Speakers

Sara M. Bennett

Business Analyst, Program Evaluation, PNC Financial Services Group

Sara Bennett leads the implementation of a Test-and-Learn culture at the analytical level, finding innovative methods for applying Test-and-Learn principles to PNC’s marketing activities. This enables her to complete analyses that provide the data-driven insights and actions that will lead to breakthrough results for PNC Financial Services Group. She also manages the day-to-day analytical activities around Test-and-Learn as well as the education of nonstatistical business partners on the value driven by a sound experimental design.

Bennett has worked for PNC Financial since 2006 and has 10 years of experience as a statistical analyst. Before joining PNC, she worked at Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and Mellon Financial. Bennett earned a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in computational mathematics from Duquesne University. In her spare time, Bennett teaches a mathematics course at the local community college.

Mike Cramer

Director of Operations Research for Worldwide Restaurant Innovation, McDonald’s

Mike Cramer leads a corporate group of 12 analysts providing decision support for operations at 34,000 restaurants in 118 global markets. His team’s work includes data modeling, ethonography and data mining. Before joining McDonald’s three years ago, Cramer was CLO for Hub One Logistics for eight years. He also has worked for Kellogg’s in Logistics and Competitive Intelligence, and for Tompkins Associates, an engineering consulting and implementation firm. He serves on the Council of Logistics Management, INFORMS and was a 1996 Edelman Award Finalist. He graduated in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in information science from North Carolina State University.

Jane Damschroder

Senior Business Analyst, CheckFree Corp.

Jane Damschroder works in CheckFree’s Electronic Commerce Division, providing operational analysis and support for CheckFree solutions that enable thousands of financial services providers and billers to offer the convenience of receiving and paying household bills online, via phone or in person through retail outlets. She was recently recognized as a top company performer with her selection to the 2007 Chairman’s Club, an associate incentive program which honors approximately 100 associates companywide each year. Before joining CheckFree in 1995, Damschroder was Manager of Project Services at Survey Sampling Inc., a global provider of Internet, telephone, mail and in-person sampling solutions to the survey research industry. She is a graduate of Bowling Green State University.

Richard D. De Veaux

Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Williams College

Richard D. De Veaux is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. An expert in applied statistics, his professional interests include data mining methodology and its application to problems in science and industry, as well as model selection and other problems for large data sets.

De Veaux holds a doctorate in statistics and a master’s degree in education from Stanford University. A summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, he earned bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering and mathematics.

Before joining the Williams faculty, he served on the faculty at Princeton and at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also been a visiting research professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Montpellier, France; the Université Paul Sabitier in Toulouse, France; and the Université René Descartes in Paris. In 2006-2007 he was the William R. Kenan Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University.

De Veaux is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the author of many research papers. He is co-author, with Paul Velleman and David Bock, of several critically acclaimed textbooks, including Intro Stats and Stats: Data and Models.

Steve Fowler

Director of Continuous Improvement, First Solar

Steve Fowler works to foster a mindset of world-class continuous improvement at First Solar, an industry leader in the manufacturing of thin film solar modules. He also seeks to ensure that First Solar achieves optimum deployment of the most effective continuous improvement tools throughout the organization. Foster seeks breakthrough improvements by identifying and optimizing the most critical process variables that affect key performance metrics. Earlier in his career, he worked 14 years in the disk drive industry as an integrator and optimization specialist of thin film magnetic recording heads. Before joining First Solar, he worked for Applied Magnetics Corp. in Goleta, CA; Read-Rite and Maxtor Corp. in Milpitas, CA. He received his BSEL degree in 1990 from California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo.

J. Stuart Hunter

Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

J. Stuart Hunter, Ph. D., is Professor Emeritus at Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. He served as staff statistician for American Cyanamid Co. and as a member of the Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin before joining Princeton.

Over the years, Dr. Hunter has published numerous books, papers, and technical reports. He co-authored Statistics for Experimenters with George E.P. Box and W.G. Hunter and is the author of the textbooks Design of Experiments and Statistics for Problem Solving and Decision Making. His major areas of concentration include industrial applications of statistics, the fractional factorial, and response surface experimental design.

Dr. Hunter is the founding editor of Technometrics, the quarterly journal co-published by ASQ and the American Statistical Association. He served as president of the American Statistical Association in 1993.

Among the many honors received by Dr. Hunter were ASQ's Brumbaugh Award in 1959 and 1985 and Shewhart Medal in 1970. He also received the Ellis Ott Award in 1978 and the Metropolitan Section's Deming Medal in 1986. In addition, he is a recipient of the U.S. Army's S.S. Wilks Medal. The Environometrics Society established the J. Stuart Hunter Annual Lecture in his honor.

Dr. Hunter received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University, a master's degree in engineering mathematics and a doctorate in experimental statistics from the same institution.

Bradley Jones

Senior Manager of Statistical R&D, SAS

Bradley Jones is Senior Manager, Statistical Research and Development in the JMP division of SAS, where he leads the development of design of experiments (DOE) capabilities in JMP software. Mr. Jones architected the JMP Custom Designer, a general and powerful tool for generating optimal experimental designs. He holds a patent on the use of DOE for minimizing registration errors in the manufacture of laminated circuit boards and is the inventor of the prediction profile plot for interactive exploration of multiple input and output response surfaces.

Prior to joining SAS in 1997, Mr. Jones was the principal statistician at The MathWorks, Inc., where he designed and implemented the MATLAB Statistics Toolbox, a set of over 200 statistical functions. Prior to that, he was chief scientist and founding partner of Catalyst, Inc., a company created to support the use of computer aided DOE in industry. At Catalyst, Mr. Jones designed Catalyst DOE, the first interactive graphical tool for DOE.

Mr. Jones is widely published on DOE in research journals and the trade press. His current interest areas are design of experiments, PLS, computer aided statistical pedagogy, and graphical user interface design.

Bruce Knoebel

Senior Research Statistician, Eastman Kodak

Bruce Knoebel, PhD, works in the Inkjet Ink Research Division of Research Labs at the Eastman Kodak Company, applying and developing methods for the application of mixture designs to inkjet ink formulations and commercialization. Since joining Kodak in 1985 he has provided statistical support across a broad range of technologies throughout the company, including film emulsion design and thin film coating, synthetic chemical development, image science, electrostatics, vacuum deposition and medical imaging. 

In addition to his consulting responsibilities, Knoebel has also developed and taught numerous courses to hundreds of Kodak employees. The courses cover statistical subjects such as basic statistics, experimental design, regression modeling and mixture designs, and also computer classes for SAS and JMP.

Prior to the adoption of JMP at Kodak, he also developed supported a comprehensive menu-driven software system for the design and analysis of experimental designs based on the SAS/AF and SAS/SCL for use on the companies multiple mainframe computer systems.
 
Knoebel holds a PhD from Virginia Tech, where he also earned master’s degrees in forest biometrics and statistics. He is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt Instructor.

Scott Lasater

TQM Network

Scott Lasater, Director of the Lean Six Sigma Enterprise Institute, is known around General Electric as “the guy who taught Six Sigma to (retired CEO) Jack Welch.” More recently, he has advised Jeff Immelt, the current GE CEO, on the integration of Lean and Six Sigma. As Master Black Belt and Director of Global Lean Six Sigma Training, he has trained more than 5,000 business leaders around the world. Recently appointed Director of the Lean Six Sigma Enterprise Institute for the TQM Network, Lasater continues this success. In the last three years alone, his Black Belt students saved their own organizations more than $450 million.

Lasater has trained and implemented business optimization, quality management and statistical methods for a variety of organizations, including Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Colgate-Palmolive, Navistar, Quizno's, Regal-Beloit, Rheem, Carrier, the State of Indiana and The Cleveland Clinic. He has a master’s degree in applied industrial statistics from the University of Tennessee and bachelor’s in psychology from Duke University. Most disturbing, however, may be his background as a professional drummer and stand-up comedian.

Dimitri Mavris

Boeing Professor of Advanced Aerospace Systems Analysis, Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dimitri Mavris, PhD, serves as director of Georgia Tech’s Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL), which he co-founded in 1992. He teaches classes on advanced design methods, fixed-wing vehicle design, and air-breathing propulsion design. He involves students in his research into multidisciplinary analysis, design and optimization, and nondeterministic design theory.

Mavris seeks undergraduate participation in the professional aerospace engineering community by creating opportunities for involvement within ASDL. He teaches undergraduate courses and sponsors undergraduate design teams such as the AIAA Design-Build-Fly competition.

He has pursued closer ties between the academic and industrial communities. ASDL has been designated a Center of Excellence in Robust Systems Design and Optimization under the General Electric University Strategic Alliance, and by NASA under the University Research Engineering Technology Institute (URETI) on Aeropropulsion and Power Technology program. ASDL is a member of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Center of Excellence under the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction (PARTNER).
In 2004, Mavris was recognized as a Fellow of the National Institute of Aerospace. He serves as Co-Director of NASA Glenn’s URETI on Aeropropulsion and Power and is a two-time winner of Georgia Tech’s prestigious Outstanding Development of Graduate Assistants Award (1999 and 2004). In 1998, he was invited by the Boeing Company to observe current industry practice under the A.D. Welliver Faculty Fellowship. Mavris also received an NSF-sponsored CAREER award and grant in 1997 to research design for environmental issues, in conjunction with General Electric Aircraft Engines as industrial partner.

Eric J. Myers

Vice President & Group Manager, Predictive Analytics and Program Evaluation, PNC Financial Services Group

Eric Myers provides leadership in creating, identifying and delivering data-driven insights and actions that will achieve breakthrough results for PNC Financial Services Group. In 1999, he created the data mining team at PNC. Now, while continuing to lead that group, he is developing a new Test-and-Learn discipline. The eight members of Myers’ team transform data into information and information into knowledge.

Myers has 15 years of experience in the fields of statistical modeling, statistical consulting, data mining and experimental design. He joined PNC Financial in 1996. Earlier, he held various analytical positions with Kraft Foods and Reese Brothers. He earned a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Clarion University and a master’s degree in statistics from West Virginia University.

Chris Nachtsheim

Chair, Operations and Management Sciences, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

Christopher Nachtsheim, PhD, specializes in experimental design, regression, and analysis of variance, and has co-authored several related books, including Applied Linear Regression Models and Applied Linear Statistical Models. He teaches university courses and works as a consultant on experimental design and using data analysis for decision making. His clients include government organizations and companies in the oil and gas, consumer products and banking industries. He has served as an examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Nachtsheim holds a PhD in Operations Research from the University of Minnesota, and an MS in Operations Research and Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Kevin Norwood

Laundry Modeling & Simulation Research Fellow, Procter & Gamble

Kevin Norwood, PhD, works in Procter & Gamble’s Laundry Formulation business, identifying, developing and deploying modeling techniques. Recently he has expanded his work to emphasize integration of models across disciplines. He came to work at P&G in 1991 and has held various assignments in R&D, in such areas as Analytical Science and Technology and Formulation, where he has spent the majority of his career. He received a PhD in physical chemistry from Iowa State University.

Chris Peterson

Senior Statistical Analysis Manager, Capital One Financial

At Capital One Financial, Chris Peterson focuses on strategic credit policy testing, risk management and financial forecasting. Before joining Capital One’s Richmond, VA, office a year ago, Peterson worked at Intel Corp. for several years in a variety of areas, including technology development, inventory modeling, supply chain optimization, accelerated life and degradation modeling, supplier audit methodology and advanced predictive modeling. He received numerous divisional and corporate awards for his contributions. Peterson holds a master’s degree in statistics from Brigham Young University with thesis work in detecting and monitoring spatial defect densities in IC fabrication.

Timothy Pletcher

Director of Applied Research, Central Michigan University Research Corp.

Tim Pletcher is the Director of Applied Research at the Central Michigan University Research Corporation (CMU-RC), where he directs business intelligence and data mining projects in concert with faculty experts. His work has supported many companies, including General Motors, Dow Chemical, International Paper, Eli Lilly, EDS and Henry Ford Health System. CMU-RC provides a low-risk means for corporations to gain insight from their data and apply advanced analytics for data- and model-driven decision making.

Pletcher also shares an appointment with The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions at CMU, where he is the Director of Information Technology. He is currently the program director for the Michigan Health Information Alliance, focused on using health information technology and the creation of a Health Information Exchange to improve the quality of care in the State of Michigan’s Central Medical Trading Area. Prior to joining CMU-RC, Pletcher was the Chief Technology Officer at a start-up corporation in New York City specializing in electronic commerce and customized supply chain automation. He worked for more than a decade at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) as the Director for Advanced Technology and Business Information Systems. In 2000, his UMHS team received a Smithsonian-Computer World Medal for the Medical Readiness Trainer Project utilizing virtual reality and computer-based modeling and simulation to reduce medical errors. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, and a master’s degree from CMU.

John Sall

Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, SAS

Who knew data analysis could be fun? John Sall did. That’s why Sall, one of the founders of business intelligence software giant SAS, began a SAS business unit in 1989 devoted to creating interactive and highly visual data analysis software for the desktop. The resulting software, JMP, dynamically links statistics with graphics, empowering users to interactively explore their data.

Nearly 20 years later, he remains the lead architect for JMP statistical discovery software, which is now used by more than 200,000 researchers and engineers to promote quality initiatives, empower Six Sigma programs and create R&D environments in which innovation rules. “JMP is pronounced ‘jump’ and was named to suggest a leap in interactivity, a leap in a new direction,” he explains.

In addition to his responsibilities at JMP, Sall is also Executive Vice President for SAS, which he co-founded in 1976. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Beloit College in Beloit, WI, and a master's degree in economics from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. North Carolina State University, where he studied graduate-level statistics, awarded him an honorary doctor of sciences degree in 2003.

Sall has held several positions in the Statistical Computing Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and was named an ASA Fellow in 1998. He is a past president of ASA’s North Carolina chapter and currently serves on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy.

Michael Schrage

Researcher and Author

An MIT researcher and executive education lecturer, Michael Schrage has been co-director of the MIT Media Labs eMarkets Initiative and a pioneer in the economic sociology of modeling, simulation and experimentation in organizations. His work focuses on how models, prototypes and simulations are used to align “innovation markets.” He has advised a variety of global organizations, including Microsoft, Google, BT, BP, Wells Fargo, Mars, Fidelity/Devonshire Partners and Siemens. He is the author of Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, 1999) and other books and articles on the economics of innovation.

Cy Wegman

Corporate Modeling Simulation & Analysis Section Head, Procter & Gamble

Cy Wegman oversees all design of experiment (DOE) and process definition courses for P&G and supports P&G business units around the world in the area of DOE. He has worked at P&G for 30 years. For the last 10 years, he has worked in Corporate Modeling & Simulation with other experts in reliability engineering, optimization and empirical modeling. Earlier, Wegman worked in P&G’s Family Care business, focusing on DOE and statistical process control. He also has worked in brand initiatives, process startups, material supply, reliability and quality control. Before joining P&G Wegman worked in paper manufacturing for 10 years. He graduated in 1977 from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

Byron Wingerd

Principal Scientist, Emergent BioSolutions

Byron Wingerd, PhD, is a member of the Technical Development and Continuous Improvement groups at the BioDefense Operations campus for Emergent BioSolutions, a biopharmaceutical company in the business of protecting lives. Working at the company’s Lansing, MI, office, he is currently involved in a vaccine manufacturing scale-up project and the improvement of existing process metrics and controls. Wingerd received a joint doctoral degree from the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology and the Department of Microbiology at Michigan State University. He was trained as a Green Belt in Six Sigma by Dr. Tom Little as part of the Emergent BioSolutions Lean6 Initiative.