Keynote Speakers

Transforming 100 Year Old Culture to Excellence

Keynote Speaker: Dan McDonnell

GE Transportation has been building locomotives in the heartland of America for 100 years. During that period ingenuity and hard work has enabled them to retain a significant domestic market share. However globalization has increased the level of competition and added risk to the continued success of their business. The GE team has embraced this challenge firmly and set out with an ambitious lean strategy to reinvent itself and transform 100 years of highly entrenched traditional thinking and practices. Their goal is to create their own version of the 18 hour car by developing an improved set of processes to create “The 10 Day Locomotive”. Dan will share with you many of the lessons learned along the way, the challenges, and the unvarnished stories of success and failure, told from the hearts of the practitioners themselves who have been engaged in this prolific journey.

Dan has spent the past 13 years with the General Electric Company, where he served as a Plant Mgr, and eventually a Mfg GM for 11 different factories. He is currently the Manager of the Lean Initiative for GE Transportation, a $5B high growth business within the GE portfolio. Dan McDonnell began his career at Multilin, a small high tech firm in Canada. As VP Operations, he was fortunate to experience the learning curve of an organization that experienced 15 straight years of 34% AAGR. Dan has had a long association with AME. As well as being an 18-year member, Dan served 3 years as Canadian Regional President, 7 years on the National Board, and a term as National President. He has also Chaired 2 National Conferences.

What’s Next?

Keynote Speaker: C.E. Gus Whalen, Jr.

This session relates the real-life evolution of The Warren Featherbone Company, founded in 1883. That evolution has seen the company in agriculture, banking, philanthropy and manufacturing. Crisis has helped reinvent the company. That reinvention has often been non-linear, based not so much on what the company has done; but on what is at the core – its DNA. Today Warren Featherbone has helped create Featherbone Communiversity located in Gainesville, GA.

Featherbone Communiversity is a learning community, which provides collaborative, crossgenerational learning through a unique alliance among educational institutions. It is the first-of-its kind in the United States. The founding partner institutions are Brenau University, Lanier Technical College, including Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, and INK (Interactive Neighborhood for Kids).

Gus Whalen is the Chairman of The Warren Featherbone Company of Gainesville, Georgia and directs the efforts of The Warren Featherbone Foundation. In its remarkable 125-year history, Warren companies have been active in manufacturing, banking, agriculture, publishing and philanthropy. The company has been profiled twice by The Wall Street Journal and most recently was described as “representative of that huge mass of often overlooked businesses that give breadth and stability to the U.S. economy.” Of particular interest to Gus Whalen is manufacturing, philanthropy and education which he believes have worked together to help strengthen communities across America.

Building Value From the Inside Out

Keynote Speakers: Francis A. Finelli and Joy Romero

A rigorous Continuous Improvement System is becoming a key factor in how Private Equity investors are valuing businesses. Frank Finelli will represent the Private Equity investors while Joy Romero will represent a Plant General Manager’s position.

Francis A. Finelli - The Carlyle Group Washington, DC

Francis joined The Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm, in December 1998, where he is a Managing Director focusing on leveraged investments in the defense and aerospace sector, as well as dual-use venture technologies. He has led deal teams on several acquisitions and financial restructurings, including one of the first U.S. Previously, Mr. Finelli served as the legislative assistant responsible for defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs for Senator Dan Coats (R-IN), Chairman of the Airland Subcommittee, Senate Armed Services Committee, and member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Joy Romero - Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc.

Joy is Vice President of the 787 Division for Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc. She joined the company in October 2007 and leads all aspects of the Boeing 787 program for Vought, including manufacturing, customer relations and operational performance. Joy was President of Boeing Canada Operations Ltd. and General Manager of Boeing Winnipeg. As General Manager, Ms. Romero led a production site responsible for more than 1,000 composite parts and assemblies for Boeing 737, 747, 767, 777 and 787 aircraft.

Battle Plan for Recovery

Keynote Speaker: Stephen Parker

Anyone who has lived through a few prior recessions knows this one is a bad one. Improved management of inventory levels over the last twenty-five years has removed standing inventory as a major contributor to the business cycle peaks and valleys typical of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s but the nature of this current recession-depression puts inventory strategy back into the forefront and it is a major contributor to a “battle plan for recovery”. For many enterprises this means survival. Why? The financial sector meltdown has made access to capital very difficult and expensive. In many cases access to money to finance operations and inventory is just not available, period! But there are substantial amounts of stored cash in most, if not all manufacturing enterprises, not only within their four walls but within their supply-chains that can be freed up and used to finance current operations in the form of excessive inventory. The good news is the operations and supply-chain professional has tools that can be quickly deployed to free up that cash.

Stephen Parker is Chairman and CEO of Datacraft Solutions where he is responsible for strategic planning, financing, and business operations. Stephen’s career spans over twenty-five years, with experience in international commerce, executive management, corporate growth strategies, sales, technology development, and corporate financing. Prior to Datacraft Solutions, Stephen was an executive at IBM, Verizon (GTE/Contel), and Satellite Business Systems. Prior to Datacraft he was CEO of a technology company with two separate enterprises headquartered in Canada and India.