, automated production line
Maintenance and reliability : a practical preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance program
Quality and continuous improvement : improvement built into the operating rhythm, not treated as a side project
Operating budget and cost management : significant ownership of the facility's financials, tied to operational decisions
Hiring, developing, and leading a high-performing team : building one of the most technically interesting manufacturing workforces in the Stuttgart area from the ground up
Community engagement and workforce development : you're the face of Cold Steppe locally – chamber of commerce, schools, site tours for researchers, partners, and investors
R&D and technical curiosity : AR-1 is Cold Steppe's flagship facility and an active site of learning; new process configurations and product applications get worked out here alongside regular operations, and your fluency in the process feeds that work rather than protecting production from it
You'll work closely with the founders and play a direct role in shaping how future facilities are designed and operated.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
First 90 Days
Build relationships with the operations team and community partners
Learn the production process and operating systems
Establish daily operating rhythm and performance metrics
Reinforce a world-class safety culture
Within the First Year
Improve uptime, throughput, and operating efficiency
Build scalable operating procedures and maintenance practices
Develop a strong, engaged workforce
Help create the operational blueprint for future Cold Steppe facilities
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
We're looking for someone genuinely curious, deeply capable, and ready to do something that hasn't been done before in this community, someone who has built real things, led real teams, and solved real problems in an industrial environment, and still asks questions like they're new to the field.
Preferred Qualifications
Engineering degree required; equivalent technical manufacturing experience considered case-by-case
15+ years of manufacturing, plant, or operations leadership experience
Experience managing a 24/7 continuous manufacturing operation
Strong leadership of frontline production and maintenance teams
Thermodynamics and power operations background — particularly important as we scale to Alabama sites
Mechanical and/or electrical background
Experience with safety, environmental compliance, and operational excellence
Budget and cost management responsibility
Preventive and predictive maintenance experience
Continuous improvement mindset (Lean, Six Sigma, TPM, or similar is a plus)
Public-facing, community, or educational experience is a meaningful plus — coaching, teaching, workforce development, or anything that required explaining complex things to people who didn't already know them
Experience From Industries Such As
Biomass/biochar, thermal or energy systems, forest products, pulp & paper, agricultural processing, chemical processing, food manufacturing, building materials/cement/minerals, or industrial/continuous process manufacturing.
WHY THIS OPPORTUNITY IS DIFFERENT
This is not a traditional Plant Manager position. You'll have the opportunity to:
Build systems instead of inheriting them
Work directly with company founders
Help shape future facilities across multiple locations
Influence technology, operations, and company culture
Lead one of the most innovative manufacturing operations in the region
Become a visible leader within the local community
FIT CHECK
Who Thrives Here
Curious and technically engaged
Comfortable in a fast-moving startup environment
Hands-on and visible on the plant floor
Excited to build something from the ground up
Comfortable making decisions without excessive bureaucracy
May Not Be the Right Fit If...
You prefer highly structured corporate environments
You need established systems and detailed playbooks before taking action
You prefer managing from an office instead of being visible on the plant floor
You are uncomfortable wearing multiple hats while helping build a growing organization
WHAT WE OFFER
The opportunity to be a foundational hire at a company doing something genuinely important
A direct line to the founding team and real influence over how the facility and the company develop
A clear path to growth as Cold Steppe scales to additional sites
Cold Steppe is actively planning additional facilities. For the right candidate, this role has a natural path from leading AR-1 to Regional Operations Director, overseeing multiple sites, setting the operating standards new facilities launch against, and developing the plant leaders who run them. That's not a requirement of the job on day one, but it's how we see it growing, and the title reflects that trajectory from the start.
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Worksite address
stuttgart, AR, 72160, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.