TS/AD Technical Leader - Extrusion & Thermoforming - Medical and Consumer Goods Packaging

Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company’s innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive company, Eastman employs approximately 13,000 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2025 revenue of approximately $8.8 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. For more information, visit www.eastman.com.

Description

As the Technical Service / Application Development (TS/AD) Technical Leader, you will serve as the primary technical lead supporting regional and global strategic marketing initiatives for Eastman’s Specialty Plastics business, with a strong focus on extruded and thermoformed applications for Medical, Consumer Packaging Goods and Diversified markets. You will build and sustain deep technical relationships across the value chain – including OEMs, brand owners, extruders, thermoformers, converters etc. – to execute market-driven innovation launch, protect current business and identify growth opportunities. This role requires strong technical competencies on both applications’ understanding, as well as process expertise. This role is located onsite at our Kingsport, TN headquarters.

 

This role requires strong technical competencies in extrusion and thermoforming processes, polymer behavior, application performance, and regulatory or end use requirements relevant to medical, consumer packaging and diversified markets. The role combines deep application expertise with strong process knowledge to enable successful commercialization and customer adoption.

 

Responsibilities include leading launch-phase customer projects, engaging with value chain customers, influencing internal and external key stakeholders, delivering world class technical support and on-site consultation, collaborate with cross-function team (including sales, marketing, R&D, product management, quality etc.), conducting customer seminars and conference presentations, as well as translating customer insights into actionable development or commercialization opportunities that help achieve business growth goals.

Responsibilities

• Lead launch-phase projects and technical initiatives to enable market activation and campaigns, including validations and qualifications through field trials for extrusion and thermoforming applications in medical, consumer packaging goods and diversified markets.
• Engage proactively with value‑chain customers (e.g., brand owners, OEMs, extruders, thermoformers, and converters) to drive solution adoption while identifying application drivers, unmet needs, and new business opportunities; build and maintain strong technical relationships with key customers and industry partners.
• Support opportunity management processes that prioritize, track, and advance new, protect, and grow opportunities in alignment with business strategy; apply consultative selling skills to communicate technical value propositions, quantify benefits, and support effective commercialization.
• Collaborate closely with Sales, Marketing, R&D, Product Management, Manufacturing, and Quality to translate customer requirements in medical, consumer packaging goods and diversified applications into differentiated polymer solutions, optimized processing windows, and robust application value propositions.
• Serve as the technical authority on extrusion and thermoforming processes, guiding junior team members in delivering world‑class technical support for complex customer challenges; lead troubleshooting efforts including failure analysis, process optimization, tooling interaction, and scale‑up support to ensure timely resolution and sustained customer satisfaction.
• Design, execute, and interpret application and valida