Fermentation Recovery Engineer- Valent BioSciences, LLC

at  Sumitomo Chemical Group Companies of America

ABOUT US:

Valent BioSciences LLC is a worldwide leader in the research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of biorational products for the agriculture, public health, and forestry markets. We have more than 60 years of experience bringing biorational products to market, and our products are used in sustainable operations in 95 countries around the world. Biorational products maximize plant quality, productivity, and sustainability.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical, Valent BioSciences LLC operates with the Sumitomo Spirit mindset, which means to benefit both self and others, recognizing that private and public interests are one and the same. It’s about contributing to society, as well as making a profit.
The Valent Biosciences manufacturing site located on an expansive 73-acre site in Osage, IA is a state of the art 130,000 square foot plant and is the largest purpose-built biorational facility in the world. It serves as the manufacturing and quality control center for Valent BioSciences broad portfolio of fermentation products.

DESCRIPTION OF JOB:

As a Recovery Engineer at Valent BioSciences you will have excellent communication, project management, and leadership skills as well as strong technical knowledge and hands-on experience in recovery processing of fermentation broth. You also will have broad responsibilities to troubleshoot and improve downstream processes to improve yields and eliminate costs. Experience in the areas of crystallization, drying, ion exchange chromatography, membrane filtration, centrifugal separations, or evaporation are especially valued. You will take a leading role in day to day troubleshooting as well as longer term process improvement projects.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS AND EDUCATION:

• B.S. in chemical engineering or chemistry with 10 -15 years of experience, M.S. or Ph.D. preferred with 5 -10 years of experience.
• Hands-on experience with industrial scale bioprocessing recovery equipment.
• Demonstrated technical knowledge of fermentation downstream processing technology.
• Self-starter who takes initiative and acts with a sense of urgency.
• Six Sigma experience.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to prepare and present technical results and recommendations to Plant Management.
• Highly proficient with Microsoft Excel.
• Consummate team player.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Monitors performance, troubleshoots, investigates, recommends, and implements corrective action for nonconformance of recoveries, including but not limited to foreign growth contaminations and low yield batches.
• Optimizes processes for improved operability, cost reduction and downstream process improvement.
• Serves as a recovery consultant and technical resource in support of Production and Process Engineers, Production Supervisors and Operators, and Quality Control.
• Educates and informs production supervisors and operators on technical operations.
• Writes and maintains a file of technical reports.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS:

• Manages laboratory scale pilot testing and pilot plant testing on selected projects.
• Uses production data to analyze trends and troubleshoot. Aggregates data for production reports.
• Communicates results and progress of recovery to management in a clear and concise fashion through written reports and oral presentations.
• Champion safety and be a safety leader as evidenced by deeds and words.
• Finds ways to improve plant capacity.
• Tracks and trends yield and quality data for each batch for all products to identify and eliminate variation and to identify continuous improvement projects.
• Works with Maintenance and Engineering to troubleshoot and design improvements to plant equipment.