Finance Director – Fabrication & Manufacturing

About Loenbro

Loenbro is a trusted, long-term construction lifecycle partner to thousands of customers across the U.S. Our market spans all industries and our service offerings include Critical Electrical, Mechanical & Structural, Soft Crafts, Inspection, Underground Maintenance and Installation, and Fabrication. Our expertise lies in simplifying the complex and establishing long-standing relationships with our partners. We have a national presence but a local approach—every customer benefits from our capabilities and our care.

At Loenbro, we don't just offer jobs—we build careers grounded in integrity, teamwork, excellence, and purpose. Join a team where your expertise is valued, your growth is supported, and your work helps expand the reach of the critical infrastructure that powers communities across the nation.

 

Job Summary

The Finance Director – Fabrication & Manufacturing is the senior financial business partner to the Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and is responsible for establishing the financial foundation, operating discipline, and decision-support structure required to operate Loenbro Fabrication & Manufacturing (F&M) as a centralized, stand-alone profit and loss business.

A primary initial responsibility will be to work across Manufacturing, Operations, Corporate Finance, Accounting, Project Controls, Estimating, Supply Chain, and other key stakeholders to carve out the current fabrication and manufacturing cost structure from the broader operating businesses. The Director will establish transparent and repeatable methods for revenue recognition, direct and indirect cost assignment, overhead allocation and absorption, intercompany/interdivision charging, facility economics, project and product profitability, forecasting, and management reporting.

This role extends beyond traditional finance and reporting. The Finance Director will be a strategic partner in executing Loenbro's manufacturing transformation and growth strategy, providing financial analysis for capacity expansion, capital deployment, productization, external-market growth, facility rationalization, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and other investments. The position will create the KPI framework and financial visibility necessary to understand utilization, margin, cash generation, return on invested capital, and the true economics of Loenbro's manufacturing network.

As Loenbro develops additional centralized or new business lines within Operations, this position is expected to have the potential to expand beyond Fabrication & Manufacturing and provide financial leadership, governance, and business-building support for those emerging operations. The successful candidate will therefore combine strong FP&A and accounting fundamentals with operational finance, commercial judgment, manufacturing and project-costing knowledge, capital allocation discipline, and a builder mentality.

 

Essential Job Responsibilities

Stand-Alone P&L Development & Financial Structure

• Partner with the SVP of Manufacturing, Corporate Finance, Accounting, Operations, and other stakeholders to establish Fabrication & Manufacturing as a centralized, stand-alone P&L business.
• Lead the financial carve-out and baseline assessment of existing F&M operations, including revenue, direct labor, materials, equipment, facilities, supervision, shared services, and indirect costs.
• Establish consistent methodologies for cost allocation, intercompany/interdivision charges, transfer pricing, overhead recovery, shared-service allocations, and treatment of idle capacity and unabsorbed overhead.
• Develop cost-center, profit-center, project, facility, customer, and product-level structures that provide clear visibility into performance across the manufacturing network.
• Create appropriate financial separation and reporting for internal Loenbro work and external third-party revenue while preserving transparency into enterprise value creation.
• Partner with Accounting to ensure the F&M financial model complies with corporate policies, internal controls, revenue-recognition requirements, and period-close standards.
• Build a scalable financial structure capable of supporting future facilities, products, acquisitions, and new operating business lines.

Financial Planning, Analysis & Forecasting

• Own budgeting, forecasting, long-range planning, and financial analysis for Fabrication & Manufacturing.
• Develop integrated financial models linking backlog, probability-weighted pipeline, shop loading, labor requirements, facility capacity, revenue, margin, overhead absorption, cash flow, and capital needs.
• Implement rolling forecasts and scenario models that allow leadership to anticipate underutilization, capacity constraints, margin risk, and investment requirements.
• Provide timely variance analysis and executive-level insights explaining performance versus budget, forecast, estimate, and strategic plan.
• Develop business cases for new products, customers, markets, facilities, technologies, and manufacturing initiatives.
• Support multi-year strategic planning and quantify the financial implications of Loenbro's transition from project-specific fabrication toward scalable manufacturing.

Cost Transparency & Operational Finance

• Establish a clear understanding of the true cost to operate each fabrication and manufacturing facility and major production capability.
• Develop standardized costing methodologies across mechanical/pipe fabrication, electrical prefab, modular assembly, and future manufactured product lines.
• Provide visibility into labor productivity, burden rates, material performance, equipment costs, freight and logistics, facility costs, rework, scrap, quality costs, and other major cost drivers.
• Partner with Operations and Project Controls to improve project-level cost forecasting, estimate-at-completion accuracy, change management, and margin protection.
• Create estimate-to-actual feedback loops that improve future estimating, pricing, production planning, and execution.
• Identify margin leakage, structural inefficiencies, underutilized assets, and opportunities to improve cost competitiveness across the network.
• Support make-versus-buy, internal-versus-external sourcing, hub-versus-spoke allocation, and capacity decisions using fact-based financial analysis.

KPI Development & Performance Management

• Develop and maintain an integrated F&M scorecard combining financial and operational KPIs that support accountability and timely decision-making.
• Establish measures for revenue, gross margin, EBITDA contribution, backlog, pipeline conversion, facility utilization, labor utilization, shop loading, direct versus indirect labor, productivity, overhead absorption, and unabsorbed overhead.
• Track revenue and margin per direct labor hour, estimate versus actual performance, project margin erosion, material variance, rework/cost of poor quality, working capital, cash conversion, and return on invested capital.
• Develop visibility into internal versus external revenue mix, customer and market concentration, product/program profitability, facility economics, and capital productivity.
• Lead recurring financial and business-performance reviews with F&M leadership and provide concise actions, trends, risks, and opportunities rather than historical reporting alone.
• Ensure KPI definitions and data sources are standardized across facilities so performance can be compared consistently across the enterprise network.

Capital Planning & Investment Analysis

• Lead financial analysis and business-case development for capital expenditures across the F&M network.
• Establish consistent CAPEX evaluation criteria including ROI, payback, NPV, capacity impact, labor savings, margin improvement, strategic value, and execution risk.
• Evaluate investments in facilities, automation, equipment, technology, tooling, material handling, testing capabilities, and manufacturing systems.
• Support facility expansion, consolidation, rationalization, greenfield development, and major capacity decisions.
• Develop post-investment reviews to measure actual performance against the approved business case and improve future capital-allocation decisions.
• Partner with leadership to prioritize capital across competing growth, productivity, maintenance, and strategic requirements.

Strategic Acquisitions, Partnerships & Growth

• Partner with the SVP of Manufacturing, Corporate Development, executive leadership, and ownership in evaluating acquisitions that support the F&M strategy.
• Assess historical financial performance, quality of earnings, backlog, customer concentration, margins, assets, working capital, CAPEX requirements, capacity, and growth potential of acquisition targets.
• Evaluate strategic fit, synergies, geographic expansion, customer access, workforce capability, manufacturing capacity, and integration requirements.
• Develop valuation models, investment cases, return scenarios, sensitivity analyses, and downside cases to support acquisition decisions.
• Support financial due diligence, transaction planning, integration, and post-close performance tracking against the original investment thesis.
• Evaluate strategic partnerships, joint ventures, licensing arrangements, alliances, and other inorganic growth opportunities from a financial and value-creation perspective.

Commercial, Pricing & Productization Support

• Partner with Business Development, Estimating, Operations, and Manufacturing leadership on pricing strategy and commercial decision-making.
• Develop financial frameworks for internal transfer pricing and external market pricing that preserve appropriate manufacturing margins and clearly communicate enterprise economics.
• Evaluate major bids, customer programs, framework agreements, long-term manufacturing commitments, and programmatic opportunities.
• Support productization by developing product-level cost models, target margins, pricing frameworks, investment cases, and volume/breakeven analyses.
• Provide financial analysis supporting growth in mission critical/data centers, power, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, water/wastewater, energy transition, and other strategic markets.
• Evaluate the economics of standardized mechanical, electrical, skid, modular, and integrated M&E solutions, including the value of field-labor displacement and total-installed-cost improvement.
• Help establish hurdle rates and financial criteria for new products, markets, facilities, customers, and strategic initiatives.

Systems, Data & Financial Governance

• Partner with Operations, IT, Project Controls, Supply Chain, and Corporate Finance to establish the systems and data architecture required to operate a scalable manufacturing business.
• Support development and integration of ERP/MRP, project controls, shop-loading, forecasting, inventory, procurement, and management-reporting capabilities.
• Establish common financial master data, coding structures, definitions, and reporting standards across facilities.
• Drive automation of dashboards, forecasting, management reporting, and recurring financial analysis wherever practical.
• Ensure leadership has timely, reliable, decision-oriented information and clear ownership of source data and financial controls.

Leadership & Business Partnership

• Serve as a trusted financial advisor to the SVP of Manufacturing and the F&M leadership team, translating financial results into clear operational and strategic actions.
• Participate actively in strategic planning, operating reviews, commercial decisions, investment reviews, acquisition assessments, and business-performance discussions.
• Constructively challenge assumptions and ensure major operating, pricing, growth, and investment decisions are supported by disciplined analysis.
• Build financial acumen and ownership throughout the F&M leadership organization so operational leaders understand the financial consequences of their decisions.
• Develop and lead finance, FP&A, project-controls, or analytical resources as the business scales.
• Maintain strong functional alignment with Corporate Finance while providing the speed, transparency, and business-partner orientation required by a growing stand-alone operation.

Future Operations Finance Scope

• Support the establishment of financial frameworks and stand-alone P&Ls for additional centralized or emerging Operations business lines as assigned.
• Apply the F&M financial operating model to new businesses, including cost structure, reporting, KPI governance, forecasting, capital planning, and performance management.
• Support incubation, commercialization, acquisition, and integration of new service lines and operating platforms.
• Help build a scalable Operations finance organization capable of supporting multiple growth businesses while maintaining appropriate corporate governance and controls.

 

Key Performance Indicators

• Accuracy and timeliness of stand-alone F&M P&L reporting and forecasting.
• Visibility and consistency of facility, project, customer, and product-level profitability.
• Gross margin, EBITDA contribution, cash generation, and working-capital performance.
• Forecast accuracy tied to backlog, pipeline, shop loading, and capacity.
• Facility and labor utilization; overhead absorption and unabsorbed overhead.
• Estimate-to-actual performance and reduction in margin leakage.
• Revenue and margin per direct labor hour and other productivity economics.
• Internal versus external revenue mix and profitable external-market growth.
• CAPEX performance versus approved ROI, payback, and strategic objectives.
• Acquisition and investment performance versus approved business case.
• Quality, consistency, and adoption of F&M financial dashboards and KPI reporting.
• Timeliness and quality of decision support provided to Manufacturing and executive leadership.
• Financial readiness and scalability of new products, facilities, acquisitions, and future Operations business lines.

 

Key Qualifications

Required

• 10+ years of progressive experience in finance, FP&A, operational finance, project controls, accounting, or related business-finance leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience supporting manufacturing, fabrication, construction, industrial services, EPC, or another project-based operating environment.
• Experience establishing, managing, or materially supporting business-unit P&Ls and developing cost structures in complex operating environments.
• Strong understanding of job costing, manufacturing costing, overhead allocation and absorption, utilization, burden rates, margin analysis, and project financial controls.
• Demonstrated capability in budgeting, rolling forecasts, long-range planning, scenario analysis, and executive financial modeling.
• Experience developing CAPEX business cases and evaluating ROI, payback, NPV, and investment tradeoffs.
• Strong commercial and analytical judgment with the ability to connect operational decisions to margin, cash flow, capital efficiency, and enterprise value.
• Experience with ERP, project controls, business intelligence, and financial reporting systems; advanced spreadsheet and financial-modeling capability.
• Ability to operate effectively in an evolving environment where processes, systems, reporting structures, and organizational boundaries are being established and standardized.
• Strong executive communication, cross-functional leadership, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability and willingness to travel to Loenbro manufacturing and operating locations as required.

Preferred

• MBA, CPA, CMA, or other relevant advanced degree or professional credential.
• M&A, quality-of-earnings, due-diligence, valuation, acquisition integration, or corporate-development experience.
• Experience in private-equity-backed, high-growth, or transformation environments.
• Experience building finance capabilities for a new business unit, carve-out, centralized shared operation, or stand-alone P&L.
• Knowledge of fabrication, modular construction, electrical prefab, manufacturing operations, shop loading, inventory, supply chain, and capacity planning.
• Experience with product costing, standard costing, configure-to-order or engineer-to-order manufacturing, and product-line profitability.
• Experience developing executive dashboards and operational-finance KPI frameworks using business-intelligence tools.
• Experience supporting multi-site operations, facility rationalization, greenfield expansion, or manufacturing-network optimization.

 

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, or a related discipline required.

 

Core Competencies: Strategic Finance | Operational Finance | FP&A | P&L Leadership | Manufacturing Costing | Project Controls | KPI Development | Financial Modeling | Capital Allocation | M&A Analysis | Commercial Finance | Pricing & Margin Management | Business Transformation | Data & Systems | Executive Decision Support | Cross-Functional Leadership

 

Leadership Expectations

The Finance Director is expected to operate as a business leader first and a financial steward second. This individual must understand how work is estimated, sold, engineered, procured, fabricated, manufactured, shipped, and installed, and must translate those operating realities into financial structures that drive accountability and better decisions.

The Director must be willing to build where structures do not yet exist. Success will require creating transparency without unnecessary bureaucracy, challenging legacy cost assumptions, establishing consistent financial disciplines across multiple facilities, and partnering closely with operational leaders to improve margin, utilization, cash generation, and return on capital.

This leader will play a central role in Loenbro's manufacturing transformation. Success means providing the SVP of Manufacturing and executive leadership with a reliable financial foundation for scaling F&M as a stand-alone business, allocating capital intelligently, evaluating acquisitions and growth opportunities, and ultimately applying the same discipline to additional new business lines within Operations.

 

Working Relationships

This role collaborates extensively with the Senior Vice President of Manufacturing, Chief Operating Officer, CFO and Corporate Finance, Accounting, Corporate Development, Fabrication & Manufacturing leadership, shop and operations leaders, Business Development, Estimating, Project Controls, Procurement/Supply Chain, Engineering & Productization, Quality, Safety, HR, IT, Legal/Contracts, Loenbro operating divisions, executive leadership, ownership, external advisors, acquisition targets, strategic partners, customers, and suppliers.

 

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The physical demands and work environment described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Work Environment:

• Combination of office/remote work and regular travel to manufacturing facilities and operating locations; travel of approximately 20–30%, based on business needs.
• Potential visits to fabrication facilities, industrial job sites, and manufacturing shop floors to gather cost, utilization, and operational data.
• Potential exposure to typical industrial and manufacturing environment factors while touring facilities.
• Regular engagement with executive leadership, ownership, and external advisors, which may require regional and national travel by air and ground transportation.

This role requires compliance with all applicable safety regulations, personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements, and Loenbro's Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) policies.

 

Benefits

Loenbro offers a competitive salary, comprehensive benefits package, and rewards to those who join our team:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match
• Performance-based bonus plan
• Long-term Incentives
• Paid time off (PTO) and holiday pay
• Life and disability insurance
• Professional development and training opportunities
• Employee assistance program (EAP)

Benefits eligibility may vary based on employment classification and hours worked.

 

Guided by Core Values (LEAD), grounded in grit and a commitment to excellence, Loenbro betters our families, customers, and local communities. If you're ready to be part of a company that LEADS by:

• Living with Integrity
• Exceeding Expectations
• Acting with Urgency
• Delivering Excellence

…we want to hear from you.

Loenbro is an Equal Opportunity Employer