Vandalia Produce Operations

Senior Maintenance Mechanic   

Vandalia Produce | Buffalo, West Virginia
10-Acre Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Strawberry Farm

Grow Your Career with Vandalia Produce

Vandalia Produce is seeking an experienced, hands-on Senior Maintenance Mechanic to support our 10-acre Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) strawberry operation in Buffalo, WV.

This is a critical technical role responsible for keeping our greenhouse, irrigation and fertigation systems, environmental controls, utilities, automation, and packhouse equipment operating safely and reliably. The ideal candidate is a strong troubleshooter who takes ownership of equipment performance, responds effectively to breakdowns, and believes preventive maintenance is the key to a successful operation.

What You’ll Do

• Lead preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance activities across the greenhouse and packhouse.
• Troubleshoot and repair mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, plumbing, HVAC, and automated control systems.
• Maintain critical greenhouse infrastructure, including:

o   Climate and environmental control systems

o   Irrigation and fertigation equipment

o   Pumps and water treatment systems

o   CO2 delivery systems

o   Boilers and utility equipment

• Maintain and troubleshoot conveyors, packaging equipment, refrigeration, and cold storage systems.
• Diagnose recurring equipment failures and perform root cause analysis to improve long-term reliability.
• Support continuous improvement projects designed to increase equipment uptime and operational efficiency.
• Coordinate outside contractors and service providers when required.
• Maintain accurate maintenance records, work orders, and spare-parts inventory using a CMMS.
• Follow all company safety, food safety, and regulatory requirements, including Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) procedures.
• Serve as a technical resource to operations, growing, irrigation, and packhouse teams.

What We’re Looking For

• Technical degree or equivalent industrial maintenance experience.
• 3–5+ years of industrial maintenance experience with increasing technical responsibility.
• Strong mechanical and electrical troubleshooting capabilities.
• Experience with PLCs, automated controls, HVAC, utilities, pumps, motors, and related industrial equipment.
• Ability to diagnose problems quickly and safely in a fast-paced production environment.
• Experience in greenhouse agriculture, food processing, manufacturing, or another automated production environment is preferred.
• Strong preventive-maintenance mindset and attention to documentation.
• Ability to work independently while supporting a cross-functional operations team.

What Success Looks Like

Our Senior Maintenance Mechanic is expected to help Vandalia Produce achieve:

• Equipment uptime of 99% or greater
• Critical systems availability of 99.5% or greater
• Preventive maintenance completion above 95%
• Emergency maintenance below 15% of total maintenance hours
• Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) below 2 hours for critical systems
• Zero recordable safety incidents
• Maintenance spending within approved budget targets

Why This Role Matters

In Controlled Environment Agriculture, maintenance directly impacts the crop. Climate control, irrigation, fertigation, water systems, refrigeration, automation, and packhouse equipment must perform reliably every day.

As Senior Maintenance Mechanic, you’ll play a direct role in protecting crop quality and yield, minimizing downtime, improving labor productivity, maintaining food safety, and supporting the profitability of our strawberry operation.

Join Vandalia Produce

If you’re an experienced maintenance professional who enjoys solving complex equipment problems, improving reliability, and working with modern agricultural and automated production systems, we’d like to hear from you.

Location: Buffalo, West Virginia
Company: Vandalia Produce
Industry: Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) / Strawberry Production
Position: Senior Maintenance Mechanic

Apply today and help us keep one of West Virginia’s advanced CEA strawberry operations running safely, efficiently, and reliably.