Maintenance Manager

Are you the kind of person who is always thinking, diagnosing, predicting, and improving?

Are you the kind of person that is always thinking, sketching, seeking, and adjusting? Who needs to understand how things work and then figure out how they can work better? Are you a passionate, tenacious, solver who loves to work with others who share your drive? Are you positive, constructive, and ingenious?

Who needs to understand how equipment and infrastructure work—and then figure out how to make them more reliable, resilient, and future‑ready? Are you a disciplined, data‑driven problem solver who believes the best failures are the ones that never happen because they were predicted and prevented? If problem solving is your passion, and building a robust and reliable network of equipment which drives operational excellence excites you, we would like to meet you and bet you’d like to meet us.

Ashland has an exciting opportunity for a Maintenance Manager to join our team at the Ashland Freetown, MA facility. This is a highly visible, critical leadership role responsible for maintaining and improving site infrastructure, utilities, and manufacturing equipment reliability. The Maintenance Manager reports to the Plant Manager and plays a key role in ensuring safe, reliable, and cost‑effective operations through a strong predictive and preventive maintenance strategy.

The responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Provide transformational leadership for site maintenance and reliability, establishing a strong culture of equipment ownership, predictive maintenance, and proactive failure prevention.
• Develop, implement, and continuously improve a comprehensive reliability and maintenance strategy with strong emphasis on predictive maintenance technologies, condition monitoring, and data‑driven decision making.
• Ensure site infrastructure, utilities, and production equipment are maintained to support safe, compliant, and reliable operations with minimal unplanned downtime.
• Lead, coach, and develop a diverse maintenance organization including Electrical & Instrumentation (E&I) resources, Electricians, Mechanics, Maintenance Planners, and Boiler Technicians.
• Establish clear performance expectations, work processes, and accountability for maintenance execution, planning, scheduling, and reliability outcomes.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, EHS, and Supply Chain to prioritize maintenance work, manage risk, and support production objectives.
• Oversee maintenance planning and scheduling processes to ensure effective use of resources, materials, and contractor support.
• Lead and support troubleshooting of equipment, utility, and infrastructure issues, coordinating resources to restore safe operation.
• Champion root cause analysis, failure investigations, and corrective action implementation to eliminate repeat equipment failures.
• Own asset lifecycle management including spare parts strategy, obsolescence planning, and long‑term infrastructure reliability planning.
• Ensure compliance with applicable safety, environmental, and regulatory requirements related to maintenance activities, utilities, and pressure systems.
• Develop and manage the maintenance budget, tracking costs, improving cost effectiveness, and supporting capital planning for reliability improvements.
• Support and actively participate in Management of Change (MOC) processes to ensure maintenance, reliability, and infrastructure impacts are fully assessed and managed.

In order to be qualified for this role, you must possess the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field; equivalent experience may be considered in place of a degree
• Minimum of 5 years of maintenance and reliability experience in an industrial or manufacturing environment.
• Minimum of 3 years of maintenance or reliability leadership experience managing multi‑disciplinary maintenance teams.
• Strong working knowledge of predictive maintenance technologies (vibration analysis, infrared thermography, oil analysis, motor diagnostics, etc.).
• Demonstrated experience implementing reliability‑centered maintenance (RCM), preventive and predictive maintenance programs.
• Solid understanding of utilities, boilers, pressure systems, and industrial infrastructure.
• Experience using CMMS systems like Maximo for work management, asset history, and reliability analysis.
• Strong analytical, problem‑solving, and communication skills with the ability to influence at all organizational levels.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, lead through change, and drive continuous improvement in a demanding operating environment.

The following skill sets are preferred by the business unit:

• Experience leading predictive maintenance and reliability transformation initiatives.
• Demonstrated success reducing unplanned downtime and improving asset availability.
• Experience supporting capital projects and commissioning from a maintenance and reliability perspective.
• Experience with Maximo or like CMMS systems.

**Third party recruiters and agencies (“Agency”) should not contact employees of Ashland or its subsidiaries directly. Any resumes sent by an Agency to a hiring manager, recruiter or submitted to Ashland’s career portal are considered unsolicited and property of Ashland. Ashland will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume, unless the Agency has a signed contract with Ashland’s Human Resources/Procurement department in advance of submitting a candidate for consideration. Verbal and written approvals will not be considered a valid contract for service.