Manager Application Operations (Salinas, CA)

Wilbur-Ellis • Salinas, CA

1d

About The Position

Investing in You, join a 100-year-old, family-owned leader in Ag – and grow with us! Wilbur-Ellis invests heavily in our employees by offering skill development and training, competitive compensation and benefits, and a tradition of promoting from within for a broad range of career opportunities. And we foster a supportive, people-first work environment. “We know the confidence gap can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates, so please don’t hesitate to apply — we’d love to hear from you.” General Purpose and Scope of Position: The Application Operations Manager leads the safe, timely, and efficient application of fertilizers and crop protection products across agricultural field operations. This role is accountable for building and sustaining a culture of safety, operational discipline, and continuous improvement while ensuring customer commitments are met in a highly regulated, peak-season environment.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in agricultural chemical application operations
• Deep understanding of safety, risk, and regulatory requirements related to fertilizer and pesticide application
• Proven experience managing managers and leading large, distributed teams
• Working knowledge of spray controller systems, dispatch and scheduling tools, fleet tracking, mobile field applications, and ERP systems
• Ability to lead calmly and decisively in high-risk, time-sensitive environments

Nice To Haves

• You’re able to improve customer satisfaction through ensuring reliable, on-time application
• You have a strong focus on reducing safety incidents and operational disruptions
• You know how to increase efficiency, consistency, and accountability across field operations
• You can lead the team to adopt processes and tools that support safe execution

Responsibilities

• Lead day and night field application operations in a 24/7, on-call environment.
• Foster a safety-first culture, ensuring compliance with all regulatory and company standards for agricultural chemical application.
• Manage and develop 4–6 direct reports, overseeing a total team of approximately 70 employees.
• Act as a player-coach, providing hands-on leadership during peak season, incidents, and operational disruptions.
• Ensure effective use of systems that support field execution, including scheduling and dispatch, spray controller software, fleet/GPS tracking, mobile field tools, and ERP systems.
• Partner cross- functionally with Sales, Safety, Compliance, Finance, Retail Store Managers, and external vendors.
• Lead incident response, investigations, and continuous improvement efforts to reduce accidents, errors, and inefficiencies.
• Align operational capacity with customer timing, seasonal demand, and environmental conditions.
• Manage the operational P&L, expenses, capital expenditures, budget, and gain approval for any large purchases needed for operations.

Benefits

• This position is eligible for an annual discretionary bonus and vacation, holidays, health, dental, vision, mental health, and retirement plan participation, including an employer contribution of up to 7% into your 401(k).
• Follow this link for more information regarding Wilbur-Ellis employee benefits: https://mywebenefits.com/

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed