Covestro’s Ortega, building reliability and community at company’s largest NA site

To keep operations flowing at Covestro’s Baytown facility, Victor Ortega relies on strong communication skills and empathy.

Ortega, the executive VP of performance materials operations at the company’s largest manufacturing plant in North America, believes giving his team ownership and buy-in with decision-making are key factors for success.

"One of the most difficult things I see in my role is being able to translate the company’s strategy and my own vision into actions we all can relate to," Ortega said. "Therefore empathy, communication and collaboration skills are the most important. We need to understand diverse perspectives and involve everybody in the decision-making process to foster ownership."

But in today’s fast-paced world, keeping up with communication can be challenging.

"The frequency of calls, travel, flex agendas and meetings do not allow us to have as much face time as we would like," Ortega said. "In those casual meetings is where the magic happens, and the new ideas and projects come into motion. We try to overcome this with scheduled time and team check-in meetings regularly set in the agenda."

Covestro is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-quality polymer materials and components in the U.S. and around the world, producing everything from flat panel displays to medical devices and automotive components.

The company’s Baytown site is located 25 miles east of Houston and is strategically positioned along Cedar Bayou in West Chambers County, feeding into the Houston Ship Channel. The facility began polyurethane production in 1971 as Mobay, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany. Covestro separated from its parent company in September 2015 and began operating as an independent company. With 17,500 employees across 46 production sites worldwide, Covestro will mark its 10th anniversary later this year.

Ortega assumed his new role in July 2024 but worked as a unit engineer at the Baytown site from 2006 to 2008 and held roles as a reliability lead and technical site manager from 2014 to 2021.

A top priority for him as he leads the plant is reliability, he said.

"More than an issue, I will say one of our top priorities is to make sure our units and production are reliable. Reliable units and processes are the base to grant safety over both our employees and our chemicals, bringing enough revenue back to reinvest in the plant and ensure we do not rush," Ortega said.

The Baytown plant has been continuously reducing reportable incidents and remains committed to a culture of safety, he said.

"We care about each other, our contractors and always think about improving our facilities and units. A few years ago, we decided to adopt the safety concept of what happened inside the cockpit of most major airlines’ planes," Ortega said. "We developed together with Lufthansa pilots a comprehensive program we call Total Resource Management. We adopted their two-way communication protocols, their stop authorities of the second officers, how they do briefings before taking off and a few other actions. It gave us a new set of rules to work at the plant level." The site has been recognized by the Texas Chemical Council (TCC) as a recipient of the Caring for Texas Award and was later named the "Best in Texas" in 2020. The Baytown facility has also received TCC’s Occupational Safety Distinguished Service Award several years in a row, Ortega said.

Born and raised in Spain, Ortega saw his country’s economy booming when he was in high school, and STEM graduates were in demand.

During a visit to a local food manufacturing company as a teenager, he learned about the process of producing olive oil and discovered the field of chemical engineering.

After earning a chemical engineering degree from the University of Granada, he spent time at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria and completed an internship in a research lab at Bayer in Germany.

Though the internship ended, Ortega stayed with the company, first as a process engineer in Spain working with polymers and taking advantage of opportunities to grow. In 2021 he assumed the role of plant manager at the company’s Brunsbuettel site in Germany, one of Covestro’s largest manufacturing sites in Europe.

"At the time I accepted that position, Brunsbuettel had never had a non-German native in that role. It was quite a challenge, but a nice one," Ortega said.

He’s inspired by new technology and the chance to make the world a better place, he said, through his work and the materials Covestro produces today and the ones the company will produce in the future.

"I love that passion, that I hope we never lose," Ortega said. "My advice will be to make sure you get the inner motion to find your purpose. You will grow if what you do every day is fulfilling, brings some fun and will make you want more of what’s next. We need to remember that, especially when the bad days come. Enjoy your journey more than getting to your destination quickly."

Throughout his career, he’s learned to never underestimate the challenge behind change management and to recognize that having an excellent product or idea isn’t enough.

"You need to work a lot harder on the human part of the implementation. If we do not convince or make the change part of you and your team’s routine, the best idea will fail or will not stick, as soon as the next idea comes, or as soon as you move out," Ortega said. "Plan for the change to become your routine first, and your team next."

Great mentors have had a substantial impact on his career journey, Ortega said, citing early managers as helping to shape his outlook.

"As we start in the corporate world, we are kind of a blank piece of paper. Those early managers have the privilege to influence the first lines in the paper," he said.

He came to the U.S. determined to impress his new colleagues but instead was influenced by the work ethic and solutions of his coworkers, built from years of experience.

"They were able to solve problems in minutes that I would have needed days, if ever," Ortega said.

Being a good neighbor in the communities they exist in is important to Covestro employees, with a longstanding tradition of strong corporate citizenship. In 2024, employees dedicated more than 3,874 volunteer service hours.

Knowing that education is a key pipeline to a career in the industry, the Baytown plant donated $20,800 in STEM scholarships to manufacturing career-aspiring students from the independent school districts in Anahuac, Barbers Hill and Goose Creek in 2024.

"Our support for STEM education contributes to enterprise development and economic growth by helping expand the available talent pool," Ortega said. "It’s also proven to have a strong return on investment, as two former scholarship recipients entered our 2024 summer intern program, and one became a full-time employee after graduating college." He said true partnership goes beyond financial support and is also dependent on being present — not just physically but actively engaged.

"We stay engaged to help meet the needs, whether it be from staff, students or their families, from the first day of school until the very last day of the spring semester. What do our kids need to be successful in school? If a student does not have basic necessities, they are likely to stay home," Ortega said. "To help combat that, volunteers spent an entire day last fall to construct and stock a campus-wide resource closet that now provides students and families with appropriate clothing, hygiene supplies, shelf-safe foods, school supplies and more at no cost to the family. We have been able to impact students in ways that foster not only academic success but also social and emotional growth."

Ortega would like to see the Baytown facility become Covestro’s most competitive site, utilizing new technologies and ways of working, and allowing the plant’s abundance of talent and opportunity to come full circle.

"We are committed to advancing our sustainability efforts by implementing innovative solutions across our operations and supply chain," he said. "Our plans include further reducing emissions, enhancing energy efficiency and transforming waste into valuable raw materials."

For more information, visit covestro.us.

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