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Plant Manager

Cornerstone · Stuarts Draft, VA

Apply on Cornerstone ↗
Level
Manager
Team
Production
Travel
10%
Degree
Required
Experience asked
15+ years
Industry
Industrial
Posted
Recently

The role in 30 seconds

A management production role at Cornerstone (industrial) in Stuarts Draft, VA.

They ask for
15+ years · degree required
Tools it names
Lean, Casting, AutoCAD
Day to day
about 10% travel

Read from the posting. The full description is below.

From the plant jobs report · week of November 2, 2026

Production Engineer roles in Virginia: typical posted base $114k–$160k.

Median of the low and high ends of 7 live postings that list pay, out of 25 production engineer openings in Virginia, read from manufacturers' own careers sites.

Virginia plant jobs report →Pay by team and state →What moves pay →

How this role compares

Against 24 other live production postings in Virginia.

Base pay
Not listed in this posting

Typical $114k–$160k, from 6 postings that list pay.

Experience asked
More than usual (15+ vs 7+)

Similar roles usually ask 7+ years.

Skills these teams ask for most

  • ✓ Team leadership 52%
  • New product launch 32%
  • ✓ Lean 28%

✓ = this posting asks for it too. % = share of similar postings that mention it.

Stands out: this posting asks for Casting, AutoCAD, which few similar roles mention. If you have it, lead with it.

It asks for 15+ years. If you're close, apply anyway: requirements are a wish list. Talk to someone doing this work there first.

At a glance

Pulled from the posting text. If it's not listed here, the posting didn't say.

How to get in at this plant

Five moves over a week or two. The first one takes ten minutes.

  1. 1

    Pick 2–3 people on the Production team at Cornerstone

    Engineers who joined in the last year or two reply the most. Use the team search on this page to find them.

  2. 2

    Send a short, curious note

    One real question about their work. No favors yet. Each person gets a different note, written for this role.

  3. 3

    Turn a reply into a short call

    Questions worth asking about this team:

    • What does a normal week look like on your team?
    • The posting says about 10% travel. Between which sites?
    • How did you land the job? What stood out in your interviews?
  4. 4

    Apply with someone vouching for you

    If the call went well, ask whether they’d pass your résumé to the hiring manager. Send your résumé link, apply that day, and let them know.

  5. 5

    Bring proof to the interview

    One page of before-and-after numbers from projects you led: scrap, OEE, cycle time, cost. Plant managers hire on results.

Plant Manager at Cornerstone in other locations

Cornerstone lists this title in 2 places. Pick the plant you can get to.

Full description from CornerstoneAs posted on their careers site.Show

Qualifications

  • ✓Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in engineering or business, or in place of a degree, a minimum of 15 years of significant, relevant professional experience.
  • ✓Master’s degree preferred.
  • ✓Minimum of 10 years previous experience in manufacturing, including packaging, process engineering, warehousing, and assembly.
  • ✓Minimum of 5 years in a senior people management role, including leading a cross functional leadership team.
  • ✓Proven track record of application of lean tools, processes, and systems to deliver sustained continuous improvement preferred.
  • ✓Experienced leading teams through compliant execution of formally defined management systems.
  • ✓Experience participating on cross-functional teams, driving decision-making, and overseeing operational and financial metrics.
  • ✓Possesses strong knowledge of manufacturing supply chain functions, including planning, logistics, quality, materials management, and inventory control.
  • ✓Requires minimal travel (10%).
  • ✓All Microsoft Office products; AutoCAD and statistical packages desired.
Show full description ↓

Job Description

The Plant Manager is responsible for providing leadership, direction, and resource stewardship for a high-volume manufacturing site. This role is accountable for driving timely and impactful improvements to the operating environment and for delivering performance at or above expectations for safety, quality, delivery, cost, and their team. He/She will lead the execution of cross-functional strategies and plans that ensure we execute the company’s manufacturing excellence roadmap. The goals of this role are to manage structured change and combine long-term thinking with near term actions and decisions.

Successful candidates demonstrate their commitment to their team by taking direct responsibility for the safety of the people who work in your business, build trust and value the experience of the team around them and look to develop the people, sets high expectations for self and others, is a change agent and an effective communicator, is comfortable frequently interacting with senior leaders, and shows personal resilience.

Operations Leadership

  • •Set an unwavering expectation that relationships between supervisors, peers, and employees are respectful and inclusive.
  • •Maintain environments that influence how we feel physically and mentally at work and reflect attention to detail not only in the quality of our output, but in our daily productive routines.
  • •Develop site strategies for COGS reduction while managing growth and/or expansion.
  • •Reduce costs of goods measured as savings year-to-year including direct labor and overhead.
  • •Manage and ensure successful new product/piloting.

Cross Functional Leadership

  • •Take responsibility for the safety and security of the people who work in our business, the products we supply to customers, and the company’s physical assets; identify, assess, and address any immediate safety and security issues.
  • •Create optimized schedules that balance production efficiency, deliver supply, and employee well-being by selectively and strategically using OT.
  • •Ensure compliance with quality assurance measured in our QA Index and Right First Time.
  • •Help drive all TQM activities within the sites.

Operations Excellence

  • •Invest a substantial amount of time reinforcing our manufacturing excellence roadmap, holding his/herself and others accountable for performance and leadership commitments.
  • •Identify and implement ways of working that make lean thinking and employee engagement a way of life in the plant: focus will be on the process, not the individual.
  • •Drive simplification efforts within the site, particularly those that impact operational costs.
  • •Help manage the effort for all new equipment, assist in establishing a project team, clearly establishing a Commissioning/Qualification/Verification (CQV) process approach.

Talent & Organization

  • •Invest significant effort on talent offense and aligning training and development of teams to mindsets and skillsets important to the future of our business.
  • •Provide tactical direction as needed for all operations groups.
  • •Develop and train leadership and technical groups.
  • •Use qualitative and quantitative approaches to forecasting labor demand and mix.

Culture

  • •Foster a culture, including ways of working and behaviors, that is congruent with our mission, values, and success model.
  • •Take an active role in the community: raise awareness about opportunities the manufacturing industry can offer, nurture future manufacturing talent, grow their network and the company’s reputation, and give back.
  • •Develop and deliver approaches to improve culture based on employee engagement survey data.
  • •Develop and implement solutions that drive a high-performance culture.

Other

  • •Lead and participate in cross-functional projects and business initiatives as needed.
  • •Perform other duties, as required.

Leadership competencies

  • •Cornerstone Building Brands (CBB) Values and Behaviors & Mindsets – Act consistently with CBB’s Values (Safety, Integrity, & Inclusion) and Behaviors & Mindsets (Customer-Centricity, Interconnectedness, Continuous Improvement).
  • •Operations Excellence - Demonstrated ability to successfully develop and execute an operations strategy.
  • •Influencing – Proficient in influencing leaders through a variety of techniques.
  • •Results Orientation – Resilient with demonstrated ability to consistently deliver on accountabilities, including overcoming setbacks and navigating obstacles.
  • •Critical Thinking/Problem-Solving/Analytical – Highly numerate and data-driven with strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
  • •Collaboration – Highly collaborative team player. Partners with others across functional disciplines with respect and humility.
  • •Change Management – Ability to lead change in a way that brings people along in the journey.
  • •Systematic – Thinks/act

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