Quality Assurance Manager, Materials Testing Lab

About Laboratory Testing Laboratory Testing (LTI) has been the trusted testing partner for mission-critical industries since 1984, when Robert W. McVaugh opened its doors as a local metallurgical lab. Today, LTI is ISO 17025 and NADCAP accredited, running destructive and non-destructive testing, machining, and calibration services for close to 3,000 customers across the aerospace, defense, space, and nuclear supply chains. The company is still led by the McVaugh family, now in its third generation, and has partnered with Kanbrick, a long-term investment partnership, to bring operating support and capital to its next phase of growth without losing what built it. The Role LTI tests parts that cannot fail, and the quality system is what makes those results trustworthy. Reporting to the Director of Quality and Cybersecurity, the QA Manager for the Materials Testing Lab implements, maintains, and improves LTI's accredited quality system and serves as the first line of corporate quality oversight across the business units. It is a hands-on seat: you work shoulder to shoulder with lab and operations leadership, subject matter experts, engineers, technicians, auditors, customers, and suppliers rather than managing from a distance. On-site presence is expected wherever the work requires it, principally at LTI's Hatfield, Pennsylvania campus, with travel of roughly 10 to 20 percent to other LTI sites, newly acquired facilities, vendors, and occasional industry conferences. Audit Program & Accreditation You own the audit program end to end. You host and lead customer audits, accreditation audits (Nadcap aerospace and A2LA ISO/IEC 17025), and nuclear customer audits under NIAC, ASME NQA-1, and 10 CFR 50 Appendix B, and you lead the internal audit program that keeps LTI ready for all of them. You represent quality directly to auditors, customers, and executive leadership, and you own the outcome of those audits in partnership with Operations rather than handing findings across the fence. Corrective Action & Document Control You own corrective and preventive action, not just the paperwork that surrounds it. You coach functional owners through real root-cause rigor, build error-proofing into the corrective action process, and verify effectiveness before anything closes. Document control and change management governance sit with you as well: revisions move on time, approvals are right, and records hold up under scrutiny. Operations Partnership The test labs and Operations teams are your customers as much as any external customer is. You translate accreditation and regulatory requirements into steps a lab can actually run, then roll up your sleeves to implement and sustain them. Before raising a requirement, you verify that it genuinely applies and is right-sized, and you bring a workable solution to the people who have to live with it. The measure of your work is accurate, on-time test reporting, satisfied customers, and clean external audits, not the volume of findings you issue. Quality Across the Business Units You build QA capability and working relationships across every business unit: destructive testing, calibration, non-destructive testing, and Assured in Ridgway. Corporate quality is a small team by design, so you drive accountability through credibility and partnership rather than formal line authority, working alongside the quality and QC resources embedded in each unit. As LTI acquires, you lead or support quality due diligence before the deal and integration after it, partnering with the Director on newly acquired sites. Compliance & Continuous Improvement You support government and defense compliance activity, working with me and the Customer Questionnaires group on customer questionnaires, FAR flowdowns, certifications and representations, and export control fundamentals. You also drive the initiatives that make quality faster and simpler, automating manual teps, streamlining processes, and applying AI and automation where they remove work without weakening control. What Makes This Different A system that performs in the test lab, not one that looks compliant LTI wants a quality system that holds up under pressure and improves the accuracy of the testing itself, not one built for audit optics. Breadth most quality leaders never get in one seat ISO/IEC 17025, Nadcap, and nuclear NQA-1 requirements all run through this role, across destructive testing, calibration, and non-destructive testing. Scope grows as the company does As LTI adds sites through acquisition, this role picks up the quality diligence, integration, and oversight that come with them. Who We Are Looking For This role fits a few different backgrounds well: 1. A quality leader from an AS9100 aerospace manufacturer with real process complexity, including controlled drawings, control plans, and process routers, who is ready to bring that discipline into a testing and calibration environment. 2. A quality manager from an accredited laboratory who has owned ISO/IEC 17025 or Nadcap accreditation and is ready to take on multi-site, corporate-level quality oversight. 3. A quality professional from a regulated multi-site or matrixed environment who has coordinated quality across more than one facility or business unit. The role also carries a few firm requirements: 1. A bachelor's degree in materials science, metallurgical, mechanical, chemical, or industrial engineering, or a related technical or physical science discipline. A relevant ASQ certification such as CQE, CQA, or CMQ/OE, or equivalent progressive experience, may substitute. 2. Seven or more years of progressive technical or quality experience, including at least three years in quality assurance in or supporting aerospace systems manufacturing, with demonstrated experience personally hosting accreditation, registrar, or customer audits, and owning the resulting corrective action from root cause through closure, including at least one complex, cross-functional CAR, not a single-department response, resulting in an actual process or system change rather than documentation closure alone. 3. The ability to qualify as a Lead Auditor under LTI's quality management system (ASME NQA-1). Prior Lead Auditor experience is a plus but is not required. 4. Working understanding of measurement uncertainty, method validation, and proficiency testing, sufficient to speak to it credibly in an audit, without needing to personally perform the calculations. 5. Experience authoring or substantively revising controlled procedures, not only executing existing ones. 6. Familiarity with laboratory or business information systems such as LIMS, ERP, or comparable platforms. 7. Willingness to travel regularly to LTI sites, newly acquired facilities, vendor locations, and occasional industry conferences. Beyond background, you will thrive here if you: Tell the difference between a quality system that looks right on paper and one that actually performs in the test lab, and prioritize the second.