Job title: Health Safety & Environmental Manager
Reporting to: Plant Manager
Location: Lakeland, USA
The Opportunity
The Manager of Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) provides strategic leadership and oversight for all health, safety, and environmental programs at Treatt’s Lakeland facility, ensuring a safe, sustainable, and compliant operation within a dynamic food manufacturing environment. This role serves as the principal advisor to senior management on all HSE matters, developing and implementing policies that protect people, assets, and the environment while supporting Treatt’s values and operational excellence goals.
This position is responsible for establishing long-term safety strategies, leading a proactive safety culture, ensuring adherence to local, state, and federal regulations (including OSHA, EPA, FDA, and FSMA), and embedding environmental stewardship and sustainability initiatives across the business. The Director will lead continuous improvement programs that minimize risk, enhance employee engagement, and reinforce Treatt’s commitment to safety as a core business value.
What it’s like to work here
We’ve been making the world taste better since 1886 and sell over 3000 products in more than 90 countries, but we’re only just getting started. We’re on an exciting journey and have ambitious plans to become the indispensable partner of choice for the world’s leading flavor and fragrance houses, beverage and consumer brands.
On joining Treatt, you’ll become one of over 300 international experts, working together to collectively surprise and delight our customers. Nothing is more important to us than the happiness of our people as without them, we’d never succeed.
Duties & Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
• Develop and execute the site’s HSE strategic plan aligned with corporate and global objectives, ensuring integration with business operations and sustainability goals.
• Partner with senior leadership to foster a world-class safety culture emphasizing accountability, engagement, and continuous improvement.
• Serve as a member of the Plant Leadership Team, influencing decisions that impact safety, environmental performance, and regulatory compliance.
• Lead HSE risk management initiatives, identifying emerging risks and developing mitigation strategies.
Health & Safety Management
• Direct the design, implementation, and improvement of comprehensive HSE management systems in accordance with ISO, OSHA, and corporate standards.
• Oversee the development and delivery of training programs, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and promoting proactive safety awareness among employees and contractors.
• Establish performance metrics, dashboards, and KPIs to monitor safety performance and drive continuous improvement.
• Oversee the initiation, documentation, and tracking of all workers’ compensation claims, ensuring timely and accurate submission of required reports, coordination with Human Resources, and compliance with state and federal regulations.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for workers’ compensation inquiries, maintaining communication between employees, HR, insurance carriers, and medical providers to facilitate case management and return-to-work programs.
• Lead and review all incident investigations, ensuring root-cause analysis and implementation of corrective and preventive actions.
• Oversee safety audits, behavioral-based safety programs, and near-miss reporting to ensure sustainable compliance and cultural adoption.
• Chair the Site Safety Committee and mentor Safety Champions to strengthen ownership and engagement at all levels.
Environmental & Sustainability Leadership
• Oversee environmental compliance programs, including waste management, air and water permitting, chemical handling, and pollution prevention.
• Ensure proper preparation and submission of environmental reports (SPCC, Tier II, TRI, stormwater, hazardous waste).
• Partner with corporate sustainability teams to integrate resource-efficiency initiatives (energy, water, waste reduction) into plant operations.
• Ensure the facility remains compliant with EPA, DEP, and local environmental regulations, anticipating changes and adapting policies accordingly.
Emergency Preparedness & Regulatory Relations
• Lead emergency response planning, crisis management, and business continuity efforts.
• Serve as the primary liaison with regulatory agencies during inspections, audits, and reporting activities.
• Coordinate responses to external audits, insurance reviews, and corporate assessments, ensuring action plans are executed effectively.
Leadership & People Development
• Build, mentor, and develop a high-performing HSE team, promoting technical growth and leadership capability.
• Partner with HR and department heads to integrate HSE considerations into onboarding, performance management, and leadership development.
• Champion cross-functional collaboration with Quality, Engineering, and Operations to embed safety and environmental excellence into plant design and daily activities.
• Collaborate closely with HR to align workers’ compensation procedures, injury reporting, and employee recovery processes with overall safety and wellness initiatives.
Continuous Improvement & Innovation
• Evaluate new technologies, systems, and methods to improve HSE performance.
• Leverage data analytics and digital tools to enhance reporting, predictive risk identification, and performance transparency.
• Benchmark against industry best practices and participate in professional HSE networks to maintain leading-edge expertise.
Education & Training
• Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science, Occupational Health & Safety, Industrial Engineering, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• 10+ years of progressive HSE experience in food, beverage, or ingredient manufacturing, including at least 5 years in a leadership capacity.
• Proven success in developing and implementing HSE management systems in alignment with OSHA, EPA, FDA, and GFSI/FSMA regulations.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead cultural transformation in a manufacturing setting.
• Experience with sustainability and ESG initiatives highly desirable.
• Professional certifications preferred: CSP, CIH, CHMM, or equivalent.
Knowledge & Experience
• Strategic thinking and the ability to translate vision into actionable plans.
• Strong leadership presence with the ability to influence across levels and functions.
• Excellent understanding of U.S. regulatory frameworks and international standards.
• Data-driven decision making and strong analytical skills.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and negotiation skills.
• Continuous improvement mindset with strong problem-solving capabilities.
• Proven ability to build engagement and accountability across diverse teams.
Skills & Abilities
• Organization skills: Must be energetic, motivated, and self-directed. You must be a self-motivator with the ability to support, plan and implement multiple projects and training. Strong organizational, analytical and team building skills.
• Leadership skills: Proven ability to make decisions by exercising sound judgement.
• Creative and Analytical thinking skills: Ability to create or review documents with focus on accuracy and clarity. You must show an understanding in manufacturing and be able to critically evaluate individual processes and projects, then synthesize their insights to arrive at a summary for overall organizational HSE improvement.
• Communication skills: Strong coaching skills. Establish and maintain effective communication with peers and senior management. It is important to be able to speak, listen, and write well as well as hold presentations, facilitate meetings and trainings, create reports and present information as required. Ability to work and communicate well with all types of people (shop floor to director) to assist, coach and mentor projects for the proper transfer of knowledge. Excellent People skills, verbal and written communication skills, ability to adjust content and style depending on audience. Ability of successfully influence multiple partners and lead cross functional teams, driving results.
• Creativity skills: Able to identify opportunities for continuous health and safety improvements,
• Integrity: An undivided and unbiased state is required while executing tasks. You will be trustworthy, hold confidence and resilience when faced against tough situations.
• People skills/relationship building: Proven ability of driving a successful safety culture with examples on how to influence change. A desire to deliver a quality end user experience. Relationship building is required among clients to earn trust, respect, credibility with productive interactions.
Working Conditions
Exposure to hazardous Chemicals
Open Office and lab environment – typical spacious room, desks close together.
Shop floor exposure, including some time inside and outside production or workshops environments.