Drilling Operations Manager / Director of DrillingEnvironmental and Geotechnical Drilling
Company: Brute LLC
Primary Operations: Berryville, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland
Service Area: Mid-Atlantic and surrounding states
Employment Type: Full-time
Travel: Frequent regional and overnight travel required
About Brute LLC
Brute LLC is a rapidly growing Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business providing environmental and geotechnical drilling, environmental remediation, excavation, demolition, site preparation, and specialty construction services. We support engineering firms, environmental consultants, government agencies, industrial clients, general contractors, and private-sector customers throughout the Mid-Atlantic.
Our drilling capabilities include hollow-stem auger, direct push, Standard Penetration Testing, rock coring, mud rotary, air rotary, monitoring-well installation and abandonment, soil and groundwater sampling, vapor-point installation, and specialty drilling services. Our equipment includes truck- and track-mounted CME-55 rigs, a Simco 2800 air rotary rig, Geoprobe 7720DT and 7822DT units, support trucks, pumps, compressors, mud-processing equipment, water systems, and construction equipment.
Position Summary
Brute LLC is seeking an experienced, hands-on Drilling Operations Manager or Director of Drilling to take ownership of our environmental and geotechnical drilling division.
This is not a desk-only management position. The successful candidate must be comfortable working in the office, in the shop, and on active jobsites. This person will coordinate multiple crews, rigs, projects, materials, tooling, maintenance needs, travel, subcontractors, and client expectations while helping Brute build a stronger, safer, more organized, and more profitable drilling operation.
The right candidate will have extensive experience in both geotechnical and environmental drilling and strong working knowledge of hollow-stem auger drilling, SPT sampling, rock coring, mud rotary, air rotary, and direct-push methods. Air rotary and down-the-hole hammer experience are strongly preferred.
This individual must understand how to select the correct rig, crew, drilling method, tooling, materials, and support equipment for each project. The person must also be able to troubleshoot field conditions, train drillers, enforce accountability, manage equipment readiness, communicate with clients, support estimating, and help expand Brute’s drilling division into additional markets and states.
Core ResponsibilitiesOperations, Scheduling, and Logistics
- Direct the daily activities of drillers, assistant drillers, helpers, foremen, shop personnel, and drilling subcontractors.
- Develop and maintain daily, weekly, and multi-week schedules for multiple drilling crews and rigs.
- Assign the correct crew, rig, tooling, support vehicle, trailer, compressor, pump, water system, grout equipment, and materials to each project.
- Coordinate work between Brute’s Virginia and Maryland operations.
- Provide clear dispatch instructions covering the jobsite, scope, client contact, access requirements, expected production, required equipment, lodging, travel, and documentation.
- Monitor field progress throughout the day and adjust schedules when projects change.
- Respond quickly to equipment failures, staffing shortages, weather delays, access restrictions, unexpected geology, utility conflicts, client changes, and other field problems.
- Maintain a reliable two- to four-week look-ahead for crews, equipment, materials, permits, travel, and maintenance.
- Coordinate with project management, construction, remediation, procurement, administration, safety, and accounting personnel.
- Ensure crews do not mobilize without the correct information, materials, tooling, permits, support equipment, or site contacts.
- Visit jobsites regularly to evaluate production, quality, safety, crew performance, and client satisfaction.
- Be available to support early mobilizations, urgent field issues, and occasional evening or weekend operational needs.
Technical Drilling Leadership
- Review scopes of work, boring plans, specifications, subsurface information, well details, site plans, and client instructions before mobilization.
- Determine the appropriate drilling method, rig, tooling, casing, sampling equipment, well materials, drilling fluids, and support equipment.
- Provide technical direction for hollow-stem auger, solid-stem auger, direct push, SPT, Shelby-tube sampling, rock coring, mud rotary, air rotary, and monitoring-well work.
- Troubleshoot auger refusal, flowing sands, heaving formations, cobbles, boulders, weathered rock, competent bedrock, stuck tooling, poor recovery, loss of circulation, borehole instability, groundwater, casing problems, and other challenging conditions.
- Guide crews on casing advancement, mud mixing, fluid circulation, solids control, core-barrel operation, air requirements, hammer operation, sample recovery, well installation, grouting, development, abandonment, and site restoration.
- Confirm that drilling methods comply with the project scope, client requirements, applicable regulations, and professional standards.
- Ensure changes in method, depth, materials, or scope are documented and approved.
- Communicate field conditions, risks, production issues, and recommended changes to project managers and clients.
- Step in to troubleshoot, train, inspect, or temporarily support field operations when necessary.
Pre-Project Planning and Mobilization
- Evaluate anticipated geology, groundwater, refusal risks, access, overhead restrictions, traffic, slopes, site conditions, environmental hazards, and equipment limitations.
- Prepare or approve project-specific mobilization and loadout lists.
- Confirm availability of rods, augers, casing, bits, core barrels, split spoons, Shelby tubes, hammers, pumps, compressors, mud products, well materials, sand, bentonite, grout, tremie pipe, drums, decontamination supplies, spill kits, PPE, and spare parts.
- Coordinate utility clearance, private locating, clearing, access preparation, traffic control, equipment mats, temporary fencing, work zones, water supply, and site restoration.
- Confirm required permits, licenses, well tags, access approvals, badging, safety documentation, and client requirements.
- Plan for drilling fluids, cuttings, investigation-derived waste, drums, roll-offs, decontamination, disposal, and contaminated-material handling.
- Coordinate lodging, travel, per diem, fuel, and vehicle needs for out-of-town crews.
- Develop backup plans for difficult formations, equipment limitations, poor access, and other foreseeable risks.
Crew Leadership, Recruiting, and Training
- Evaluate the skills, strengths, weaknesses, reliability, and training needs of all drilling personnel.
- Recruit qualified drillers, assistant drillers, helpers, mechanics, and field leaders as the division grows.
- Participate in interviews, reference checks, practical evaluations, hiring decisions, and onboarding.
- Create clear standards and advancement paths for helpers, assistant drillers, drillers, senior drillers, and crew leaders.
- Develop a skills matrix covering drilling methods, equipment operation, safety, maintenance, documentation, client communication, and leadership.
- Train crews on rig operation, tooling, sampling, well construction, decontamination, equipment care, job planning, and professional conduct.
- Teach crew leaders to manage helpers, communicate with clients, document delays, protect the company from unauthorized work, and complete accurate daily reports.
- Set and enforce expectations for attendance, production, safety, quality, paperwork, equipment care, teamwork, and professionalism.
- Conduct performance reviews and recommend promotions, compensation changes, training, discipline, reassignment, or termination when appropriate.
- Address unsafe conduct, preventable damage, repeated documentation failures, poor performance, and unprofessional client interactions.
- Build depth within the department so that no rig, drilling method, or project depends entirely on one individual.
Equipment, Tooling, and Maintenance
- Maintain an accurate inventory of rigs, support vehicles, trailers, compressors, pumps, tooling, and major accessories.
- Establish daily, weekly, monthly, and hour-based inspection and preventive-maintenance requirements.
- Track rig hours, engine hours, service intervals, repairs, downtime, recurring failures, and major component replacement.
- Coordinate repairs with internal personnel, dealers, mechanics, fabricators, rental companies, and specialty vendors.
- Determine whether equipment can safely remain in service or must be removed from operation.
- Maintain critical spare parts and minimum inventory levels for frequently used tooling and materials.
- Improve shop organization, loadout procedures, tool accountability, storage, and transfer of equipment between crews.
- Reduce preventable downtime caused by poor planning, missed maintenance, missing parts, or improper equipment use.
- Evaluate rentals, purchases, leases, upgrades, rebuilds, and replacement needs.
- Recommend capital expenditures based on utilization, demand, repair cost, projected revenue, and division strategy.
Safety, Quality, and Compliance
- Enforce Brute’s safety policies and all client- and project-specific requirements.
- Ensure completion of daily Job Hazard Analyses, inspections, safety meetings, field-level risk assessments, and required paperwork.
- Maintain compliance with OSHA, HAZWOPER, DOT, state drilling and well regulations, EM 385-1-1 when applicable, and client safety programs.
- Verify that personnel have the required licenses, certifications, medical clearances, training, and site credentials.
- Enforce proper practices for rigging, traffic control, utility clearance, lockout/tagout, fall protection, decontamination, material handling, and equipment operation.
- Investigate incidents, near misses, utility strikes, property damage, environmental releases, and equipment damage.
- Develop corrective actions and communicate lessons learned across all crews.
- Review daily drill reports, footage, equipment hours, well records, grout quantities, material use, photographs, delivery tickets, disposal records, and restoration documentation.
- Ensure field records support invoicing, change orders, regulatory reporting, and client deliverables.
- Stop work when conditions are unsafe, improperly planned, outside the approved scope, or beyond the crew’s capabilities.
Project Cost Control and Client Management
- Review labor, production, equipment, material, travel, lodging, per diem, rental, subcontractor, and mobilization assumptions.
- Track actual production, footage, labor hours, rig utilization, materials, fuel, rentals, repairs, and downtime against the project budget.
- Identify and document standby, restricted access, utility delays, hard drilling, unexpected rock, additional casing, extra depth, added wells, disposal changes, weather impacts, and client-directed work.
- Prevent substantial out-of-scope work from being performed without authorization.
- Provide documentation needed for change orders, additional-work requests, invoicing, and project closeout.
- Participate in project startup meetings, client meetings, progress calls, and lessons-learned reviews.
- Resolve client concerns promptly and professionally while protecting Brute from undocumented scope growth and avoidable losses.
- Ensure crews represent Brute professionally and maintain strong relationships with clients, inspectors, engineers, geologists, property owners, and regulators.
Estimating and Division Growth
- Review drilling opportunities and help determine whether Brute should pursue them.
- Support site visits, pre-bid meetings, technical questions, proposal development, and scope clarification.
- Prepare or review estimates covering labor, production, equipment, footage, materials, mobilization, per diem, lodging, subcontractors, disposal, and contingency.
- Develop standardized rates and production assumptions for rigs, crews, footage, wells, mobilization, standby, materials, and specialty work.
- Identify technical risks, exclusions, qualifications, and unanswered questions before proposals are submitted.
- Build relationships with environmental consultants, geotechnical engineers, government agencies, industrial clients, and general contractors.
- Help Brute obtain and maintain drilling licenses in additional states.
- Identify new markets, equipment, services, partnerships, and personnel needed to grow the division.
- Develop annual plans for revenue, staffing, equipment, licensing, training, safety, and geographic expansion.
- Track backlog, rig utilization, crew utilization, production, downtime, safety, rework, revenue, margin, and client satisfaction.
- Build systems that allow the drilling division to grow without losing control of safety, quality, scheduling, or profitability.
Required Qualifications
- At least 10 years of progressive drilling experience; 15 or more years preferred.
- Extensive hands-on experience in environmental and geotechnical drilling.
- At least five years of experience leading drilling crews, field operations, or a drilling department.
- Proven ability to coordinate multiple crews, rigs, and concurrent projects.
- Strong experience with hollow-stem auger drilling, SPT, geotechnical sampling, environmental sampling, monitoring-well installation, and well abandonment.
- Experience with mud rotary drilling and rock coring.
- Working knowledge of direct-push and Geoprobe operations.
- Air rotary and down-the-hole hammer experience strongly preferred.
- Strong mechanical aptitude and the ability to diagnose rig, tooling, pump, compressor, and support-equipment problems.
- Ability to read scopes, specifications, boring plans, well details, site plans, drilling logs, and subsurface information.
- Ability to create reliable schedules, mobilization plans, material lists, and equipment assignments.
- Strong leadership, communication, organization, documentation, and conflict-resolution skills.
- Ability to use Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Teams, SharePoint, and basic project-management or scheduling systems.
- Valid driver’s license and acceptable driving record.
- Ability and willingness to travel frequently, stay overnight, work outdoors, visit active jobsites, climb onto equipment, and respond to urgent operating needs.
- Ability to satisfy client-specific background checks, substance testing, medical clearances, and site-access requirements.
Preferred Qualifications
- Active drilling, monitoring-well, or well-contractor licenses in one or more states.
- Ability and willingness to obtain licenses in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, and other states.
- Experience with CME, Simco, Geoprobe, or comparable equipment.
- Sonic drilling, wireline coring, large-diameter casing, specialty instrumentation, dewatering, or difficult-access drilling experience.
- Experience on federal, military, municipal, transportation, landfill, industrial, or contaminated-site projects.
- Experience estimating drilling work and managing project financial performance.
- CDL Class A.
- OSHA 30, 40-Hour HAZWOPER, First Aid/CPR, EM 385-1-1, USACE CQM, or related certifications.
Who Will Succeed in This Role
The successful candidate will be field credible, organized, decisive, mechanically capable, safety driven, financially aware, and comfortable holding crews accountable. This person must remain calm under pressure, communicate directly and respectfully, protect client relationships, and take ownership of results.
Brute needs a leader who can solve today’s problems while building the systems, people, equipment, licenses, and client base needed for long-term growth.
Compensation and Work Conditions
Compensation will be competitive and based on drilling experience, licenses, technical capabilities, leadership background, and demonstrated ability to manage and grow a drilling operation. A company truck will be provided. Approved business travel, lodging, and per diem will be handled in accordance with company policy.
This is a full-time leadership position requiring regular field presence, frequent travel, early mobilizations, and occasional evening or weekend support. It is not a remote-only or office-only role.
To Apply
Please submit a résumé showing:
- Environmental and geotechnical drilling experience.
- Drilling methods and rigs personally operated or supervised.
- Current and previously held state licenses.
- Number of crews and rigs previously managed.
- Safety and technical certifications.
- Experience with scheduling, estimating, maintenance, cost control, training, and client management.
- Compensation expectations and earliest available start date.
Brute LLC is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, experience, performance, and business needs without regard to any status protected by applicable law.
Pay: $80,000.00 - $120,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Relocation assistance
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- How many years of environmental drilling experience do you have?
- How many years of geotechnical drilling experience do you have?
- How many drilling crews and rigs have you managed at one time?
- Please list every state in which you currently hold, or have previously held, a drilling or well-contractor license.
- Have you been responsible for preparing crew schedules, equipment assignments, project loadout lists, maintenance schedules, and travel plans?
- Are you willing to travel frequently throughout the Mid-Atlantic and stay overnight when required?
- Are you willing to visit jobsites regularly and become hands-on with a rig when troubleshooting or training is required?
- Do you hold a valid driver’s license? Do you currently hold a CDL?
- This position requires direct accountability for safety, crew performance, equipment readiness, project documentation, and profitability. Please describe your experience managing all five areas.
- What would you evaluate during your first 30 days as the leader of an established but rapidly growing drilling division?
- What base compensation would you require to consider this position?
Work Location: In person
