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Summit Process Group is built for manufacturers and industrial operators who need more than a generalist — they need someone who has done the work. That's the standard Derrick holds for himself and for everyone who works alongside him.
Derrick L. Blanks brings more than two decades of hands-on operations leadership across chemical manufacturing and large-scale industrial services. His career has been defined not by proximity to operational problems, but by direct accountability for solving them.
He spent nearly a decade at American Chrome & Chemicals — a high-hazard chemical manufacturing operation in Castle Hayne, NC — managing 24/7 production environments, leading enterprise-critical outage planning, deploying Lean Six Sigma methodologies at the floor level, and maintaining rigorous ISO 9000 and EHS/OSHA compliance. His work there was not advisory. It was operational.
Prior to that, he served as General Manager of A&A Facility Services, where he scaled a multi-state industrial services operation to more than 300 employees, doubled enterprise revenue, carried full P&L accountability, and served as chief negotiator for union contracts and labor agreements. That experience — building and running large, operationally complex organizations from the inside — is the foundation of everything Summit Process Group delivers
His work there was not advisory. It was operational.
Derrick's analytical foundation was established during four years as an Operations Research Analyst with the United States Air Force, where he developed statistical models and analytical frameworks used in mission planning and command-level decision-making. That discipline — precision, structured problem-solving, data before opinion — has never left his practice.
He was honorably discharged at the rank of Senior Airman (E-4) and has carried the operational standards of that service into every role since.
Summit Process Group is a practitioner-led practice. Every engagement is led by Derrick directly — not handed off to junior staff. When you work with SPG, you work with someone who has managed production floors, negotiated union contracts, built ISO systems from the ground up, and carried P&L responsibility for operations at scale.
The expectation he holds for himself is the expectation he brings to every engagement and every person who works alongside him: precision, accountability, and results that hold.