Environmental Health and Safety Lead

Description

Heartwell Renewables is a unique joint venture between affiliates of The Love’s Family of Companies and Cargill to produce and market renewable diesel. Heartwell Renewables is the only entity of its kind to both manufacture and distribute this fuel all the way to the retail pump.

The Love’s Family of Companies, Cargill and their affiliates have entered this unique 50/50 joint venture to produce and market renewable diesel – a green fuel experiencing strong, rising demand. The joint venture will result in the construction of a new production plant in Hastings, Nebraska. There will be an excess of 500 workers during construction and more than 80 permanent jobs in Hastings. The plant will have the ability to produce approximately 80 million gallons annually of renewable diesel.

When considering the environmental benefits and performance enhancements of renewable diesel, the creation of Heartwell Renewables is a long-term win for not only the companies involved, but also for Nebraska, consumers, and the environment.

JOB PURPOSE AND IMPACT

The Environmental, Health and Safety Lead is a subject matter authority who assists in leading the environmental health and safety culture for a high complex facility together with the Facility Manager as a member of the management team. In this role, you will lead the execution and continuous improvement of the environmental, health, and process safety management systems. The renewable diesel complex will consist of highly regulated processes, high risk activities, and low to medium program maturity with elevated risk of serious injuries and fatalities, potential environmental events, severe process safety events or legal matters.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Support the management team in leading the external reputation, facilitate the community/governmental interactions, and prepare required reports. Responsibilities will include following up on requests for information, drafting inquiry responses and facilitating governmental inspections, customer visits and company audits.
• Track and report on compliance for various environmental permit requirements.
• Identify contractor support and talent needs, oversee onsite contractor activity and understand local risks applicable to contractor and external service providers. Additionally, implement, monitor and evaluate approved processes to control sitewide environmental, health and safety risks with contractors.
• Develop suitable training content and delivery models in line with legal, companywide, and regional requirements.
• Conduct gap assessment to identify competence needs, adjust curriculum to reflect site specific demand, organize and provide appropriate training.
• Develop, implement and execute environmental, health and safety controls and programs.  
• Lead processes such as risk identification and assessment, emergency action planning and incident management, agency and internal inspections to ensure they work as intended.
• Partner with management team, project leaders, and regional organization to promote and drive a strong environmental, health and safety culture in the facility team by building a mindset where a continuous improvement is viewed as essential to success.
• Participate as a member of the site leadership team and consult on planning and incident response.
• Provide guidance for health and safety compliance, understanding systems, integrated processes, regulatory issues and workforce conditions.
• Ensure strong alignment of EHS goals & metrics with plant vision and operational goals.
• Independently handle complex issues with minimal supervision, while escalating only the most complex issues to appropriate members of the team.
• Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent experience
• Minimum of four years of related work experience
• Must be legally eligible to work in the US without sponsorship.
• Willing to relocate to Nebraska and work on site in Hastings, NE
• Comfortable working in an industrial work environment that may include loud areas, work at heights, entry into confined spaces, and other potential chemical/atmospheric hazards that require use of appropriate PPE.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Basic business acumen and the ability to partner and communicate effectively with business stakeholders.
• Working knowledge of fuel safety industry practices and standards
• Strong scientific and mathematical knowledge
• Confirmed ability to deliver processes effectively to optimize business resources. 
• Experienced in renewable diesel, steam reformation, hydro processing, vegetable oil refining, or a PSM regulated facility.

PRIOR BENEFICIAL EXPERIENCES

• Participate in incident investigations based on incident classification in partnership with specialists internally and external/regulatory authorities to identify the root cause and help prevent recurrence.
• Prepare for audits, governmental inspections, and customer visits. 
• Identify data and reports needed to monitor performance and compliance against goals.
• Understand risks applicable to contractor and external service providers.
• Implement, monitor and evaluate approved processes to control environmental health and safety risks with contractors.

KEY BEHAVIORS

• Optimize work process, implement the most effective and efficient processes to accomplish work with a focus on continuous improvement.
• Make sense of complex, high-quantity, and sometimes contradictory, information to effectively solve problems.
• Hold self and others accountable to meet commitments and goals.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCES TO BE GAINED

• Assist to develop strategies to deploy health and safety standards and expand health and safety expertise and capability.
• Collaborate across diverse teams to develop and implement policies, procedures, engineering standards and job aids that ensure work is performed safely and efficiently.
• Participate in developing corporate standards for health and safety.

Heartwell is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status. Heartwell offers competitive health and 401k benefits and match, in addition to generous PTO.