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Speaker Bios

Co-Chairs

Dr. Jerry Oglesby, SAS
Cy Wegman, Procter & Gamble

Keynotes

Michèle Boulanger, JISC Consulting
Susan Dorsey, University of Maryland Baltimore
Bradley Jones, JMP
Christopher Nachtsheim, University of Minnesota
John Sall, JMP
Damon Stoddard, Microsoft

Session Speakers

Larry Arvidson, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp
Tom Bohannon, Analytical Business Solutions
Mike Conerly, University of Alabama
Karen Copeland, Boulder Stats
John Flaig, HP Emeritus, Fellow ASQ, Applied Technology
Xan Gregg, JMP
John Haury, www.applied-stats.com Consultant
Avivia Jacobs, Osmetech Molecular Diagnotics
Mark Johnson and Jack Ballantyne, University of Central Florida
Joni L. Keith, Independent Consultant
José Ramírez, Ph.D., W.L. Gore and Associates
Rob Reul, Isometrics Solutions
Matthew Shike, Joint Navigation Warfare Center
Lise Varner, Cambrios Technologies
Jon Weisz and Jeff Perkinson, SAS

Larry G. Arvidson received a B.S. degree in Zoology & Chemistry from the University of Nebraska & did graduate work at Northeastern University and Clark University while employed at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. He continued graduate work in Marine Ecology at the University of Connecticut while employed by the National Marine Fisheries Service in Woods Hole & began his association with Central Hudson by accepting a research position with a consulting firm to study the impact of power plants on the population ecology of the Hudson River. He formally joined Central Hudson's Environmental Affairs Division in 1980 and later transferred to the Cost & Rate Division, receiving training in utility finances at Indiana University's Graduate School of Business and the Financial Accounting Institute. Trained in load research at Georgia Tech and AEIC courses in New Orleans, La. and Columbus, Ohio, he utilized the training to design load research sampling programs to develop cost allocators for embedded and marginal cost-of-service studies as well as customer-class load profiles for retail access. He testified to CHG&E electric cost-of-service in New York State rate proceedings 91-E-0506, 92-E-1055, 00-E-1273 and 05-E-0934 and the unbundling proceeding 00-M-0504. A rock-climber (the Gunks), scuba diver (Browning Wall, B.C.) & sailor (the Baja Ha-Ha), he has completed the SOS triathlon 3 times.

Dr. Tom R. Bohannon is president of Analytical Business Solutions (ABS), a consulting firm specializing in applying analytical methods to business problems in industry and higher education. Before retiring from Baylor University in April of 2007, Bohannon was Director and Assistant Vice President for the Office of Institutional Research and Testing for twenty years. Prior to joining Baylor University, Bohannon spent ten years at Appalachian State University as an Associate Professor of mathematics and statistics, as the University Statistical Consultant, and as Director of Institutional Research. Dr. Bohannon has spent nearly 30 years in the institutional research field specializing in application of statistical methods to business problems in higher education. These applications include overseeing construction of data warehouses for Baylor University and applying data mining methods to enrollment management, retention, and fund raising.

For over twenty-five years, Dr. Bohannon has also been associated with SAS Institute as a trainer of SAS courses and consulting on the application of the SAS system to solve business problems. In recent years his interests have been in the areas of quality control, design of experiments, data warehousing, and data mining. He has assisted with writing course notes for quality control, design of experiments and data mining. He has been very active in SAS user groups in terms of presentations and chairing various committees.

Dr. Bohannon has served in leadership positions in several professional organizations including AIR, SAIR, NCAIR, and TAIR. He has presented papers and workshops at the following professional associations for over 30 years - AIR, SAIR, NCAIR, TAIR, ASA, SUGI and others. The cumulative number of professional presentations over the past thirty years is in excess of one hundred.

Dr. Bohannon earned a PhD in Statistics from Texas A&M University in 1976 and an MA in Mathematics from Wake Forest University in 1965. He also holds a BS in Mathematics with a Physics Minor from McNeese State University.

Michèle Boulanger recently joined JISC Consulting, a private statistics and data mining consulting firm in Orlando, as Senior Partner. Prior to this assignment, she was Vice President, Quality and Customer Satisfaction, and Digital Six Sigma Leader within Networks and Enterprise, a $12B infrastructure telecommunications business of Motorola. In that role, she was responsible for defining the business key strategies regarding customer advocacy, loyalty, operations performance and product/service quality and ensuring their successful execution. She oversaw all global quality related initiatives such as Six Sigma and Predictive Analytics and optimized their impact on the overall performance of the business.

Prior to Motorola, Michèle worked for 10 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories where she led the research and consulting group in Quality Engineering. In parallel with her assignments, Dr. Boulanger has been a visiting professor at various institutions, including Columbia University, N.Y. Michèle holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Rhode Island.

Michael Conerly is currently Professor and Chair of the Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science Department in the College of Business at the University of Alabama. His specialty areas are: regression analysis, data mining, statistical computing, graphics and data visualization, process control, multivariate quality control, forecasting, and statistical education. Dr. Conerly earned his B.S. degree from Lamar University, his M.S. degree and Ph.D from Southern Methodist University. Dr. Conerly has published numerous papers dealing with the practical use of statistics to solve "real-world" problems. He has published articles in publications such as Technometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistician, and Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation. He has directed nine dissertations in Applied Statistics and served on more than 40 dissertation committees in other areas at The University of Alabama. He was appointed as an adjunct Research Scientist at the UAB Cancer Center in 1998. He is a member of the American Statistical Association, Biometric Society and Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Karen Copeland, Ph.D. has spent the past 10 years as a statistical consultant. She is the owner of Boulder Statistics, a statistical consulting company providing services to clients in a variety of industry sectors. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematical sciences from Clemson University and her B.A. from St. Olaf College. Karen first used JMP (version 3, or maybe it was 2?) while teaching at Macalester College and has been using JMP ever since.

Susan G. Dorsey, Ph.D., is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. In addition, she holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Maryland Dental School and is a full faculty member in the University of Maryland Program in Oncology, Program in Neuroscience and Program in Genetics and Genomic Medicine. She conducted her PhD training with Dr. Bruce Krueger at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Lino Tessarollo in the Mouse Cancer Genetics Program at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Dorsey's translational program of research focuses on determining the molecular and cellular mechanisms of chronic pain persistence in both animal models and human subjects. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Pain Society.

John J. Flaig is managing director of Applied Technology a consulting, training, and software publishing company. Dr. Flaig's special interests are in statistical process control, process capability analysis, supplier management, design of experiments, and process optimization. He holds a doctorate in engineering and technology management from Southern California University, a master's degree in mathematics from the University of California, and a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics from California State Polytechnic University. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Quality.

Prior to his retirement from Hewlett-Packard in 2007 John worked in IPG's Quality, Analytics, and Optimization group, and later for the Six Sigma Program Office. His responsibilities within HP consisted of providing statistical analysis, modeling, key-driver analysis, and design of performance reporting systems. He also supported IPG operations with supplier management improvement programs at repair and call centers. His work for the Six Sigma Program Office consisted of providing Six Sigma training material development, instruction, project support, and mentoring.

Prior to his employment at HP, John spent seven years at Applied Materials in Quality management and eight years at Apple Computer in Quality engineering and supplier management.

Xan Gregg is a JMP Principal Developer with expertise in data visualization and scripting. In 2006, he won first place overall in Business Intelligence Network's Data Visualization Competition, which was judged by author and consultant Stephen Few.

Gregg has worked for JMP for six years. Earlier in his career, he created imaging software for radiologists and developed XML technology with TIBCO Software, serving as an invited expert on the W3C XML Schema Working Group.

He holds a B.S. degree in computer engineering from Clemson University.

John F. Haury Ph.D., CQE, CQM received his B.A. from U. C. San Diego with high honors and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (degrees in biology). John has worked with the American Society for Quality certifications as a Quality Engineer (CQE) and Quality Manager (CQM) and is an expert on statistics for continuous improvement of measurement systems, production processes and experimentation. Dr. Haury was a Total Quality Statistician with H.J.Heinz/Ore-Ida Foods and an associate director of quality engineering and internal Six Sigma consultant with Amgen. Currently, Dr. Haury is an independent consultant focused on process improvement including: Time-to-deliver, Quality for customer satisfaction and Money--on budget.

Aviva Jacobs is currently the Group Leader of Product Development at Osmetech Molecular Diagnostics. Aviva received her B.S in Biology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and her Ph.D. in Genetics from George Washington University and the National Institutes of Health in 2001. She then worked as a Bioinformatics Scientist in the Computational Biology Branch of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health, where she worked on the classification and functional annotation of proteins. In 2004, Aviva joined Clinical Micro Sensors, a Motorola Company, which is now a division of Osmetech Molecular Diagnostics. Her current responsibilities include managing new product development and technical troubleshooting. Aviva is the most experienced JMP user at Osmetech, and she has developed and optimized the scripts described in her presentation.

Dr. Mark E. Johnson is Professor of Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Johnson has M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial and Management Engineering from the University of Iowa. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, a Chartered statistician of the Royal Statistical Society and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and has received the Jack Youden, T.Saaty, Shewell and Brumbaugh awards for his research. He is the author of Multivariate Statistical Simulation and has served as associate editor for Journal of Quality Technology, Operations Research and Technometrics. Dr. Johnson is an active consultant participant on the United States Technical Advisory Group to ISO Technical Committee 69, serving as the lead USA delegate for the subcommittee on terminology and symbols and as Convenor of the working group to revise ISO 3534/3 Design of Experiments.

Dr. Bradley Jones is the Director of Research and Development in the JMP division of SAS, where he leads the development of the statistical capabilities in JMP software. He built the JMP Custom Designer, a general and powerful tool for generating optimal experimental designs. He holds a patent on the use of DOE for minimizing registration errors in the manufacture of laminated circuit boards and is the inventor of the prediction profile plot for interactive exploration of multiple input and output response surfaces.

Before joining SAS in 1997, he was the principal statistician at The MathWorks, Inc., where he designed and implemented the MATLAB Statistics Toolbox, a set of more than 200 statistical functions. He was Chief Scientist and a founding partner of Catalyst, Inc., a company created to support the use of computer aided DOE in industry. At Catalyst, he designed Catalyst DOE, the first interactive graphical tool for DOE.

He is widely published on DOE in research journals and the trade press. His current interests are in design of experiments, computer-aided statistical pedagogy, and graphical user interface design.

Joni Keith is a statistical consultant with Bush Brothers & Company in Knoxville, TN. Joni teaches a variety of classes, including statistical process control and design of experiments, and spends the majority of her consulting time in the Research, Development, and Innovation Department where new products and flavors of baked beans are continually being developed. Prior to her work with Bush Brothers, Joni spent several years consulting with companies such as DuPont, TV Guide, Engelhard, Southwestern Bell Telephone, and Knoxville Utilities Board, just to name a few. Joni has a master's degree in mathematics from Clemson University. Her undergraduate degree is in mathematics and physics. Joni lives in Coalfield, Tennessee, with her husband, John, and her son, Bryson.

Christopher J. Nachtsheim is Professor of Management Science and Statistics and Chair of the Operations and Management Science Department in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Nachtsheim received and his Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Minnesota, served as staff member in the Statistics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1978-1981, and as Senior Statistician at General Mills from 1982-1984. In 1984 he joined the University, serving as Chair in the Department of Operations and Management Science from 1993-1996 and Associate Dean of Faculty and Research from 1996-2000. He has been an elected Member of Graduate Faculty in the School of Statistics at the University of Minnesota since 1984. Dr. Nachtsheim's teaching and research interests center on the optimal design of industrial experiments, linear statistical models, quality control, and quality management. In addition to his regular teaching duties at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Nachtsheim conducts workshops regularly for industry and has taught business statistics at the Warsaw School of Economics and the Vienna School of Business and Economics regularly since 1993. Among his major publications are two texts: Applied Linear Statistical Models, 5th Edition, 2005, Richard D. Irwin, and Applied Linear Regression Models, 4th Edition, 2004, Richard D. Irwin (both with John Neter, Michael Kutner, and William Li). Research articles have appeared in: Technometrics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Journal of Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems, Journal of Quality Technology, Naval Research Logistics, IIE Transactions, American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences, Journal of Expert Systems, and others. Dr. Nachtsheim is Past Chair of the Society of Physical and Engineering Sciences of the American Statistical Association. He was formerly Departmental or Associate Editor for the following journals: Journal of Quality Technology, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Statistical Computation & Simulation, and Statistics and Computing. He served as Examiner, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, 1996. He is a recipient of the 1991 Brumbaugh Award of the ASQC (co-recipient) for best paper published in the area of quality control, and the 1992 ASME (CAE/CAD/CAM) National Best Paper Award.

Jerry L. Oglesby holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from Texas A&M University, an M.S. in Mathematics from Lamar University, and a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Mississippi. He currently works for SAS as the Director of Higher Education Consulting and Global Certification within the Education Division. This department is charged with supporting SAS in the university wide community. It has, as its major goal, the introduction of SAS training materials and software in the curriculums of courses across many units within the universities. Prior to starting this group, he was Director of Analytical Consulting within the Professional Services Division. As Director of Analytical Consulting he grew the Department from its formation to approximately forty modelers and business analysts whose primary function was to provide analytical support and expertise to SAS' sales force and customers. This group was largely responsible for the support of the successful launch of SAS' award winning data mining solution, Enterprise Miner.

From 1990 until joining SAS in July of 1996, Jerry was employed by Monsanto Chemical Company as plant statistician and Manufacturing Technologist. He was CEO and founding President of SCI Data Systems from 1977 to 1990. Following completion of his doctorate at Texas A&M in 1971, he was a professor of Statistics at the University of West Florida where he established the Institute for Statistical and Mathematical Modeling for doing analytical and computational consulting for clients on and off campus.

Jerry serves on several advisory boards in support of statistics and data mining:

Data Mining Advisory Board, College of Arts & Sciences, University of Central Florida
Central Michigan University Research Corporation, Center for Applied Research & Technology, Central Michigan University
Center for the Management of Information Systems, Department of Information & Operations Management, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University
Master of Marketing Research Program, Coca-Cola Center for Marketing Studies, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia
Institute of Business Intelligence, Department of Information Systems, Statistics, and Management Science, Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, The University of Alabama
Department of Statistics & Operations Technology, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver
Industry Advisory Committee, North Carolina Community College System
Information Technology Advisory Committee, Pennsylvania College of Technology
Computer Information Systems Division Advisory Board, Wake Technical Community College
Decision Sciences & Center for Quality & Productivity Advisory Board, Business Computer Information System, College of Business Administration, University of North Texas

Jeff Perkinson is a Product Manager for JMP statistical discovery software from SAS. He began working with the first version of JMP in 1989, when he joined SAS. Before assuming his current role, he worked in SAS Technical Support and at SouthPeak Interactive, a SAS subsidiary that produced video games.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Perkinson received Six Sigma Black Belt training at NC State University.

José G. Ramírez, Ph.D. is an industrial statistician at W.L. Gore and Associates, makers of Gore-Tex® and other innovative products, where he is responsible for promoting business intelligence through innovative analytical applications. He works closely with associates to help them "make sense of data," and through collaborative education, helps promote statistical thinking and JMP usage. He has been using JMP for 15 years as a catalyst to turn data into knowledge. He received a degree in mathematics from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, and an MS in applied statistics and a PhD in statistics both from the University Wisconsin-Madison. He was one of the founding members of the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University Wisconsin-Madison. In 1998 (SUGI 23) he won the best contributed statistics paper, and in 2002 he was awarded the SAS User Feedback Award. He is currently writing a JMP book with his wife, Brenda Ramírez, Analyzing and Interpreting Continuous Data Using JMP: A Step-by-Step Guide.

Robert Reul is the Founder and Managing Director of Isometric Solutions LLC, an international market research firm that specializes in customer intelligence research in business-to-business markets. Robert has more than twenty years of experience in quality management systems and performance improvement. He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Business and Management Science and has been a practicing Six Sigma black belt since 1986. Robert is a tenured Quality System consultant, is a certified Quality System Lead Auditor, and a three-term Quality Award Sr. Examiner.

Who knew data analysis could be fun? John Sall did. That's why Sall, one of the founders of business intelligence software giant SAS, began a SAS business unit in 1989 devoted to creating interactive and highly visual data analysis software for the desktop. The resulting software, JMP, dynamically links statistics with graphics, empowering users to interactively explore their data.

Nearly 20 years later, he remains the lead architect for JMP statistical discovery software, which is now used by more than 200,000 researchers and engineers to promote quality initiatives, empower Six Sigma programs and create R&D environments in which innovation rules. "JMP is pronounced 'jump' and was named to suggest a leap in interactivity, a leap in a new direction," he explains.

In addition to his responsibilities at JMP, Sall is also Executive Vice President for SAS, which he co-founded in 1976. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Beloit College in Beloit, WI, and a master's degree in economics from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. North Carolina State University, where he studied graduate-level statistics, awarded him an honorary doctor of sciences degree in 2003.

Sall has held several positions in the Statistical Computing Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and was named an ASA Fellow in 1998. He is a past president of ASA's North Carolina chapter and currently serves on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy.

In 2001 Matthew Shike received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He entered the US Air Force after graduation and was assigned to a small test team associated with the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center in Albuquerque, NM. While a member of that team Matthew was involved with both mod/sim and live fire testing of the F-22 and AIM-9X missile. The AIM-9X simulation utilized the Monte Carlo method, which was his first exposure to large data sets. The F-22 was his first exposure to gigantic data sets. After 3 years in Albuquerque Matthew was assigned to Hanscom AFB outside of Boston. While there he worked on a major AWACS upgrade where he learned all about various failure rate measurements. In 2006 Matthew left the Air Force only to return as a civilian contactor. He spent his first year as a contractor in satellite operations, where he was again exposed to very large, unwieldy data sets. Most recently Matthew has been with the Joint Navigation Warfare Center working on a post-test analysis task, which was his first exposure to JMP.

Damon R. Stoddard is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt. He currently leads the Microsoft Hardware Quality Information and Analytics Team. Prior to working for Microsoft, Mr. Stoddard was a Master Black Belt and Engineering Manager for Honeywell International.

Mr. Stoddard's role at Microsoft has been to improve quality and reduce cost for Microsoft Hardware products including Xbox, Zune, Surface, and PC Hardware. He and his team have developed and deployed the Quality Analytics platform enabling fact based decision making throughout the organization. His efforts also include co-development of the product development lifecycle where he and the team won the Microsoft Engineering Excellence Award. Furthermore, Mr. Stoddard co-developed the DFSS front end software development methodology which is used extensively to develop new Microsoft products. Finally, Mr. Stoddard introduced Microsoft to JMP and it is currently the standard statistical software package for Microsoft Hardware.

Mr. Stoddard holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington (1991). He earned his Black Belt certification in 1995 and his Master Black Belt in 1999. In this role, he co-developed the Honeywell Six Sigma and DFSS training curriculums which he used to train hundreds of Black Belts and Green Belts. He received numerous awards and 8 Patents for the results he and his teams achieved. Mr. Stoddard also taught engineering students in new product development for 3 years at a Seattle area private engineering college.

Damon is married to Debbie and has 3 daughters and a son. Together, they enjoy camping, fishing, and of course playing together.

Elizabeth "Lise" Varner received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 1996, specializing in semiconductor materials and processing. She then joined Intel Corporation, working in several diverse areas over the years, such as advanced metrology, silicon debug technology development, and materials analysis. Her publications from this work were included in an equally diverse range of industry conferences, for example, the International Microelectronics And Packaging Society (IMAPS) Symposium, the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) Conference, and the International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA). Lise also regularly presented at Intel Corporation's internal Quality and Reliability Technical Symposium. In 2006 Lise joined Cambrios Technologies, a Silicon Valley start up company focused on the development of electronic materials for the display industry, to lead its reliability testing efforts. Here she analyzes electrical and optical properties of these materials before and after accelerated testing at elevated temperatures, humidity and other harsh environments, and conducts failure analysis to aid the product development process.

Cy Wegman has been with Procter & Gamble for 30 years. He graduated from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology with a BS degree in Civil Engineering in 1977. Cy spent the first 10 years of his career in paper manufacturing in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He held various line & staff roles in stock preparation, material supply, converting manufacturing and paper manufacturing in the plant. He conducted his first DOE in 1982.

The second 10 years was spent in central staff for the Family Care business. Cy worked in many aspects of business, heavily utilizing DOE and Statistical Process Control. Cy worked in brand initiatives, process startups, material supply, reliability and quality control.

For the last 10 years, Cy has been in Corporate Modeling & Simulation. In his section are the leading experts in Reliability Engineering, Optimization and Empirical Modeling. Cy is the global owner for DOE and Process Definition courses at P&G and supports all business units in the area of DOE.

Jon Weisz directs marketing, strategy and product planning for JMP software, the desktop data visualization and statistical analysis product from SAS. Before assuming his current role, Weisz worked in management of software development, marketing and sales support for SAS. He came to SAS in 1999 from Allegro Microsystems, where he was Director of Statistical Methods.

Weisz has extensive industry experience in semiconductor and automotive manufacturing and product development. Earlier in his career, he was Vice President at the consulting firm Management Resources International (MRI), dividing his time between developing and delivering training courses and direct consulting with automotive and high-technology clients. His statistical consulting activities centered on applications of design of experiments, product and process improvement, and quality systems re-engineering. Before joining MRI, Weisz was a Statistical Methods Facilitator at the Ford Motor Company.

He received a master's degree in biostatistics from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics from Eastern Michigan University. He is a member of the American Statistical Association and American Society for Quality. Weisz has delivered many talks on data visualization, applied statistics and design of experiments, and he is the author of several papers on applied statistics in manufacturing and product development. He also co-authored a book on design of experiments using mirror-image designs.