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I have a passion for helping people improve their work lives, and bring 30+ years of Operations, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement experience to draw upon. Working with leaders and their teams, I worked to create, develop, and execute strategic initiatives, resulting in transformational improvements, problem solving cultures and engaged employees. A Sensei and Coach, I am effective at all organization levels, building high performing teams using influence, collaboration, and facilitation.
My Story
Born and raised in South Windsor, Connecticut, I ventured out of the state after high school and went south the Charlotte, North Carolina where I attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Mechanical Engineering degree. Charlotte was a great place to live, and I wanted to stay in the south, but when I received an offer from Pratt & Whitney, back in Connecticut, I could contain my excitement. Designing Aircraft Engines was a dream job, and I moved back home after graduation.
Pratt & Whitney is an amazing company! My father spent 39 years on their Engineering team, and finished his career with the C-17 Fighting Fortress, and amazing feet of engineering and a spectacular aircraft. I worked on the PW4000 engine program, helping launch two derivative models, the PW4168 for the Airbus A330, and the PW4084 on the Boeing 777. Working with our sites and suppliers industrializing products, I was intrigued with the manufacturing processes and challenges, and took a role in our composites manufacturing site in Rocky Hill, CT.
Learning the Composites manufacturing process was a great experience. Pratt & Whitney started to embrace Lean Manufacturing, and had engaged with Shingijutsu for their Kaizen activity. This was my first exposure to continuous improvement, and I was learning from the best. Understanding the Kaizen process and the rapid improvements we could achieve was impressive, especially in an Aerospace company with a slow rate of change. Pratt & Whitney had begun developing their ACE program (Achieving Competitive Excellence), which combined the teachings of Shingijutsu and other manufacturing improvement tools we were deploying. ACE was a grass-roots program, developed and supported by the manufacturing employees, that would evolve into the Lean and Quality improvement icon of Pratt & Whitney and later, United Technologies globally.
I was given the opportunity to work directly with one of United Technologies top consultants, Mr. Yuzuro Ito, former Managing Director of Quality at Matsushita (better known as Panasonic) and jumped at the chance. Ito-san was a good friend of George David, our CEO at the time. They had met when Mr. David was leading the Otis Elevator division, which had a joint venture with Matsushita in Japan. The PW4084 on the Boeing 777 had some challenges, and with three options in the market (P&W, GE and Rolls Royce), we needed someone to help, so Ito-san came out of retirement to help. Ito-san was an amazing man, he traveled from Japan every month, spent two weeks with us visiting manufacturing sites, engineering design centers, and marketing teams. He would review our processes and problems, coach us an provide homework which I would follow up with during the two weeks he was back at home. Ito-san created the foundation of Lean and Quality that I built on throughout my career.
After years of work with Mr. Ito, we could not keep up with the requests from all the United Technologies sites across the world for his help. We decided to institutionalize his teachings, and created Ito University, a program intended to accelerate improvement throughout the company with both classroom training and on the job instruction on Lean Manufacturing, and Quality problem solving. I was selected to lead the development and deployment of Ito University, which was both an honor and a fabulous learning experience. At the same time, the ACE initiative at Pratt & Whitney had expanded widely across the company, and was yielding significant results to both the culture and the business. We decided to integrate the teachings of Mr. Ito and the ACE initiative, using Ito University as the launch mechanism, and bringing ACE to all of United Technologies divisions, worldwide. We visited locations all over the world, educated their leadership and employees, and helped them jumpstart their Lean journey. I still look at Ito University as one of my most treasured accomplishments.
I deployed the Ito University program for several years, and really enjoyed the experience, but it was time to get back into the business and use my learnings to help transform our businesses. I went back to Pratt & Whitney for a few years, leading Quality/Lean at their commercial engine overhaul center in Cheshire, Connecticut. The experience was fantastic, but it was very similar to the work I had done before, and the location was running smoothly and didn't need the transformation I was looking to lead. One of the Pratt & Whitney leaders had recently took the leadership position of the largest commercial HVAC manufacturing facilities in North America for our Carrier division. He had brought in several key leaders from Pratt, and was looking for a Quality leader, so we moved the family out of Connecticut to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just east of Nashville. Carrier was just the assignment I was looking for, the facility was 1 million square feet under roof, and another 250,000 square feet of distribution space. They were in desperate need of transformation, and the team their was knowledgeable enough to do the job. A year later, we had made significant progress and were poised to double our progress the following year. Unfortunately, the business impact of moving the facility outweighed our improvements, and we spent the next 2 years relocating. Just a few months from completing the move, I decided it was time to make a move myself, and decided to join Eaton Corporation.
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I am always looking for opportunities to help others, and share my knowledge and experience. If you have a need, and want to improve, please reach out to me and let's start a conversation!