Director of Farm Operations #7999

Director of Farm Operations #7999

Position Summary

The Director of Farm Operations is responsible for leading the entire operations function for client’s Idaho Farms across approximately 7,000 acres of agricultural production. Southern Idaho.

Primary crops include watermelon, pumpkins, sweet corn, and onions. Operations also support sugar beets, potatoes, hay, field corn, and other rotational crops.

The Director has broad authority to run the Operations Department and is accountable for ensuring that people, equipment, time, and other resources are deployed effectively to complete work safely, correctly, on time, and at a competitive cost.

This position requires more than strong day-to-day execution. The Director must be capable of planning ahead, anticipating problems, developing people, improving systems, controlling costs, adopting technology, and continuously finding better ways to accomplish the work.

The goal is to build and lead an Operations Department capable of functioning autonomously without requiring routine intervention from the President.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Leadership & Execution

Lead all day-to-day agricultural operations, including ground preparation, planting, field operations, harvest, cellar operations, packing operations, and other activities required to support crop production.

Translate crop requirements and business priorities into executable operational plans.

Ensure work is completed correctly, efficiently, safely, and within required timeframes.

Maintain visibility across the entire operation and proactively address developing problems before they affect execution.

Take ownership of operational results rather than relying on the President to identify problems, establish plans, or drive execution.

Planning & Scheduling

Develop detailed operational plans well in advance of planting, harvest, and other critical periods.

Identify labor, equipment, transportation, and other resource requirements before they become constraints.

Create planting and harvest plans that account for timing, available labor, equipment capacity, logistics, and expected workload.

Identify bottlenecks and develop contingency plans before critical operating periods.

Continuously adjust crew sizes, schedules, start and end times, days off, and resource assignments based on workload.

Coordinate with other company operations when labor or equipment can be shared more efficiently.

Labor Management & Productivity

Ensure employees are assigned to productive work and staffing levels are appropriate for actual workload.

Actively manage labor cost rather than maintaining historical staffing patterns.

Adjust crew size and working hours as operational requirements change.

Measure productivity and identify opportunities to accomplish work with fewer labor hours while maintaining quality, timeliness, and safety.

Work closely with HR to recruit and retain domestic employees while effectively utilizing the company's H-2A workforce.

People Development

Develop managers, supervisors, equipment operators, drivers, mechanics, and other key employees.

Maintain a pipeline of trained employees capable of filling critical positions as the company grows or experiences turnover.

Identify high-potential employees and intentionally prepare them for greater responsibility.

Establish clear expectations for managers and supervisors and hold them accountable for performance.

Build leadership depth so problems are resolved at the appropriate organizational level rather than routinely escalating to the Director or President.

Equipment & Maintenance

Ensure equipment required for upcoming operations is field-ready before it is needed.

Establish strong coordination between Operations and maintenance personnel.

Ensure preventive maintenance and repairs are completed consistently and at appropriate times.

Minimize preventable downtime during critical planting and harvest periods.

Evaluate equipment utilization and identify underutilized, unnecessary, or inefficient equipment.

Participate in equipment purchasing decisions with an emphasis on productivity, reliability, total cost, and return on investment.

Identify opportunities to eliminate field passes, combine operations, change equipment, or otherwise reduce operating cost.

Financial Management

Manage the Operations Department within established budgets and financial expectations.

Understand and actively manage major operating costs, including labor, repairs, maintenance, equipment, fuel, and other operational expenses.

Monitor actual performance against budget and explain significant variances.

Evaluate operational decisions based on both execution requirements and financial impact.

Develop plans to improve cost efficiency without compromising crop requirements, safety, quality, or operational reliability.

Systems & Continuous Improvement

Continuously improve how work is planned, communicated, measured, and executed.

Build systems that allow a large and complex agricultural operation to function consistently without depending on constant individual intervention.

Identify recurring problems and address their root causes rather than repeatedly solving the same problems.

Challenge historical practices when better, safer, more reliable, or more cost-effective approaches are available.

Standardize successful processes so they can be consistently repeated by different managers, supervisors, and crews.

Look for opportunities to reduce labor, equipment cost, depreciation, repairs, downtime, and unnecessary complexity.

Technology & Communication

Use technology to improve scheduling, communication, planning, accountability, and operational visibility.

Develop and implement appropriate tools including software, spreadsheets, automated messaging, calendars, schedules, dashboards, and other systems.

Ensure managers, supervisors, and crews receive clear and timely expectations regarding where they need to be, what needs to be accomplished, and the standards for completing the work.

Create communication processes capable of functioning effectively across a large, geographically dispersed workforce.

Relationship with Farm Management

The Director of Farm Operations works closely with Director of Farm Management as a parallel leadership function.

Farm Management is responsible for agronomy, irrigation, crop requirements, crop timing, harvest readiness, yield, quality, and other crop-management decisions.

Farm Operations is responsible for determining how those requirements are executed, including labor deployment, equipment allocation, crew structure, scheduling, logistics, and operational methods.

The two functions are expected to plan collaboratively and resolve routine issues directly.

Significant conflicts involving crop requirements, operational capabilities, timing, or resource priorities may be escalated to the President of the Farm.

Authority

The Director of Operations has broad authority to run the Farm Operations Department within established company policies, budgets, and financial authority.

This includes authority to:

Direct operational managers, supervisors, and employees.

Establish schedules and crew structures.

Allocate labor and equipment throughout farm operations.

Hire, terminate, promote, and reorganize Operations personnel in coordination with company HR processes.

Make operational purchasing decisions within established financial authority.

Establish and improve operational systems and procedures.

Implement technology and operational improvements.

Adjust staffing, working hours, and resource allocation based on operational requirements.

Make routine operational decisions without presidential approval.

The President should primarily be involved in strategic direction, major capital and organizational decisions, significant cross-functional conflicts, and other matters outside the normal authority of the Director.

Leadership Expectations

The Director of Farm Operations is expected to think ahead rather than primarily react to today's problems; make decisions independently within established authority; develop solutions rather than simply identify problems; use operational and financial data to make decisions; build capable managers and supervisors; communicate clearly and consistently; embrace new systems and technology; challenge inefficient historical practices; and take ownership of operational results.

The Director should continuously work toward creating an organization that becomes more capable, more efficient, and less dependent on individual intervention over time.

Qualifications

Significant agricultural operations experience required.

Experience with large-scale production agriculture strongly preferred.

Experience with fresh-market or labor-intensive crops highly desirable.

Demonstrated experience leading large crews and complex agricultural operations.

Strong understanding of agricultural equipment, field operations, harvest operations, labor management, and maintenance.

Demonstrated ability to plan and coordinate multiple simultaneous operations.

Strong leadership, employee-development, and problem-solving capabilities.

Financial understanding sufficient to manage a significant operating budget and make cost-based decisions.

Demonstrated ability to improve processes and implement systems.

Comfortable adopting and using technology.

Experience with H-2A or other large seasonal agricultural labor programs preferred.

Spanish language ability beneficial but not required.

Measures of Success

Success will be measured by the overall performance and increasing independence of Operations, including:

Work completed correctly and on schedule.

Labor productivity and control of labor cost.

Quality and timeliness of planting, harvest, and other critical operations.

Effective allocation of labor and equipment.

Equipment readiness and reduction of preventable downtime.

Performance against operating budgets.

Quality of operational planning and forecasting.

Development and retention of managers, supervisors, operators, drivers, mechanics, and other key employees.

Strength of the leadership pipeline for critical operational positions.

Successful adoption of improved systems and technology.

Quality and consistency of communication throughout Operations.

Reduction in recurring operational problems.

Continuous improvement in operational efficiency and cost.

Increasing ability of Operations to function autonomously without routine intervention from the President.