Andrew Pearl is the Vice President of Reliability at EMCO. Andrew has spent 15 years in manufacturing, working with plants to retrofit and upgrade existing machinery to improve production and reliability. He has spent the last 3 years developing and bringing to market ‘Machine Boss’ – a holistic wireless IoT solution that can monitor every imaginable critical variable to predict and mitigate machine failures.

Brandon Moses is the Lead Reliability Engineer for Berry Global. Brandon is an accomplished reliability engineer with over 13 years of professional experience in the automotive, manufacturing and quality control industries. Brandon’s career experience includes direct management of critical plant operations for multiple Fortune 500 companies. Demonstrated success in identifying and implementing process improvements using Lean Six Sigma and 5S methodologies.

Katrina Thompson is the Chief People Officer (CPO) for FORVIS. She has more than 25 years of experience in human resources (HR) and has been with the firm for more than 20 years, serving in various roles. As CPO, she leads a dynamic group of HR professionals to drive and support FORVIS’ people strategy, systems, and processes in alignment with the firm’s strategy. As a strategic partner, she provides HR leadership. She ensures excellence across the firm for all HR programs and practices, emphasizing talent experience, performance development, inclusion and diversity, compensation and benefits, workforce and succession planning, talent acquisition, well-being and employee relations. Katrina’s passion is people, and she loves whole-person, strength-based coaching and development and serving as a trusted advisor. She is a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and an SHRM Senior Certified Professional.

Jeff Outten joined FORVIS in January 2018 as the director of change management. Jeff leads the Change Hub, which aims to coordinate, support and enable significant change initiatives within the firm in a way that accelerates and improves change efforts and enhances collaboration throughout the firm. Before joining FORVIS, he was the president of an independent consulting firm, The Outten Group, Inc. His firm worked primarily with Fortune 500 companies in strategic planning, change management, leadership development and executive coaching. His experience includes banking, resort management, consumer goods, and high-tech companies. Jeff has had a long-standing relationship with our firm serving in a consulting capacity for more than 15 years. Jeff is a Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia graduate with a B.S. degree in history.

Other Speaker TBA

Haleh Byrne is the product lead for industrial engineering and student projects at NC State’s Industry Expansion Solutions (IES). She leads a wide spectrum of industrial engineering services and projects. She engages NC State University students as part of her project teams in productivity and quality improvements, costing, facilities layout, process and training documentation, ergonomics assessments and scheduling, and client-customized projects. She also provides Lean, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and work measurement training in conjunction with Timer Pro (video analysis software) workshops and related implementation events. Haleh manages student projects which provide services for clients. With over 100 projects involving 500+ students in the past decade, clients have reported substantial impacts in flexible duration and diverse engineering disciplines. Haleh has over 20 years of experience as an industrial/product/quality engineer in multiple industries. She worked at Flextronics in Youngsville as a product engineer. Her prior work history includes being an industrial engineer at the U.S. Postal Service in Los Angeles, an industrial/quality engineer at General Motors, an industrial engineer at Monsanto Electronic Materials in St. Louis and an industrial/quality engineer at Buehler Products in Cary. Haleh obtained her B.S. in industrial engineering from NC State. She is an ASQ-certified quality engineer and is SME bronze Lean certified. She also has extensive training and experience in statistical engineering and project management. Haleh is currently the IIE Raleigh Chapter President and Lean Division Board Director at the Institute of Industrial Engineers. She served as education chair for ASQ Raleigh Chapter from 2009-2012 and has presented at many professional conferences.

Kami Baggett is a regional manager at NC State University Industry Expansion Solutions (IES) for part of the Triad region, including Alleghany, Ashe, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Iredell, Rockingham, Rowan, Surry, Stokes, Wilkes and Yadkin counties. Kami works with companies, businesses, community colleges, local economic developers, workforce development boards and local government to promote economic development, growth, and process efficiencies in the region’s industries and service sectors. She has educated many companies and businesses on the various resources and educational programs available to them. By building relationships with local businesses and organizations, Kami strives to ensure all resources are available and working cohesively to help build stronger, more competitive businesses. Kami has assisted many companies to begin and strengthen their journeys towards ISO 9001, AS 9100, IATF 16949, ISO 13485 and ISO 14001 certification; implementing continuous improvement programs; building their business around the Baldrige or Shingo program; maintaining safety standards; adhering to OSHA required standards; and also grow their business. As a result of these services, these companies earn their Quality Management System certificate, become more competitive, provide transferable skills to their workforce, sustain current business and earn new business due to their commitment to improving their business processes and future. Kami has 25 years of industry experience in the public and private sectors as a technical program auditor, industrial engineer, ISO auditor, materials buyer, and Regional Manager for IES. She served as a Regional Manager in the Research Triangle region for eight years and now works with companies in the Triad Region where she is originally from. She has experience in lean enterprise, Lean Six Sigma, auditing, cost estimating, workstation design and layout, purchasing, inventory management, machining, sheet metal fabrication, CNC programming/nesting, rate-setting, time studies, and program management. The early part of her career was spent in manufacturing with Sanmina-SCI and Thomasville Furniture Industries. Before joining IES, Kami was an auditor for the NC Office of the State Auditor in the Performance Division, charged with analyzing and evaluating the processes of state departments and agencies. Kami has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering (1997) from NC State University and an MBA (2002) from UNC-Greensboro.

Nick Cornett is Vice President of Operations for BETCO. Nick has over 16 years’ experience in the self-storage industry and currently serves as the VP of Operations at BETCO, Inc. Operations include manufacturing, procurement, and construction of light gauge steel buildings, with an estimated 350 projects erected each year. BETCO has built in every state and abroad over the nearly 40 years since inception. He oversees a 13-acre campus, operating within an 8 building/250,000 S.F. footprint and running three shifts with nearly 200 employees. The BETCO team has led the company to significant growth and is currently the largest operating unit within the Janus International family of companies, which went public in 2021. After starting at BETCO as an Industrial Engineer in 2006, Nick progressed through the production ranks holding positions of CNC Programmer, Plant Manager and General Manager. As VP of Operations he is a part of the Senior Management Team and responsibilities include setting and execution of short and long-term strategies for continuous improvement and growth. Nick graduated from Appalachian State University in 2002 with a B.S. in Industrial Drafting and Design and minor in Business.

KeAnne Hoeg is the director of data management systems, marketing and reporting at NC State University Industry Expansion Solutions (IES). She describes her job as “playing with data.” Her data and reporting group manages required reporting to stakeholders, several internal applications, including the Salesforce CRM system, the Manufactured in North Carolina supply chain website, reporting development, and data analysis and visualization. KeAnne also oversees marketing for the organization, with her marketing team responsible for multiple websites, branding, market research, collateral development, writing, podcasting, social media and video production. Before moving into this position at IES, she worked in IT and marketing as a web developer and social media manager. KeAnne has a B.A. in English from Meredith College and an MLS in library science from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Melissa Sharp – NC State University Wilson College of Textiles

Tim Malone joined the North Carolina Military Business Center in June 2016 as a Business Development Administrative Assistant / Software Programmer. As a Business Development Administrative Assistant, Tim assists in processing current contract opportunities, maintaining the NCMBC database of companies, and coordinating events for the Military Business Center. Along with administrative tasks, Tim develops automated solutions, analyzes database entries, and maintains NCMBC systems. Tim is experienced in the following programming languages: C#, Visual Basic, JavaScript, Python, and HTML/CSS. Before joining the North Carolina Military Business Center team, Tim studied Computer Science at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC and Windward Community College in Kaneohe, HI. He also has been a part of award-winning teams such as XQ Super Schools and ED Tech Team Hawaii. Tim has previously worked on automating systems for the manufacturing and education industries and teaching Technology and Computer Science.

Other Speakers TBA