Winery Operations Manager - Fresno

at  The Wine Group

At The Wine Group we are passionate about our people, our future, and our wine. We are America’s second largest wine producer by volume with over 1,200 employees globally across 12 locations in California, New York, and Australia. We are proud to be responsible for many of America’s most beloved wine brands, including Cupcake, Franzia, Chloe, Concannon, Benziger, Imagery, AVA Grace, 7 Deadly, and more. We are dedicated to our culture built on values like entrepreneurialism, innovation, social responsibility, and stewardship. To learn about us and our career opportunities, check us out at www.thewinegroup.com and then come join the exciting journey at The Wine Group.

JOB SUMMARY

Reporting to the Plant Manager, this role has direct responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the facility. Key areas of responsibility include planning and directing the Fresno winery cellar operation, ensuring priorities and protocols are achieved, while managing people, cost effectiveness, quality, accuracy, and safety to all performance standards and schedule.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Must be 21 or older at time of hire.
• Must demonstrate leadership abilities. Proven track record of high integrity.
• BS/BA in Chemical Engineering, Food Science, Microbiology, or Business Administration or equivalent education/work experience.
• Minimum 5-7 years in staff management.
• Strong project management skills.
• Comfortable in bargaining unit environments.
• Adaptive and stable in changing environments.
• Must get the big picture issues, without losing the eye for details.
• Proven analytical thinker, complemented by subjectivity for proper decision making.
• Proven resolution management skills.
• Seasoned crisis management expertise.
• Powerful oral and written communicator.
• Keen listening skills.
• Capable of managing multiple cross functional professionals.
• Must possess a strong understanding of ISO 9001-2000, HACCP, BRC, and IFS protocols.

• The Winery Operations Manager must exhibit strong managerial and leadership skills. Also, the ability to interact with the employees while continuing to build a cohesive team and develop individual potential within the team members.
• Develop the production supervision staff (including Cellar Supervisor, Foremen/Leads, and Refrigeration Ops), establishing key performance indicators, and other measurable metrics to gauge the efficiency of the staff.
• Coordinates, prioritizes, and implements daily cellar activities including, but not limited to supervision, training, and cross-training, job assignments, learning assistance, individual employee development, counseling, safety awareness, and discipline of employees to help them reach the overall objective of creating a great product for minimal cost.
• Key driver of all Safety policies and procedures for the site. This includes overseeing safety audits, incident investigations, implementation of Company-wide safety policies and relevant safety training. Must lead by example.
• Establish Plant objectives through construction of short and long-term plans for Plant improvements. Work with engineering and technical services to provide recommendations for improvements in processing equipment and techniques. Create long range plans for operating requirements and capital.
• Prepare and implement training programs to continually upgrade the skills of personnel in areas of responsibilities. Responsible for the development and training of personnel to include scheduling training sessions.
• Must have a complete understanding of the enological process or related fields of process.
• Create and manage of annual operating budget for the cellar operation and manufacturing.
• Ensures compliance with all safety, personnel procedures, policies and is responsible for keeping all SOP’s current.
• Prepare monthly reports to Plant Manager regarding plant activities which include processing activities, safety, problem areas and/or areas requiring decisions. Report on layoffs and/or recalls, disciplinary actions issue, scheduled meetings, and safety incidents.
• Responsible to see that inventories of plant equipment is updated on an annual basis and presented to the Plant Manager for review (pumps, hoses, fittings, spare motors, etc.).
• Must have competent understanding of high volumetric process flows, as it relates to fluid process movement and wet handling.
• Must be capable of setting cost recovery initiatives through process improvements.
• Create and manage large scale capital projects for the cellar operation and manufacturing.
• Work closely with the Maintenance Manager to ensure all equipment, cooperage, and systems assigned to the cellar and manufacturing departments are maintained in good, sanitary, safe, and cost-effective working order to ensure quality of wine produced and safe maintenance of the bulk inventory.
• Develop sanitation best practices while taking environmental impacts into consideration.
• Play active role in documentation control for all regulatory agencies.
• In conjunction with Cellar Supervisor, lead the daily shift change-over meetings with Winemaking, Cellar, and Maintenance.
• Must embrace and demonstrate The Wine Group’s Vision, Mission, and Values of Long-Term Sustainable Value Creation, while being Relentlessly Entrepreneurial, with Empowered People who are Responsible and Trustworthy and keep them in mind when making all decisions.
• This job description reflects management’s assignment of general functions; it does not restrict the tasks that may be assigned.