RONICA BOWEN, MBB, spent 20 years with Danaher Corporation as a lean manufacturing professional before joining Next Level Partners as Vice President of Consulting Services. She also held positions in Operations, Engineering, Maintenance and Quality. Most recently, she was Director of the Danaher Business System for Danaher Corporation in the southern United States and Mexico. She also served as the Worldwide DBS Director for one of Danaher’s largest divisions ($700M+), Gilbarco Veeder-Root. During the acquisition and integration of Gilbarco into Gilbarco Veeder- Root, Ronica led a team of eight lean professionals in implementing lean manufacturing and six sigma into a mixed model, engineered-to-order, operations environment. This team facilitated over 175 kaizens per year in the US, Mexico, Europe and China. Ronica earned her Master Black Belts in 5S/Visual Management, Standard Work, Materials Pull Systems, Value Stream Mapping, Variation Reduction, Single Minute Exchange of Dies, Total Productive Maintenance, Transactional Process Improvement, and Production Preparation Process (3P). She is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt from Air Academy. She co-authored Danaher’s, Flow module, Boot Camp for Lean Professionals, and Total Production Maintenance Module. She is certified to teach Hoshin Kanri, EDAC, Boot Camps and Executive Orienta tions. During her career, she has personally facilitated over 750 kaizens in Fortune 500 and large manufacturing companies throughout the world. Her sensei is Mr. Chihiro Nakao and was trained on Hoshin Kanri by its creator, Dr. Yoji Akao.

JERRY BUSSELL, MBA, has more than 30 years of operations experience with high growth companies at various levels. He has served as Director of Manufacturing Operations, Managing Director and Senior Director during domestic and international plant start-ups and initial public offerings. He has worked for divisions of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Allergan Inc., and Kraft Inc. He is Chairman of the Jacksonville Lean Consortium and also serves as Chairman for the Shingo Prize. He is a Trustee of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and on the board of the Jacksonville University Athletic Association. Jerry received the prestigious Medtronic Wallin Leadership award for transforming Medtronic ENT/NT’s traditional manufacturing operation into a nationally- recognized model of lean manufacturing. Under Jerry’s leadership, Medtronic ENT/NT was awarded one of Industry Week’s Best Plants in North America in 2002 and was recipient of the Shingo Prize in 2003.

SCOTT DEUGO is Senior Vice President of Design, Marketing and Sustainable Development, responsible for worldwide product design and corporate marketing. He also leads the corporation’s strategic focus on reducing environmental impacts towards the goal of sustainable development. Scott joined Teknion in 2000 to lead the design and operations of the filing and storage division. In 2003, he was appointed as the company’s first Vice President of Sustainable Development. Prior to joining Teknion, Scott held senior executive roles in Organizational Development for an international capital equipment manufacturer, and in business and design for a U.S. furniture manufacturer. Scott graduated from the School of Industrial Design at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Industrial Design.

Mike HolLand, BB, spent 5 years in automotive product development, 10 years in manufacturing leadership and 5 years in healthcare lean transformation before joining NEXT LEVEL Partners®, LLC last November. Most recently, Mike was the System Director of Operational Planning and Process Excellence at OhioHealth. He lead the health system through the implementation of Hoshin Kanri (a.k.a. Goal Deployment, Policy Deployment or Hoshin Planning) as their operational planning model and correspondingly through the adoption of rapid-cycle process improvement (both kaizen and kaikaku). Prior, Mike held various manufacturing leadership roles including Danaher Business System Manager, Director of Manufacturing, Director of Quality and Vice President of Operations at Danaher Corporation. During Mike’s time at Danaher, he was mentored by renowned lean experts from Shingu-jitsu. Before Danaher, Mike was an applications and development engineer at Eaton Corporation where he primarily served Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan and Isuzu Motors of Japan. Mike earned his Six Sigma Black-Belt certification and was personally trained by the Goldratt Institute on Theory-of-Constraints manufacturing methodology and by The Covey Institute on Leading With the 7 Habits during his tenure at Eaton. From Eaton, Mike joined a key tier-one electronic supplier to Honda and spent 2 years in Japan under the tutelage of a Japanese sensei learning automotive component design and lean manufacturing techniques.

CRAIG LONG, Vice President, Milliken Performance Solutions, has been with Milliken & Company for more than 34 years. He previously has had corporate-wide responsibility for Six Sigma, The Milliken Performance System, and Milliken’s Product Management Improvement initiative. Craig has been involved in all aspects of corporate quality since being named Director of Quality in 1994 when he lead two study missions to Japan following Milliken receiving the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. His career has included leadership positions in Industrial Engineering, Product Development, Business Management, Corporate Education, and Recruiting. Craig has sat on Milliken’s Policy Committee and served as a Corporate Officer for the past 15 years and has been a member and past chair of the Quality Council of the Conference Board for the past 14 years.

Kent Rice is the Assistant General Manager of Manufacturing Lexus North America. He was heavily involved in the planning and creation of the first Lexus assembly plant to operate outside of Japan. Recently, he was also involved in the successful launch of the new 2010 Lexus RX350 model which has just become available at Lexus dealerships across North America.

Aleda Roth, PhD, is Burlington Industries Professor of Supply Chain Management at Clemson University. She was a visiting Research Scholar at London Business School, and served as visiting Professor at Unversidade Catolica Portuguese, Portugal, WHU, Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management in Germany, IESA in Venezuela, and at INSEAD in Singapore. She worked in top management for a decade prior to her academic work. An internationally recognized empirical scholar in service and manufacturing operations strategy, Aleda’s research offers practical explanations of how organizations can best deploy their operations, global supply chain and technology strategies for competitive advantage. In 2004, she was named an International Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) by the British Government in conjunction with London Business School. During her career, she has received in excess of $2.75 million in external funding. In 2006, with more than 130 publications to her credit, she was awarded grants by SAP to establish a Global Supply Chain Technology Futures Initiative.

JAG SHARMA, MBA, BScEE, BB, is the Director of Engineering and Continuous Improvement for the Greater Toronto Area at Canada Post with oversight of all engineering continuous improvement on the design and processess side with a team of managers and engineers, mostly Black Belts reporting to him. The Greater Toronto Area processes 40-60% of Canada Post’s mail. Jag is a graduate of GMI Engineering and Management Institute with a degree in Electrical Engineering. His career started with an 11-year tenure in the auto industry with General Motors in Oshawa and Ford in St. Thomas. He spent the following 5 years between Maple Leaf Foods and Teleflex Energy, before coming to Canada Post. Jag has worked with Canada Post for one year and is very much enjoying learning the mail industry.

DUSTIN THESIN has been with Canada Post for just over one year. As a Value Stream Specialist he is the local process owner, responsible for identifying and realizing opportunities in terms of key business objectives. Dustin is a certified Lean and Six Sigma Green Belt and is working towards a Black Belt certification through the completion of successful projects. He has a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Manitoba and has worked for Monarch Industries designing welded hydraulic cylinders as well as with the Royal Canadian Mint as a quality systems engineer.

Mary Tranter has 35 years of service with the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, currently with McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Guelph, Ontario. She has primary responsibility for supply process improvement, Process Excellence, Lean and Facility Training. Mary has more than 25 years experience in supply chain management—five of these years at Johnson & Johnson. She is a Green Belt certified. Mary is part of the plant Process Excellence Leadership Team. Her main responsibilities
are to enable all other plant operations to embrace lean as culture, facilitate Kaizen events, ensure Johnson & Johnson Lean Principles are deployed, and provide lean training.

SVEN VERBOEKKEN, BB, MBA, is General Electric’s Energy Sourcing Lean Team Leader, leading a team of 20 Lean Black Belts located around the globe. Sven has 12 years experience with General Electric, is stationed in Germany, and has served as
Sourcing Black Belt at GE Plastics, Program Manager at GE Healthcare, Director Sourcing at NBC Universal, and Lean Black Belt at GE Energy. He is a graduate of the University of Utah and Weber State University.

BERTRAM WELLS, BB, MBA, is Manager — Organizational Development at Square D/Schneider Electric where he leads Lean, Six Sigma, Change Management, Project Management, Engineering, and Management training. He has taught Continuous Improvement and Change Management classes in Australia, South Africa, Europe, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Bertram has more than 37 years of experience in the manufacturing environment, with over 20 years being dedicated to educating the workforce on how to identify and eliminate waste in both manufacturing and office environments. He has received numerous awards over his career including both local and national PWMD (People Who Made a Difference) awards. He has received two management awards for his involvement in Manufacturing Excellence and Engineered to Order projects. He is certified as a Lean Expert, a Lean Master and a Six Sigma Black Belt. Bertram has a Masters in Business Administration degree and an undergraduate degree in Business and Economics.

Enroll today by calling Kay James at (864) 656-2200! Or register online at www.clemson.edu/success