Tom Schlick has an extensive career in the services industry in many leadership roles with companies including General Electric, Emerson Process Management, Datacard Group, and XATA Corporation. He is currently the VP, Global Services for ACCO Brands, a multi-billion dollar global market leader in Office products/solutions. Tom has lead large global Service teams of over 600 people and has been instrumental in driving double digit revenue and profit growth particularly in Europe and Asia.
Tom has held several leadership positions in service associations including President of AFSMI, President of the Chicago Chapter, and is currently serves on the Board of two Service associations --- the Society of Service Executives and The Service Council. In 2007 he was awarded the prestigious George Harmon award by AFSMI for his many contributions to the Services industry. Tom is also a long term mentor with the MENTTIUM group which mentors women professionals in helping them achieve their career goals
Tom has a BS Degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Minnesota. He is also a certified Six Sigma Green Belt.
Ron Zielinski is a leader in customer support services with more than 20 years of designing and implementing capital equipment support and customer service programs. He believes that enabling the success of your customers today enables the success of your business tomorrow. Ron earned a BSEET from DeVry Institute of Technology in 1985. He leads a global service operation for a market-leading organization in diverse Photonics markets. His experience includes achieving CSAT rates of greater than 95%, instituting global support methodologies, sponsoring vast improvements in service parts fulfillment rates, improving a multimillion dollar service P&L, and leveraging CRM tools to fullest effects.
Lanny Schindelmeiser, Director of the Customer Response Team, Bombardier Business Aircraft, joined the company 5 years ago and has been in Aviation for over 24 years. His team of over 140 aviation professionals are responsible for providing world class technical support, rapid response time and flawless execution of AOG and non- AOG events for all of their Business Aircraft customers. His Team of 90 Field Support Representatives are strategically located around the world and include 2 call centers, one in Montreal, Canada and the other in Wichita, Kansas which provides 24/7/365 support.
Rob Rule is the Director of Central Operations (Field Service) at Applied Materials. His organization supports the success of a global field service team of over 3000 employees, by providing meaningful data, driving effective problem solving methods, and developing efficient business processes. He has over 11 years of experience in nearly all aspects of semiconductor field service. Rob earned a Bachelors Degree in Nuclear Engineer from Oregon State University in 1995, and a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho in 2006.
Ross Brewer is the Executive Director of Rental Order Management and IT at the Hill-Rom Company. The group is responsible for providing service and maintenance for Hill-Rom’s rental and capital product service offerings as well as ensuring accurate billing and invoicing. During his career with Hill-Rom, Ross has held many leadership positions such as Manager of Hill-Rom’s Technical Support departments, Field Service Regional Director of Hill-Rom’s San Francisco and Atlanta field offices and Director of Nurse Call and Communications Systems Installation and Service. Ross attended University of Phoenix where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Management. Ross and his wife Darlene currently reside in Indiana where their daughter Brittany is attending Indiana University.
Scott H. Taylor has been with APX for the last 10 years where he directs projects and the support structure of a 100% employee based Field Service team & fleet (covering 95% of the U.S., most of Canada, & Puerto Rico). Sharing Field Service responsibilities with two other Regional Directors, the APX service team is composed of 650 full time engineers, and 1200 seasonal (2011) engineers. Experiencing growth of the field service team from 100 full time engineers to 700 in less than 3 years, the case study of his 6 month implementation of an optimized scheduling, mobile, field resource location, and automated customer contact solution is worth hearing. As the project manager utilizing ClickSoftware, Scott has garnered for his team multiple Field Service Industry awards in 2010 & 2011 including: 2010 Honoree by Mobility Solutions Magazine, 2010 Aberdeen Field Service Evolution Winner, a Gartner case study (Feb 2011), ClickSoftware Service Excellence Award (2010), and is a pending front runner for Gartner’s 2011 CRM Excellence Award for Enterprise Efficiency. Scott is currently working toward increased field service mobility optimization utilizing HTML5 and is undertaking a companywide rebranding with a 50% product line increase that includes both security & home automation. Utilizing optimized scheduling, the APX team now “vivint,” is in the middle of successfully changing out ½ a million U.S. & Canadian customer locations with vivint branding in 3 months: using only standard crews while maintaining time to service standards for all regular work orders while only adding to their current team a 3 month advance on 2011’s standard new hires from growth projections. APX, now Vivint, is also taking a small step into the utilities space having acquired a “smart meter” company/team that has implemented multiple city and state meter changes in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. New projects in Illinois, Vermont and pending projects in scope from 3000 to 800,000 meter changes are in transition to the already established “in house” optimized field service structure.
Erik is a business executive with a solid background in services, operations, logistics, and financial management. With more than 14 years in high tech industry, the scope of his current and previous roles include leading global teams, managing service and logistics operations, leading global productivity initiatives, as well as delivery of services to customers in North America, Europe, and Emerging Markets.
Len VanderHulst is a Global Service Leader for METTLER TOLEDO and is responsible for managing and implementing service initiatives across the company. These initiatives included various Service Leadership & Service Manager Training programs, as well as programs for Remote Service of METTLER TOLEDO’s products. METTLER TOLEDO is the world's largest manufacturer of weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial and food retailing applications. In addition, they are also the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of “end-of-line” inspection systems used in production and packaging. METTLER TOLEDO provides direct sales and service in 40 countries, and through in-direct channels, their products and services cover a large part of the global. Len has over 20 years of service management experience. In addition to his role as a Global Service Leader within METTLER TOLEDO, Len has held positions including Regional Service Leader for Europe as well as the Head of Service for METTLER TOLEDO’s AutoChem division. Prior to joining METTLER TOLEDO, Len has also been responsible for service for a telemedicine company, as well as various Field Service Management positions for a large medical diagnostic company.
Roger started his career with John Deere in Manufacturing Engineering, but the majority of it has been in various Service positions throughout the John Deere enterprise:
- Factory Field Service for Combine Harvesters in the Agricultural Equipment Division
- Product Support Marketing in the Construction & Forestry Equipment Division
- Service Management Development in the Agricultural Equipment Division
- Parts & Service Management for Dealer Development in the Agricultural & Turf Equipment Division
- Service Product Manager for John Deere Information Systems in the Enterprise IT organization
His focus throughout his career has been how to increase the efficiency and profitability of the dealer channel’s service departments through optimization of their processes. One of these initiatives was the definition and deployment of a “Standard Job Pricing” process for consistently priced, high quality customer service that can be delivered profitably. Roger earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nebraska, an MS in Professional Management from Florida Institute of Technology, and a certificate from the University of Wisconsin in Product Support Management.
Director of Service for Dornier Medtech America, Inc. My primary responsibilities range from assisting with the day to day service business to strategic long range planning for the North America service business. I have been involved in the medical field service industry for the last thirty-five years covering all aspects of the service business. My work experience includes time with Picker Medical, Advanced Diagnostic Research and Acoustic Imaging as well as Dornier Medtech.
Peter Johnsamson was appointed the Director Customer Support of America’s with Brainlab Inc in June 2009. He began his career with Brainlab in 2002 in New York. Since then, Mr. Johnsamson has held a series of positions during his Brainlab career, including Service Engineer and Project Manager. He has over 20 years of professional and managerial experience in the biomedical and semiconductor industry. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. Peter lives in Dallas, TX and when not traveling he enjoys outdoor activities with his family.
Tom Chowaniec is Vice President of Operations & Service for Leica Microsystems North America. Tom leads the technical support, field service, in-shop repair, service sales, and service administration teams delivering substantial customer satisfaction gains while also driving 15% average annual revenue growth the past six years. Tom has 18 years of professional experience including service P&L leadership roles at GE Healthcare and Cardinal Health.
Dave Baker is senior vice president of Field Services for DIRECTV, the nation’s leading satellite television provider. Baker oversees DIRECTV’s national network of installation and service providers and is charged with improving the quality of the customer experience at the point of installation and service. Additionally, he is responsible for 180 Connect’s operations as a wholly-owned subsidiary of DIRECTV. Baker’s career includes more than 20 years with The DIRECTV Group and its former parent company. Between 1998 and 2006, he held leadership positions with DIRECTV Latin America and DIRECTV Japan, as well as several senior-level financial and operational roles. Most recently Baker was executive vice president and chief operating officer for On Command Corporation, where he led the integration of On Command into its new parent company, LodgeNet. As a senior director at Nightingale and Associates, LLP, Baker restructured a $350 million construction company to return it to profitability. Baker holds a Ph.D. in mineral economics from the Colorado School of Mines, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in industrial engineering from West Virginia University. He is based at DIRECTV’s Denver offices. DIRECTV, Inc. (NASDAQ: DTV), the nation’s leading satellite television service provider, presents the finest television experience available to more than 17 million customers in the United States and is leading the HD revolution with 95 national HD channels – more quality HD channels than any other television provider. Each day, DIRECTV subscribers enjoy access to over 265 channels of 100% digital picture and sound, exclusive programming, industry-leading customer satisfaction (which has surpassed cable for eight years running) and superior technologies that include advanced DVR and HD-DVR services and the most state-of-the-art interactive sports packages available anywhere.
With over 10 years of technology focused service experience, Brian Lucyk has extensive operations, quality and finance background. He brings a wealth of best practices with a strong focus on remote technical support, logistics, repair and field workflow management. In his current role as the Vice President of Central Operations for Pendum, Brian is accountable for all of the central operations activities for an integrated ATM service and cash replenishment company. Key accountabilities include command center, remote technical support, service parts, fleet management and strategic sourcing.
Nigel Duncan was appointed Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the Aerospace Group of Crane Aerospace & Electronics in 2008. In this role, he leads customer service, business management, sales & marketing, communications and is integral to strategic planning. Duncan’s background includes over 25 years of multi-faceted marketing, brand management, engineering, sales and start-up expertise leading both large and small international aerospace and consumer brand companies. Before joining Crane Aerospace & Electronics, Duncan was the Owner of a marketing consulting firm servicing venture capital and private equity firms. Prior to that, Duncan was the Executive Vice President Sales & Marketing for Zero Corporation, an industrial and consumer packaging and luggage company. Duncan has held a number of leadership, sales and engineering positions in the aerospace industry with Fairchild Fasteners, AlliedSignal Aerospace, Page Aerospace and BAE Systems where he served an engineering apprenticeship. Duncan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Liverpool, England and a Master of Business Administration degree through the Executive Program at the University of Washington.
Gopalakrishnan VK (Gopal) is the global practice leader and vice president for After Market Services (AMS) at Genpact, a global leader in business process and technology management. He is responsible for the business strategy, P&L and business development for the AMS practice. Gopal has over 17 years experience across various management and advisory roles. In his previous associations, he incubated and managed the global transportation and logistics vertical for HCL Technologies with global engagements across consulting, process and IT. He is an entrepreneur and has setup a venture funded company in the area of embedded systems and manufacturing. Worked with Deloitte as a management consultant and implemented various process and cost management programs across multiple industries including cement, solar, power and manufacturing. He is a recognized thoughtleader in the supply chain and aftermarket services, read his blog - http://slmhub.com/ Gopal has degrees in Masters in Business Administration and Mechanical Engineering and is a member of National Logistics Advisory Council of CII (Confederation of Indian Industry).