Mayberry 2005: Introduction of Panelists

Dr. Reimann: Welcome to the Mayberry MBA forum. As many of you may know there is a Mayberry chair here at Tech, it's existed for about nine years and I've had the good fortune to be associated with it for all that time, and one of the highlights of the Mayberry chair activity is that we have an advisory board, a group of people with backgrounds and various kind of industry and technology and so on, and business experience who come in and share their experiences with us, and a very popular part of this program over their nine years has been their sharing of their experiences with MBA students who have an opportunity to ask questions built around their own interest, their own business experience, and we provide and opportunity then for that sharing. The background of the people present here varied, and the important part here is for you to get some sense of who they are, and kind of things they've done. This gives you a little bit of sense of different careers, how careers evolve, because I think in a lot of ways this helps you frame your questions…why did you make that change, what kind of experience have you had in making that change, and so on. So let me begin with asking each of the board members to say a few words about his or her career and so on. I'm going to start with you Jean

Jean Kinney: My name is Jean Kinney. I work for Proctor and Gamble. Right now I'm in supply chain management, but I've done a number of different things for P&G. My education is in Civil Engineering and I've actually started Proctor and Gamble in our engineering division. I later got a law degree and I've done a number of different things over my career. Total quality management was a good portion of it and now supply chain management, including setting up supply chains around the globe for new products, and purchasing sourcing work.

Joe Dehler: My name is Joe Dehler. I'm with a company called Carlson Company. It's a new company; you probably know it by our brands: Radison hotels, Country Inn & Suites, we're also on a cruise line. We have 192,000 employees in 140 countries. My role is the vice president of business process improvement. I'm responsible for productivity, quality, cost, quality cycle time, and customer satisfaction for all out major processes. I spend the first 25 years with a company called Control Data. Looking around the room, you're all too young to know who they are and what that company was. We built super computers, so what I can tell you, s I remember in my orientation meeting 25 years ago at Control Data, what they said was Lifetime Employment, in other words as long as you want to work for this company you can work for this company. What do you think happened to super computing when desktop computing came about? How many of you have a super computer at home? Not many. So that whole notion about lifetime employment fell away. What I learned from that is that the market can dictate what a company can do for their employees. Now I work at a company that sells hamburgers and hotel rooms. So I went from super computers to hamburgers and hotel rooms. I started my career with technology background, and much like Jean, where you come in is not where you'll end. What I found was that I had a passion for quality and improvement, and thus I've made my career focused in those areas. In the areas of how do we produce the best quality we possibly can and be as productive as we possibly can in our companies. My passion is how to make the companies I work for better and better every single day. I'm blessed to be able to be part of the Mayberry board and work with gentlemen like Dr. Reimann and all my colleagues on the board here, and continue to study and find ways to get better and better how we make all our companies better. So I don't have to be part of like I was a part of what happened to me in the computer business. So lifetime employment is good as long as you're producing the highest quality, and you're competing in the markets you compete in, and what I learned is. As stewards of the companies we work for, our focus can never waiver from insuring that we're winning in the markets that we're competing in. The best way that I found to do that was through quality and performance improvement.

David Jones: That's a tough act to follow. My name is David Jones and I'm with Epic technologies. We're in Johnson city , TN. There is an Epic technologies here in Cookeville , we're not related so don't blame anything I say today on them. They are ok. I've been in business about 23 years, all in the high tech manufacturing arena, started with Texas Instruments, then with Siemens, and now with Epic. Currently we are contract manufacturer; we provide electronics to companies that have decided that manufacturing is not part of their core competency. One unique aspect of my career changes is that I've never left the building. I've worked for three different companies; we've been sold twice. So I've had to learn different company cultures different ways of doing business, different operating philosophies while still maintaining the focus of the business unit. My role there is operational excellence, and unlike what Joe described to help drive the companies performance beyond mere compliance to high performance in everything we do, not just on the factory floor.

Steven Hoisington: My name is Steve Hoisington I'm the senior VP of organizational excellence and quality at a company called Excel, we're the worlds largest logistics provider, we're a supplier to Jean (P&G) and other organizations which I can't say, unless they admit first. I've been with excel for almost a year. About 150,000 employees worldwide. Soon to be a part of DHL, if the deal goes down in December. Prior to that, I was 5 years at Johnson Controls where I was the VP of quality, you may be familiar with Johnson Controls facility here. I was on the control side, not the automotive suppliers side, but still the same company and prior to that, 20 years with IBM where I held various positions in terms of Industrial Engineer and quality engineer and plant manager and worldwide operations, different capacities at IBM before moving on. I appreciate the opportunity Kurt, and the opportunity to be with my colleagues, last time I was here I was all by myself, and had nobody to back me up

Dr. Reimann: Jack, last but not least. Jack Swaim is the chairman of our board and has served very effectively and with great energy goes back to Malcolm Baldridge National Quality award. He actually worked with president Bell when president Bell was a contributor, so that's an interesting sort of historical point, so Jack let's hear a little bit about your background.

Jack Swaim: It's great to be back here with you, and I realize that something has shifted when I didn't have to look at a map, I knew exactly how long it would take to drive here from the airport, that from being here for several years. I've started out as an engineer, I studied mechanical engineering at MIT and decided I didn't want to be an engineer all the time so I went of to Stanford university and got an MBA there and started my career at Zerox Corp. and had a good fortune that to work in many different roles, in finance, and some engineering, in business strategy, I led a sales organization for many years. In the late 80's Zerox decided to apply for something called a Baldridge award and I was at that time the VP for business strategy for Zerox, and someone came to me and said, guess what, we're going to apply for a Baldridge award, and you're going to lead the area called business strategy. I never heard of aBaldridge award, I was too busy, I'll delegate somebody, but I can't do it. The gentleman who I was having a conversation with said, maybe I didn't explain this well enough. He said there was seven categories, the first one is leadership, and our CEO is taking that, there is one on information technology and our Chief Information office is taking that, and he asked if I was able to make some time. And I said, Jim you're very persuasive, but that introduced me to the Baldridge framework, and meeting thousands of wonderful people and learning a lot from other companies that I had the opportunity work with. So that was a career shift for me, it turned out to be, I could focus more on the quality as an integrated approach. You all are thinking about your careers and where to go and why and all that. To me this became kind of an integrating framework that I was able to use to connect a lot of the dots that I'd seen in other place. I've also had the good fortune in working with other two companies. One called Cummins engine, and I'm now at Hewlett Packard. I've been there since 1999, beginning of 1999, and I'm in charge of quality of all of our printers and imaging products. Printers, digital cameras, and the like around the world. HP overall is about $85 billion, and the part that I'm in is about $25 billion of revenue, high percentage of the companies profits, and we sell millions of printers a week, and hopefully they are working right, but if there is a problem with an HP product or whatever, you can see me afterwards and I'll make sure you get good support. I'm happy to be here, eager to talk to you, and listen to your questions as you think about your careers.

Dr. Reiman: Jack, I worked all my career as you know in federal government, and I know $25 billion sounds like a lot but there isn't a day that goes buy that we don't lose that much.

Dr. Reiman: Now, we're going to turn this program over to you, we would like to get some volunteers to ask the questions, and hopefully you can build on each other questions, raise questions that you think have emerged from some of the comments that you've heard today about particular career changes or types of activities that the board member have had in the own companies or things that they've seen in the business world, things that they are seeing now because of globalization and so on. It should be wide open, there is no limit to the way this forum should go. Is there a volunteer for the first question?