Director of Operations
Crystal Chem, Inc. — Itasca, Illinois
Be the owner's right hand and run the day-to-day of a stable, 35-year-old company.
About Crystal Chem
Crystal Chem is a 35-year-old family-owned specialty biochemical company headquartered in Itasca, Illinois. We manufacture ultra-sensitive ELISA kits and specialty reagents used by academic researchers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and diagnostic laboratories around the world. We are profitable, stable, and proud of a loyal global customer base built over decades. We're a small, close-knit team — and we're looking for someone who can help us run the business sharper, tighter, and more deliberately as we keep improving and modernizing how we operate.
The Role
We're looking for a Director of Operations to be the owner's right hand and effectively run the day-to-day business. This is not a layer of management sitting on top of a big team — it's a hands-on role in a small company where you'll be in the details: solving the problems that come up, bringing order and structure to how things run, and making the calls that keep the business moving so they don't all land on the CEO's desk.
You'll start by learning the business deeply — the products, the customers, the people, the workflows. As trust is built, you'll own more and more of the day-to-day. The everyday decisions will be yours to make; the bigger ones — key hires, major commitments, and strategic direction — you'll make in partnership with the CEO. The goal is simple: become the person the team relies on and the CEO can trust to run things well.
This role fits someone who is energized by figuring things out, getting their hands dirty, and leaving everything they touch better organized than they found it. It is not a fit for someone who wants to set strategy from a distance and hand the work to others. In a company our size, you are the one doing the work — and that is exactly the appeal.
What You'll Own
- Day-to-Day Operations: Keep the business running smoothly across order fulfillment, shipping, manufacturing coordination, and the dozens of small things that make a small company work. Be the person who notices what's off and fixes it.
- Process & Systems: Break down how the company operates, find what's inefficient or fragile, and bring structure and improvement where it's needed. Act as the steward of our operating systems and business technology (including our SAP/ERP environment) — coordinating with outside specialists and consultants, understanding requests fully before acting, and weighing the downstream consequences so changes are made deliberately, not rashly.
- Problem-Solving & Judgment: Be the first line for the issues that come up day to day — vendor problems, customer escalations, internal hiccups. Work them through with rigor, make the call when it's yours to make, and recognize the high-stakes situations that should come to the CEO.
- Analysis & Decision Support: Dig into the numbers and the details, lay out the relevant facts and options clearly, and either make the smart decision or tee it up cleanly for the CEO. A lot of this is groundwork — building the list, framing the question, doing the legwork — so decisions get made faster and better.
- Team & Coordination: Be the connective tissue across the business — keeping a small team aligned and accountable, working closely with functional leads (including manufacturing) and our U.S. and offshore (India) support teams, and partnering with outside advisors when specialized questions come up. Help run hiring as the team grows — shaping roles, screening candidates, and coordinating searches here and abroad.
- Customer & Vendor Relationships: Manage key customer and vendor touchpoints, keep commitments on track, and represent the company well.
- AI & Modernization: Use modern tools — including AI — to do the work faster and better, and help bring the rest of the team along.
Who You Are
- Analytical and structured. You break problems down, you're comfortable with numbers and data, and you bring order to messy or ambiguous situations. This is the single most important thing we're looking for.
- A strong executor. You don't just plan — you do. You follow through, you close loops, and things get done when you own them.
- Sound judgment. You can figure out what matters, make smart decisions with incomplete information, and you know the difference between a call you should just make and one worth escalating.
- Organized and reliable. You keep track of the details, and you're someone people can count on.
- A fast learner. You don't need to arrive knowing the science or our industry — you need to be smart and curious enough to learn it quickly. (Our CEO came from outside science and learned it for the business; you can too.)
- Owner's mindset. You treat the business like it's your own — careful with its money, protective of its quality, and proud of how it runs.
- AI-forward. Genuine enthusiasm and openness toward using new tools, including AI, to work smarter.
We care more about how you think than about years on a résumé or a specific title you've held. If you're sharp, organized, and driven to own outcomes, we want to hear from you.
Preferred, But Not Required
- Exposure to life sciences, manufacturing, distribution, or another technical or regulated industry
- Experience at a small business, startup, or any environment where you had to wear many hats and figure things out without a playbook
Why Crystal Chem
- Real ownership. You'll run things, not sit in meetings about running things. Your work has visible impact every single day.
- Solid ground. A stable, profitable, 35-year-old business with a loyal global customer base — a real foundation to build on.
- A balanced culture. A small, collegial team that values work-life balance and respects your time outside work — this isn't a grind-culture company. As the person the day-to-day runs through, you'll occasionally put in extra to get something over the line when the team needs it, but that's the exception, not the everyday rhythm.
- Room to grow into the role. A direct line to the CEO and a genuine path to take on more responsibility and autonomy as you prove yourself — growing into the person who effectively runs the day-to-day. The reward here is trust, ownership, and real impact.
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
Application Question(s):
- Tell us about a time you took ownership of something messy and made it work. Be specific — the situation, what you did, and how it turned out.
Work Location: In person
