Center for Leadership and Innovation instructors are not only engaging teachers, but renowned researchers, practicing professionals, consultants and authors as well.
Joe Candido
Joe Candido has over 26 years of experience in sales, marketing, consulting, technology, and advanced training methods. Joe is a consultant who works with his clients to develop competitive differentiation in their market place, and then build both strategic and tactical sales and marketing plans which leverage that differentiation.
Throughout Joe’s career he has worked with wide range of clients and industries, often creating in-depth, multi-year programs. Joe has worked with several multi-national corporations, regional companies, and nonprofits. He has in-depth expertise in:
- creating intellectual property
- manufacturing, eCommerce
- health care
- telecommunication and
- Information Technology
Joe owned and operated an IT consulting firm, held positions of Director of Sales, and VP of Sales and Marketing, VP of Innovation, worked with leading research and advertising firms, and delivered a wide range of technical and executive training programs, some which have been accredit by ACE and Champlain College.
Joe recently built and implemented a sales and marketing plan for a manufacturing firm that drove sales from $20MM to $30MM in 3 years during which time profits increased by 850%. He then positioned the company for a very successful acquisition. He served as a director of Hill Associates, Inc.’s Board of Directors for 3 years. He also consults/coaches with several executives on an individual basis.
Joe has been trained in adult learning and several sales methodologies and often includes their Principles when creating custom sales performance improvement programs for his clients. Joe graduated from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh with a BS in Business Management.
Bruce Chadbourne
Bruce Chadbourne, PMP, PgMP, PMI-RMP, is an instructor for PMCentersUSA with more than three decades of experience in engineering project and program management. Bruce has an extensive history in independent assignments, providing support to executive management in technical domains including: shipyard and industrial environments, nuclear engineering, chemistry, software and hardware engineering, information technology, government and military sensors and communication systems.
Bruce’s extensive career in project management began with the U.S. Navy serving as an officer in ADP, Surface Warfare, and Nuclear Engineering. While serving in the U.S. Navy, Bruce worked on requirements management, risk management, software engineering, project management and CMMI. Bruce served as an independent NAVAIR/NAVSEA technical representative at IBM for the development of LAMPS MKIII Helicopter Avionics and Shipboard Electronics projects. Working as a Senior Software Designer for GE Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin), Bruce coordinated the process, tools, methods and metrics utilized by over 300 software engineers on the AN/BSY-2 Submarine Combat System in a CASE-intensive UNIX workstation network.
More recently, Bruce has been actively presenting project management and risk management curriculum associated with the Project Management Institute, with a specialization in Earned Value, Business Requirements Analysis (UML/OOA) PRINCE 2, Estimating Techniques, Critical Path, and Critical Chain Scheduling techniques. Bruce has lectured on business analysis, requirements management, system testing, and Agile project management techniques. He is an honors graduate from Cornell University with a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry. Furthermore, he has achieved top Navy academic achievements and service qualifications.
Rocki-Lee DeWitt, Ph.D.
Rocki-Lee DeWitt is the former Dean and Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Vermont. She earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University in strategic management, her M.S. at The Ohio State University in Agricultural Economics and her B.S. in Marketing and Management at New York University. Prior to her arrival in 2002, Dr. DeWitt was the Associate Dean for Professional Masters Programs at the Pennsylvania State University. While at UVM, Dr. DeWitt has been responsible for hiring 15 of the school’s 27 tenure track faculty, played a leadership role in increasing the number of endowed faculty fellowships and professorships, and helped build a management development and executive education presence. Dr. DeWitt has received numerous teaching awards and has discussed teaching innovations at multiple national conferences. Her research on downsizing and restructuring has been published in top tier journals. Dr. DeWitt is a member of the Board of Governors of Beta Gamma Sigma, a member of the Board of Directors of Yankee Farm Credit (an ACA), and sits on various community boards including the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Burlington Industrial Council.
Connie Emerson
Connie Emerson, an instructor and consultant for PMCentersUSA, has over 30 years of practical experience in the field of Project Management, including projects in engineering and construction, manufacturing, information technology, retail, insurance and financial services. As a project management consultant, Connie has extensive experience optimizing project management within organizations through focused training, implementing best practices in project management, coaching project and program managers in client organizations, and facilitating client-specific planning and requirements sessions.
Some of the engagements Connie has led include the creation and optimization of Project Management Office services, along with development of processes and templates to meet an organization’s needs/governance model. She has also provided project manager coaching services including project plan evaluations, project re-planning support, and process reviews. In addition, Connie has supported project managers in the baselining of new initiatives and in the recovery of troubled projects. Connie also has demonstrated skills in the facilitation of team kick-off meetings and work sessions to develop project requirements, product design specifications and comprehensive project plans to ensure project success. Among the many clients Connie has worked with are Inland Steel Corporation, Nationwide Insurance, Liberty Mutual Insurance, L.L. Bean, and Albridge Solutions, formerly part of PNC.
Connie earned her Project Management Professional certification (PMP) in 1999. She earned her MBA degree from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Business in 1984, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from The University of Delaware.
Karen Fleming
Karen has over 25 years of strategy, marketing, product development and research experience with leading traditional and non-traditional organizations. Karen is the University of Vermont, Vermont Business School Instructor teaching Strategic Marketing Management. Her career includes such notable companies as Procter & Gamble, Ocean Spray and Application, Inc., Stonyfield Farm, and Seventh Generation. She has also worked as a growth strategy consultant at CDI (now part of Mercer Consulting). As Vice President of Marketing at Stonyfield Farm and Seventh Generation, she developed and launched the two most successful product lines in the company’s histories and helped establish these companies as leading brands in their respective categories.
Karen also was co-founder and CEO of Coates Walker, Inc., a manufacturer of “green” cabinetry that served residential and commercial markets.
Karen is a board member of the Vermont Green Building Network, a member of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund Peer to Peer network, and the marketing instructor for the Vermont Women’s Small Business Program. She is also the Director of the MBA Program in Sustainable Business and Associate Professor at Green Mountain College, and founder and president of her own marketing and sustainable business consultancy.
Karen earned her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College, and her MBA degree from the Harvard Business School.
Bret Golann
Prior to earning a Ph.D. in management and marketing for entrepreneurial firms at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bret Golann spent fourteen years managing service and manufacturing operations and sales – mostly in technology businesses including IBM and at small companies. Bret was also a product manager with responsibilities for market analysis, product development and sales for a small entrepreneurial company that developed optical quality assurance instruments for food processing, medical and industrial applications.
As a professor Bret developed and taught the technology commercialization, managing growth and entrepreneurship curriculums at the University of Vermont and the University of Maine. He continues to teach the entrepreneurship concentration at the UVM Business School. In nineteen years of teaching experience he has also taught technology marketing and sales, quality assurance and operations management courses.
Bret is the president of the Vermont Biosciences Alliance, a non-profit technology business development organization. He was the founder of the Family Business Initiative at UVM and currently serves on several business and non-profit boards.
Andrea Lee Grayson
Andrea Lee Grayson, Ed.D., M.A. has spent more than 25 years productively utilizing both her creative, right brain aptitudes, as well as her organizational & analytical left-brain skills, as an artist, writer, media producer, educator, project manager and scholar.
Dr. Grayson has a background in news, educational, and advertising/corporate media production, and has been teaching college – level courses in Media Studies and Production since 1994. She is the co-founder of the production company It’s a Fine Mess! Productions, and is the producer of award-winning children’s media products. Her work with media-based behavior change projects includes collaborating with broadcast producers in Swaziland, Africa to create pro-social health messaging to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To help address the risk behaviors of college students, including excessive alcohol consumption, risky sexual activity, and issues of bias, she conceived and is producing a web-based video series that has been researched and created by students through academic service-learning course work.
Dr. Grayson is a social and behavior change marketing consultant, focusing on the use of creative print and media strategies to support social and behavior change initiatives. She is also studies and revels in the creative process, and conducts workshops/trainings for individuals and organizations to embrace creative activities and culture as a means of enhancing productivity, in both personal and business contexts. She is the author of several e-books and papers on topics ranging from dining etiquette to women’s empowerment, and maintains an occasional blog at www.exercisingcreativity.com
Susan Hughes, Ph.D., CPA
Susan Hughes is an associate professor of accounting. She joined the UVM faculty in 2006. At UVM she teaches undergraduate accounting courses and the MBA Business Analysis and Consulting. Prior to joining the UVM faculty, Susan spent 17 years at Butler University where she taught financial and managerial accounting, and the MBA Integrative Capstone course. She also coordinated and taught in three, 14-week executive education programs designed to improve physicians’ business acumen, offered in conjunction with the Indianapolis Medical Society The results of her research have appeared in the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, theJournal of Accounting Education, Strategic Finance, Management Accounting Quarterly, Credit and Financial Management Review, and the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies. Her co-authored paper on Intel’s finance function received the Institute of Management Accountants 2006 Lybrand Gold Medal and was selected by the International Federation of Accountants for inclusion in Articles of Merit Award Program for Distinguished Contribution to Management Accounting. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, and has designed and conducted executive education programs for the Vermont Business Center, Temple-Inland, Roche, Norwood Promotional Products, and various public accounting firms.
David Jones, Ph.D.
David Jones is an Associate Professor in Management at the School of Business Administration, University of Vermont. David completed his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Calgary in Canada. He is a passionate teacher who was recently honored as the recipient of a University wide teaching award.
In his research he focuses on employees’ perceptions of fairness in the workplace. David studies the processes through which employees judge fairness and unfairness, and though which they respond through cooperative behavior, turnover, revenge, and counterproductive behavior (e.g., wasting time, theft). He also conducts research on employee recruitment and selection. David is active in presenting his research at scholarly conferences like the annual meetings of the Academy of Management and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and has published his research in top academic journals that include the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and the Journal of Management. Dr. Jones is currently a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
In his work with organizations, David served for two years on the Board of Directors, and a term as Chair of the Board, for a non-profit organization called the New Sudan Education Initiative (www.nesei.org) whose mission is to build secondary schools in South Sudan. David has also applied principles of workplace fairness to projects within government, retail, and information technology sectors. More recently, David has worked with the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) Foundation to study how GMCR’s company-funded volunteerism program affects employee attitudes and behaviors.
Joe Lukas
Joe Lukas, Vice-President of PMCentersUSA, has over thirty years experience in project management encompassing project portfolio management, and international project management. His projects have spanned numerous industries including manufacturing, product development, information technology and construction.
Among his varied strengths, Joe has demonstrated expertise in scheduling, earned value analysis and risk management. He has published over 30 articles on various project management topics, and is regularly invited to be guest speaker for companies and organizations seeking to improve performance and meet strategic objectives through effective project management.
Joe is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) and has been a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) since 1985. While living in Rochester, NY, Joe was very active with the PMI Chapter, serving in various positions including two terms as Chapter President. His efforts in growing the Rochester Chapter were recognized in 2001 when Joe was honored with an award for his outstanding contributions to the Chapter.
Early in his career, Joe received his Professional Engineer license following his graduation from Syracuse University where he earned B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. He went on to become a Certified Cost Engineer (CCE) for the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE), and has served on the Genesee Valley Section Board in various positions including Section President.
Tim Lybarger
Tim Lybarger is an instructor in the University of Vermont Professional Certificate in Leadership and Management and joined the Vermont Business Center Board of Advisors in 2004.
Tim is a Human Resource and Organizational Development professional with a total of eighteen years of hands on experience in results-focused line management roles in the small business environment, followed by thirteen years of providing HR performance solutions within the large corporate environment. In his corporate roles, he has functioned as a strategic business partner with business leaders at all levels to facilitate the design and delivery of interventions to solve problems and develop programs in support of enterprise-wide initiatives.
From 1998 to July of 2008 Tim held a position as Manager of Training and Development with Nestlé University, the Human Resource Development group for Nestlé USA. From that role he provided HR development and performance consulting services to Nestle organizations throughout North America.
Prior to Nestlé, Tim functioned as an organizational development consultant for Centerior Energy, an Ohio-based electric utility and as an internal change management consultant for ALLTEL Information Systems, a telecommunications software developer.
Tim’s education includes a B.A. degree in Business Management from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio and a M.S. degree in Organizational Development and Analysis from the Weatherhead School of Business at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
He holds additional certifications in the areas of: Personal Leadership, Time and Project Management, Effective Interpersonal Communications, Principled Negotiation Skills, Team Effectiveness, Personal Style Preferences, and 360 degree Feedback Instruments.
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Tim moved with his wife, Linda, and son, Adam, to Vermont in April of 2003.
Samuel W. McDowell, Ph.D.
Samuel (Sandy) McDowell is an executive with a proven track record in operational improvement, expense control and change management. He is a Ph.D. with a breadth of experience covering quality initiatives in healthcare, medical diagnostics, finance, and supply chain management. Sandy’s employment experience spans public and large private organizations, as well as experience as an independent consultant and small business owner. Sandy publishes and speaks on a variety of business and technical topics. He has taught business management at Champlain College, and production and operations management in the UVM MBA program. Sandy is a graduate of Middlebury College, the University of Vermont, and the Polytechnic Institute of New York.
Jennifer Mincar
Jen Mincar is an independent consultant specializing in IT project management. She divides her time equally in the field and in the classroom. Jen currently manages large-scale, enterprise wide software implementations and upgrades. She also teaches technical and project management classes across New England for manufacturing and marketing companies with sales from $500M-$2B+.
She has in-depth expertise in IT Strategic Planning, Project & Program Management, Procurement Management, Technical & Project Management Training and Team Leadership.
In 2010, Jen spoke at the PMI Champlain Valley Chapter meeting, the VT Women’s Business Owners Chapter meeting, and the Vermont Consultant Network meeting. Prior to becoming a consultant, Jen worked for IBM as a programmer and manager for ten years and then for Burton Snowboards as the Global IT Director for two years. She also owns and operates an entrepreneurial business called Office Squared, a co-working space in Burlington, VT.
She has a BA in Computer Science & Math from SUNY-Potsdam, an MBA from Binghamton University, and is PMP certified.
Merryn Rutledge, Ed. D
Merryn works with clients throughout the country and in all sectors, advising on management challenges and change projects, guiding strategic planning, creating employee development programs, and working with Boards of Directors. Merryn does this work as Principal of ReVisions LLC, an organizational development firm in Burlington, Vermont. Speaking about her work, Merryn says, "I enjoy collaborating with organizational leaders to anticipate and meet challenges and opportunities, plan, and guide change initiatives that help people and organizations grow."