Our Consultants

Founders...

Lawrence “David” Davis. President, VGO Associates LLC. A Senior Fellow of NuTech Solutions, Inc. More than 25 years in industry, with primary specialization in optimization, supply chain, and data mining applications. Many successful, fielded optimization systems. Author/editor of two books on genetic algorithm optimization and more than 40 papers. Elected in the inaugural class of ten Senior Fellows by the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Ten years running his own genetic algorithm consulting company. Clients have included Air Liquide, BB&T, Chevron, Ford Motor Company, the Internal Revenue Service, Manugistics, Marks and Spencer, Motorola, NASA, Steelcase, United States Sugar, U S West, and Wells Fargo.

Dick Heller. President, Full Extension LLC. Fifteen years as consultant, trainer, and speaker on management and leadership, including interest in chaotic processes and systems as they affect businesses. Previous background as producer and director for WGBH-TV, Boston (ZOOM, Evening at Pops). Ten years with the Tom Peters organization, named a Tom Peters Fellow. Clients have included Bank of America, Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Microsoft, Herman Miller, The MathWorks, and UBS.

David Orvosh. Partner, VGO Associates. Fifteen years experience in industry. Expert in genetic algorithm and other approaches to optimization. Has written programs for multiple real-world, fielded systems. Clients have included United States Sugar, Motorola, U S West, Cisco, and Hershey.

Associates...

Paul S Bender. President of P S Bender & Company, LLC. Expert in supply chain and logistics management worldwide. More than 30 years as a senior management consultant mostly with his own company and 8 years as a high-level executive with several major corporations. Focuses on the development and application of quantitative techniques and automation technology to the solution of complex management problems. Has developed original management concepts, methods and techniques, using large-scale optimization, and probabilistic and statistical analysis. Helps clients develop innovative strategies, turnaround problematic situations, and implement advanced concepts and techniques offering major strategic competitive advantages. Clients have included Campbell Soup, Compagnie de St. Gobain (France), Ford Motor Company, Foster's Group (Australia), Georgia-Pacific, General Electric, Grupo Gerdau (Brazil), IBM Corporation, International Paper, The Kellogg Company, The Mahaphant Group (Thailand), Nordstrom, Siemens (Germany), Sony (Japan), Tenneco, UPS, White-Martins/Praxair (Brazil), and Whirlpool.

George Danner. Managing Director, Simulation, Modeling, & Analytics, nGenera Corporation. Over twenty years of experience in corporate strategy and business simulation for both operational and financial analysis, across a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, and financial services. Industrial Science is a consultancy specializing in applying quantitative methods and simulation modeling to highly complex business problems. Special emphasis in agent-based simulation modeling, Monte Carlo simulation, System Dynamics, Game Theory, and Real Options. Prior to founding Industrial Science in 2002, George was a leader in the US National Strategy Practice of Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, based in Houston , Texas , USA . Clients include Ford Motor Company, Shell, Target, BP, Anadarko Petroleum , US Department of Defense, Amerada Hess, Sun Microsystems, US Navy, and Halliburton.

Kunal Dutta-Roy. Petroleum industry consultant with over twenty two years in the development of software-based optimization solutions for oil and gas production and transportation problems. A petroleum engineer by training, Dr. Dutta-Roy has extensive experience in applying numerical modeling and real-time diagnostics tools to oilfield operations having led significant initiatives in this area with Schlumberger, IBM, Invensys and SSI. His clients include many of the larger integrated oil companies and major international resource holders.

Philippe Flichy . Innovative, creative and enthusiastic world class system oriented IT integration and product management leader with O&G understanding. Philippe is an entrepreneurial spirit with Fortune 100 experience; he is a forward strategic thinker leveraging 20 years of challenging experiences with a strong interest for corporate development strategy.  He contributed to Schlumberger's “Digital Solutions” “e-field” initiative before starting GlobaLogix an O&G start-up in the “e-field” service sector as CTO. Most recently he joined Merrick System, an upstream O&G software company as Vice-President of Corporate Development .Prior to these undertakings, Philippe led the conception, integration and operation of the Intranet at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games.

Ric Golemon. President, BlueTone Consulting Associates, Inc. Twenty years as a consultant specializing in large systems integration, project and program management and IT organizational development. Former Consulting Partner in the Utility / Energy vertical of Ernst & Young LLP. Clients have included several interstate gas pipeline companies and multinational energy concerns.

Robert J. Gumaer. President of WINpower, Inc., a sales & marketing consultancy in Atlanta , focused on helping technology firms develop creative applications for advanced optimization technologies, and implement sales techniques and tools for profitable revenue generation. In the prior 20 years he held diverse executive roles in the computer software industry including vice president of marketing at SynQuest and vice president of Asia-Pacific for American Software. He repositioned SynQuest as a supply chain vendor and released a full suite of optimal planning and execution applications, driving 100 percent annual revenue growth. Bob has also been director of corporate planning for The Gap Stores, senior consultant with Kurt Salmon Associates, and senior operations research analyst for Lockheed Martin. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management from Purdue University , plus extensive post-graduate studies at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University . Bob is a popular speaker at computer software and industry events and has been frequently published and quoted in professional journals and other media.

Craig M. Gustin. A founder and principal of CGR Management Consultants. Craig has more than twenty-five years of consulting experience. His background prior to consulting includes engineering and marketing management positions with automotive, defense and information systems organizations. Craig has conducted more than one hundred consulting engagements for manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, hardware/software companies, and third-party logistics service providers. These engagements have involved supply chain strategy, market and customer research, operations improvement, and information systems evaluation. Dr. Gustin is a faculty member at American Intercontinental University , where he teaches graduate-level courses in supply chain management and business research. Craig has authored or co-authored thirty articles that have been published in eighteen different journals, handbooks and reference sources. His research and publications also have been cited in more than seventy journals, trade periodicals and business publications, including Fortune magazine. He currently serves on APICS' Strategic Management of Resources (SMR) certification committee and is a member of the Editorial Review Board for the Production and Inventory Management Journal.

Bill Hunter. CEO of Volia Software, Inc. a Houston-based developer of customer computer applications. Formerly a Partner with Ernst & Young's consulting practice and a Vice President of Capgemini, where he led the deregulated energy practice. He specializes in large systems development projects, business process design, innovation, and strategy implementation. Bill is also a Certified Performance Coach. Volia Software leverages 400+ highly-skilled computer scientists, mathematicians and engineers located in Kyiv , Ukraine “the Cambridge Massachusetts of the former Soviet Union .” Former outside Director of EPRI Solutions. Clients include Alliance RTO, American Transmission Company, BP, British Gas, the California ISO, K N Energy (now Kinder-Morgan), the Ontario IMO, PG&E, and Public Service Company of New Mexico. Degrees in mathematics and business.

Mark Jakiela. Hunter Professor of Mechanical Design, Washington University in St. Louis . Seventeen years as an engineering faculty member teaching and conducting research in the general areas of mechanical design and product realization. Previously with the MIT department of mechanical engineering, where he served as associate director of the Computer-Aided Design Laboratory. As a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator (awarded by the NSF Division of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation), he conducted research dealing with real world applications of evolutionary optimization. He has had significant research collaborations with Nissan, Ford, Gillette, and Hitachi . Currently, he is investigating new modes of computer-supported interactivity that will encourage innovation and entrepreneurism.

Howard Park. Senior Director, Simulation Modeling and Analytics at nGenera. Implemented several emerging technology applications, including neural-network systems, system dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations, 3D visualization, web-based model deployment, agent-based models and other tools used to solve complex business and management problems. Applications include strategy development and implementation, capital projects and budgeting, executive dashboards and reports, revenue projections, supply chain management and knowledge management. He has fifteen years of experience across several industries, including energy, education, government, consolidating industries, and hi-tech. Clients include BP, California DMV, Halliburton, Rice University , Anadarko Petroleum, and TSMC.

Miles Parker. Principal, Metascape LLC. A leader in the development of Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) tools and computational approaches to complex systems. Miles has over fifteen years of software development experience. Prior to founding Metascape, he was Distinguished Software Architect at NuTech Solutions, Inc. (formerly Bios Group) where he directed the development and refinement of Ascape, lead software teams in developing groundbreaking complex system models for a variety of government and commercial applications, and served as co-PI on significant multi-year contracts. From 1997 to 2000, Miles was at the Brookings Institution where he worked with Joshua Epstein, Robert Axtell and others in developing ABMs of important social and economic systems and invented Ascape, an innovative ABM tool.

James L. Poage. President of JLP Performance Consulting. Thirty years experience in systems engineering, optimization, and productivity analysis. Expert on productivity in knowledge-based organizations. Applies systematic approaches to increase productivity relating to the softer issues of work processes, such as the balance between worker discretion and enterprise productivity; obtaining, using, creating, and conveying knowledge within the enterprise organization and for project teams; incentives for effective collaboration and knowledge work; and knowledge work processes. Helps companies obtain better decisions by developing information for decision-making, including decision-driven performance measures, project portfolio management frameworks, and assessing programmatic risks. Coaches groups for decision-making and program formulation to obtain participation and buy-in of stakeholders in decisions and formulating actions. Has a background in systems engineering, optimization, pattern recognition, and decision theory so can integrate the soft aspects of productivity with engineering/statistical analysis and process/system enhancement. Clients include NASA, FAA, Merrill Lynch, Executive Education Program at Babson College, World Bank, National Academy of Sciences, Navy, and The Ally Foundation (a charity).

Rod Sipe. Managing Partner of EnCORE Alliance Partners, has over thirty years experience in the energy industry, 20 as an IT Partner at Ernst & Young. He has extensive industry experience in oil and gas exploration, production and oil field service. EnCORE Alliance Partners provides incubation, integration and innovation services to its clients through an extensive network of business and technology partners and the creation of virtual organizations to solve emerging business problems. Rod was an early adopter of complexity science, developing modeling and optimization software for trading and scheduling applications. He specializes in enabling IT infrastructures for the application of CAS based systems, and in project management for large corporate clients.

Lester K Sisemore. President, Syntragy, LLC. Over thirty years experience in the Exploration and Production sector of the Oil and Gas Industry as a senior technology executive with Chevron, an executive consultant with IBM Global Services, and an independent consultant. Focus areas have included geophysical research, exploration operations, upstream data management, and technology management. Expertise includes strategy and planning, operational modeling, business process management, project valuation, portfolio decision-making, and technology implementation. Syntragy is a consultancy specializing in the implementation of Upstream Petroleum Technology – including the strategy, planning, and change management that are a necessary part of this process. Focused on the improvement and sustainability of oil and gas portfolio and asset performance, they are able to help clients create competitive advantage by solving important operational problems.

Ed Walker. Executive Vice President of Consulting Services for Education and former Chief Executive Officer of the IMS Global Learning Consortium (2000-2006). Ed also served as co-chair of the MERLOT Advisory Board and as a member of the Advisory Board of the Global eLearning Consortium. Ed brings broad experience in general management, cognitive science, organizing research and development projects and business development to leadership and strategic decision making roles. Previously, he was a Visiting Scientist with the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and Vice President of business development for BBN Systems and Technologies. He has directed projects in intelligent tutoring, knowledge representation and management, distributed collaboration, command and control and logistics planning. He was a Principal Research Scientist and founding member of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, where he did post-graduate work, taught undergraduate and graduate courses, and administered research laboratory facilities. He received a Leverhulme Fellowship at St. Andrews University and completed an accelerated management training program at the MIT Sloan School . While at BBN, he led projects for a wide range of government and industrial clients.

Darrell Whitley. Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department , Colorado State University. Twenty years of experience in optimization and machine learning. Expert in technology transfer to industry, with 4 awards from the Colorado Advanced Software Institute (CASI) for exemplary research and technology transfer. Chair of the Governing Board of the International Society for Genetic Algorithms for four years. Editor in Chief of the MIT Press journal Evolutionary Computation for five years. Elected in the inaugural class of ten Senior Fellows by the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Has published more than 120 papers on Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Evolution Strategies, Tabu Search, Neural Networks, Decision Trees and Reinforcement Learning. Application experience includes resource and warehouse scheduling, manufacturing and jobshop scheduling, satellite and radar communications scheduling, plant optimization and control, atmospheric science and seismic data interpretation, classification problems and autonomous control. Dr. Whitley has worked with Raytheon, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, IIT, Hewlett Packard, Coors , Texas Instruments, Amoco, TRW, Landmark Graphics, Advance Geophysical, RML Technologies and Noranda Corporation.