Good Chemistry Newsletter - December 2024

Happy Holidays! Welcome to the December 2024 issue of Good Chemistry News!

Looking forward to 2025, it’s clear the chemical industry will maintain a strong hiring market, giving the advantage to talented engineers & leaders looking for their next challenge.

Below you will find this month's Featured Top Talent, New Job Opportunities, and a quick industry news roundup.

This Month’s Featured Top Talent!

Title: Senior Maintenance & Reliability Engineer

Location: Houston area

Career Profile:

• BS in Mechanical Engineering
• MBA – Leadership & Management of Change
• 11 years’ experience as Maintenance & Reliability Engineer in manufacturing
• Strong maintenance & asset reliability improvement skills, including cost reduction
• Serves as site SME for troubleshooting and resolving plant equipment failures
• Coaching & supervising Maintenance personnel to meet reliability standards
• Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP)
• Certified Reliability Leader (CRL)
• Experienced in SolidWords 3-D models, Pro/E Wildfire, AutoCAD, Ultrasound Level I, FMEA, Apollo Root Cause Analysis
• US Citizen

Title: Production Engineer

Location: Houston area

Career Profile:

• BS in Chemical Engineering
• 10 years’ experience in production & process engineering roles in chemical manufacturing
• Skilled in both continuous and batch production, emulsion polymerization, reactor & distillation operations, and olefin/aromatic alkylation reactions
• Achieved production rate increases of up to 30%
• Experienced in programming unit sequences, recipes, graphics, and alarms in the DCS to improve process controls, including DCS & PLC troubleshooting
• Skilled in project scope development, economic analysis, process design, economic studies, and preparing P&IDs & PFDs
• Well versed in PSM & ISO compliance, leading PHA/HAZOPs, and completing MOCs & PSSRs

Hiring Managers: If you are growing your team and would like more information about any of the candidates featured above, please send me a short reply and we can set up a time to start a conversation.

Call or text Don directly at 919-827-4814, or email [email protected] to schedule a time to talk!

Open to Opportunities? It's important that we know each other! If we have not spoken before, it may make sense for us to talk - the time has never been better to see what's out there!

Check Out This Month’s New Job Opportunities!

Chemical Engineering:

• Production Engineers (Houston area, Louisiana)
• Process Engineers, Senior Process Engineers (Houston area, Louisiana)
• Process/Project Engineers (Houston area)

Process Control/Automation:

• Senior Process Control Engineer (Louisiana)
• Process Controls Engineering Supervisor (Louisiana)

Mechanical Engineering:

• Maintenance Engineer (Houston area)
• Senior Maintenance Engineer (Houston area)
• Rotating Equipment Reliability Engineers (Louisiana)

Instrumentation & Electrical:

• I&E Specialist or Engineer (Houston area)

Employment Summary for October 2024

Total nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged in October (+12,000), and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently. Employment continued to trend up in health care and government.

Temporary help services lost jobs. Employment declined in manufacturing due to strike activity.

Employment showed little or no change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; financial activities; leisure and hospitality; and other services.

Weekly Chemistry and Economic Trends - November 15th

Chemical Industry News

The Chemical Processing publication featured a series of articles focused on the chemical industry workforce and how it’s evolving into the future.

Large Language Models (aka "AI") are better at answering chemistry questions than humans but lack some practical skills like how to apply chemical reasoning and how to evaluate their own performance.

Global oil and gas contracts grew a substantial 47% between Q1 and Q2 of 2024, thanks in large part to new Petrobas contracts.

The future of work in the chemical industry will rely on sustainability, digitalization, recoded careers, and organizational agility. Much of the evolution of the industry will arrive with new talent.

About the MRI Chemicals & Refining Group:

Don Sharp has led the award-winning MRI Chemicals & Refining Group since 1994 and has been connecting great companies with outstanding candidates for over 30 years.

Our work in the chemical, petrochemical, and refining industry over the past three decades has provided many of the best companies with access to talented professionals that they have not been able to find elsewhere.

Interested in talking with me? It's important that we know each other! If we haven't spoken before, it may make sense for us to talk!

We welcome referrals! Do you know someone who is looking for a new position? With the intense competition for talent right now, partnering with an experienced Recruiter as a confidential, trusted advisor is more important than ever.

Hiring Managers: If you are growing your team or would like more information about any of the candidates mentioned above, please send me a short reply and we can set up a time to start a conversation.

Call Don at 919-781-0400 or email [email protected] to schedule a time to talk!

Don A. Sharp, CSAM

Managing Director/Senior Recruiter, Chemicals & Refining Group – MRI Raleigh/MRINetwork

Search & Placement in Chemicals | Petrochemicals | Petroleum Refining

919-827-4814 Direct Line/Text

919-781-0400 ext. 120 Office

Email: [email protected]

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