Eugene (Gene) Brieck is the Director of Purchasing for the Ash Grove Cement Company in Overland Park, Kansas, the fifth largest producer of cement in the United States with operations in 9 states. Other businesses of Ash Grove include ready-mix concrete, aggregates, packaging and transportation. Gene has been in the cement business since 1991 managing the supply chain for a variety of products used in this process business.

During his career he has managed the procurement function for a major distributor and other manufacturing companies and has taught purchasing and materials management classes at the college level and has been active in various professional groups and with professional development programs. He was named to Purchasing Magazine’s 2004 MRO Buyer of the Year team for his creative work with supply chain programs.

Eugene (Gene) Brieck is the Director of Purchasing for the Ash Grove Cement Company in Overland Park, Kansas, the fifth largest producer of cement in the United States with operations in 9 states. Other businesses of Ash Grove include ready-mix concrete, aggregates, packaging and transportation. Gene has been in the cement business since 1991 managing the supply chain for a variety of products used in this process business.

During his career he has managed the procurement function for a major distributor and other manufacturing companies and has taught purchasing and materials management classes at the college level and has been active in various professional groups and with professional development programs. He was named to Purchasing Magazine’s 2004 MRO Buyer of the Year team for his creative work with supply chain programs.

• Director of Enterprise Sourcing Operations for H&R Block
  
• Been with Block for 6 years
  
• Responsibility for
  
  • All procurement operations – day-to-day activities and continuous improvement efforts
    
  • Spend analysis
    
  • Sourcing and contracts processes and systems
    
  • Leader of the 4-year, $15M Source-to-Settle initiative
• 12 years of experience in the Purchase-to-Pay function and leading large-scale change initiatives
  
• Prior to H&R Block, worked as a management consultant for Accenture

For the past 7 years I have served as the Director of Procurement and Logistics Systems and Process Entitlement at Texas Instruments.  In this role I am responsible for eBusiness Strategy, eSourcing, and driving worldwide automation of our procurement, inventory management, and logistics processes. I also have operational responsibilities for vendor master and material master management.  
 
Prior to my current role I was the Supply Team Leader for TI’s SAP implementation that went live in January, 1999.  Some of my functional roles in the past include Commodity Team Manager, Material Planning Manager, Quality Control Manager, Inventory Manager, and various systems roles.
 
I have a MBA from Southern Methodist University, a BS in Mathematics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and in the past I was certified in production and inventory management by APICS.

Randall C. Clark is a Global Senior Strategic Buyer for Volvo Group Non-Automotive Purchasing (NAP). His role is to create the procurement strategy for MRO and Packaging products and services required by the brands of Volvo Group worldwide. He is focused on the requirements of each manufacturing facility to create the process for supplier selection, negotiation, implementation and development. He has over 15 years of manufacturing experience focused on reducing cost, increasing revenue and streamlining operations through the procurement strategy. Cost containment, supplier rationalization and revenue enhancement are areas that he has contributed to several industries with strategic initiatives on a global basis.

Randall has also been featured in Purchasing magazine on several occasions regarding supplier selection, procurement strategy, and the overall distribution chain of MRO suppliers. He has served on Volvo Group NAP steering committees to develop the Strategic Sourcing Process and the Project Management Process. He is frequently asked by companies and universities to lead workshops and discussions on international business procedures.

One of his core values states that every meeting with a supplier is a negotiation. Our job in procurement is to understand the market so we can establish a fair profit margin and mutually beneficial business relationship for both buyer and seller.

Randall is a graduate of Tennessee Tech University with a B.S. degree and Elon University with an M.B.A. Degree. He currently resides in Greensboro, North Carolina with his family.

Randy Watson is a Partner with A.T. Kearney in Atlanta. With over 18 years of industry and consulting experience, Randy has been actively involved in planning, shaping, and transforming supply chain operations across various industries – aerospace, communications, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, steel, utilities, and packaging.

Since joining A.T. Kearney in 1997, his primary focus of work has been in the supply management and procurement space. Randy has assisted international organizations to develop and implement global supply management strategies, transform their procurement operations, and reduce complexity of their operations and supply chain.

He has led global client assignments to: strategically and globally source materials/services across the company’s supply base, develop an Asian sourcing strategy and create the Asian Sourcing Office in China, develop a supply market solution for a consortium of Fortune 500 companies, reduce supply chain complexity through rationalization of both component parts and product features, and transform procurement operations through process, organization, and technology solution improvements.

Besides his client work, he is currently leading the A.T. Kearney Assessment of Excellence in Procurement (AEP) 2008 study – the global gold standard of supply management best practices.

Prior to A.T. Kearney, Randy held management positions in marketing and finance at MCI Communications and was a financial M&A analyst at BEI Golembe.
He is a member of The Institute of Supply Management. He holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in commerce from The University of Virginia and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Emory University.