Director of Plant Operations

Director of Plant Operations

Location: Willcox, AZ (on-site)
Reports to: Chief Operating Officer
Industry: Specialty Potatoes / Fresh Produce
Employment type: Full-time

About Us:
At Plant Grow Harvest (PGH) , we’re redefining what premium potatoes can be. Through our vertically integrated farming and packing operations, we bring our consumer brand, Digs , to leading retailers and foodservice partners nationwide. Our mission is simple: grow better, pack smarter, and deliver excellence from field to fork , while building a culture where A-players thrive.

Why This Role Exists:
Our production facility is the heartbeat of our business. As we scale, we’re looking for a Director of Plant Operations to turn a good plant into a great one, a leader who thrives on systems, accountability, and velocity.

You’ll coach and develop a young, hungry team , bring structure and process to every shift, and free up our senior leadership to focus on growth and expansion. This is a chance to own the plant, elevate performance, and shape culture at a rapidly growing agri-food company.

This Job Is For You If:

• You’re an animal for execution: driven, relentless, and allergic to “good enough.”
• You’re a coach at heart , fired up by helping a young team get better every week.
• You speak potato fluently : you know bruise points, packout rates, and what great product looks like before anyone else does.
• You geek out on cost, equipment, and labor efficiencies , you see the floor as a living system and can’t rest until it hums.

This Job Is Not For You If:

• You’re all talk and no data , you can’t drive change without measuring it.
• You develop people or chase results, but not both . We demand both.
• You communicate in vague generalities and get lost bouncing between email, text, Teams, and calls. Clarity wins here.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead all daily operations from raw receiving to final shipment, ensuring safety, quality, and throughput every shift.
• Align labor, equipment, and scheduling to hit plan while managing cost and efficiency.
• Bottleneck identification and countermeasures; drive hour-by-hour performance routines with OEE and downtime analytics.
• Cross-functional orchestration with Maintenance and QA/QC to align production plans with uptime and quality standards.
• Build SOPs, training systems, and a visible skills matrix that lift performance across the team.
• Champion a culture of accountability, teamwork, and ownership on the floor.
• Coordinate with Sales and Logistics to deliver exceptional customer service and fulfillment.
• Use data, KPIs, and visual management to drive continuous improvement, hour by hour, day by day.

What You’ll Bring:

• 7+ years leading plant operations in Potato Operations.
• Proven success managing labor planning, cost-to-serve, and production flow.
• Experience improving safety, quality, throughput, and efficiency through structured systems.
• Strong background collaborating with Maintenance, QA, HR, and Finance.
• Comfort with raw receiving, post-harvest handling, and fresh inventory management (FEFO preferred).
• A track record of building teams and culture, developing people while holding a hard line on performance.

Bonus points if you have:

• Speak Spanish fluently.
• Exposure to automation, capital projects, or lean/continuous improvement.
• Experience managing diverse labor sources (including H-2A) and multi-shift environments.

Who You Are:

You’re floor-first, data-driven, and people-centered . You make performance visible, coach to the standard, and raise the bar through clarity and follow-through. You don’t just hit goals—you build the system that makes hitting them the norm.

Compensation & Benefits:

Competitive base salary, performance bonus tied to plant KPIs, comprehensive benefits package, and relocation assistance where applicable.

Join Us

If you want to build a best-in-class operation, lead an ambitious young team, and turn potential into performance, this is your shot.

Apply now and help us grow something exceptional.