Job Description

The Industrial Wood Laboratory is seeking a Technical Manager to lead a team focused on maintaining and supporting existing products, resolving critical customer issues, and ensuring continuity of business operations.

This role is responsible for prioritizing urgent customer requests, driving rapid technical problem solving, coordinating cross-functional response efforts, and delivering timely and effecting solutions that support customer satisfaction as well as business objectives. This individual will work closely with Industrial Wood Sales, Technical Services, Quality, and Marketing to identify the needs and timelines for maintenance of business development projects and will coordinate project activities with all the pertinent functions within SW.

The ideal candidate excels in a fast-paced environment, balances multiple priorities effectively, and demonstrates strong leadership in managing technical challenges, operational demands, and customer escalations.
Job duties include contact with other employees and access confidential and proprietary information and/or other items of value, and such access may be supervised or unsupervised. The Company therefore has determined that a review of criminal history is necessary to protect the business and its operations and reputation and is necessary to protect the safety of the Company's staff, employees, and business relationships.

This role is not hybrid and will be located at Sherwin-Williams Morikis Global Technology Center located at 6745 Miller Road, Brecksville, OH 44141.

Responsibilities

Technology Leadership
• Is fully accountable for technical activities that support maintenance of business, including customer issue resolution, product stewardship, business continuity, and sustaining operations for our building products customers.
• Leads a culture of urgency, accountability, and customer focus to ensure reliable product performance, timely issue resolution, and consistent delivery against business commitments.
• Directs technical resources and priorities to support ongoing business needs, customer requests, quality improvements, manufacturing support, and risk mitigation activities.
• Collaborates with business and cross-functional stakeholders to address operational challenges, customer escalations, product changes, supply continuity concerns, and emerging business risks.
• Maintains strong technical relationships with customers, serving as an escalation point for critical issues and ensuring effective communication and resolution of customer concerns.
• Drives customer focus and technical relationship plans for building product customers and takes direct responsibility for customer satisfaction and business retention as the technical leader for maintenance of business for IW-Building Products.
• Ensures high-quality execution of multiple competing priorities, including urgent customer requests, root cause investigations, corrective actions, regulatory requirements, and other business critical support activities.

Talent Development
• Coaches and develops team members to effectively support maintenance of business activities, customer issue resolution, and operational priorities within Industrial Wood and Sherwin-Williams as an enterprise.
• Identifies skill gaps and implements targeted development plans that strengthen technical problem-solving, decision making, and customer support activities. Provides timely feedback and addresses performance issues through actionable development plans.
• Enables, leads by example, and fosters a culture focused on operational excellence, business continuity, customer responsiveness, technical rigor, and continuous improvement to ensure successful support of existing products, customers, and manufacturing operations.
• Empowers team members, models desired behaviors, and promotes a culture of belonging, engagement, collaboration, and shared accountability in a fast-paced, customer-focused environment.
• Identifies the critical skills and knowledge required to successfully support maintenance of business objectives, including issue resolution, root cause analysis, risk mitigation, and customer support.
• Recognizes high performance and removes barriers that impact team effectiveness and operational stability.
• Maintains overall accountability for delivering timely and effective performance feedback aligned with individual objectives, team performance, customer commitments, and business support priorities.
• Optimizes resource allocation and team capacity across sustaining product modification and development activities, urgent customer requests, product support, corrective actions, and other business-critical technical priorities.
• Models calm and steadfast leadership to the team during times of uncertainty and quickly changing priorities; supports and guides the team through challenging technical projects under intense pressure and timing constraints.
• Demonstrates calm, decisive leadership during customer escalations, operational challenges, and rapidly changing business conditions. Supports and guides the team through complex technical investigations, urgent requests, and high-priority business issues while maintaining focus of customer satisfaction and business continuity.
• Will hire and train chemists, technicians, and other team members to support this newly focused group.

Qualifications

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
• Must be legally authorized to work in the country of employment without needing sponsorship for employment work visa status now or in the future (e.g., OPT, CPT, H1B, EB-1,etc.)
• Bachelor's degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Math field.
• Must be at least 18 years of age.
• 8 years of experience in coating formulation and applications
• 4 years of experience in managing/supervising direct report(s) with a passion for people development
• Customer-facing interaction experience
• Strong track record of successful product development and launch

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
• Knowledge or experience in industrial paint formulations and processing
• DFFS/Lean Green Belt and/or Kepner-Tregoe expertise
• Industrial customer-facing interaction experience
• Waterborne formulation expertise
• Experience of industrial applications (e.g., curtain coating, DRC, vacuum coating)
• Wood composite (e.g., fiber cement, OSB) knowledge in manufacturing and/or coating

TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS: 20% Domestic and International

This position is not eligible for sponsorship for work authorization now or in the future, including conversion to H-1B visa.

Successful candidate will be required to sign an Employee Restrictive Covenant Agreement where permitted by law.

This position is also eligible for bonus based on performance and subject to the terms of the Company's applicable plans.