Speakers

Dianna Smith, MBA, SIX SIGMA MASTER BLACK BELT, is Chief Operating Officer and part owner of Donald E. Smith Associates, Inc., a business management consulting firm specializing in process improvement initiatives using Six Sigma Methodology. She is a multi-talented consultant and senior management leader with over 30 years of experience working in industry. She is a dynamic, energetic individual whose expertise in understanding and managing the dynamics of change has saved companies millions of dollars. Ms. Smith is skilled at applying Six Sigma and Total Quality Management principles to corporate process improvement initiatives and meeting facilitation, interventions, project management, team participation, strategic planning, training development and delivery.

Dianna delivers Six Sigma Process Improvement courses both Green Belt and Black Belt, Champions Training and numerous leadership courses. She provides application support and coaching of projects. Companies that she has worked with are: Compass Bank, NCR, First Data Resources, First Data Merchant Services, Corning, Longaberger, Color Spot, TRW, KPMG, BellSouth Telecommunications, Jefferson State Community College, and others.

She is adept at applying Six Sigma and Total Quality Management principles to corporate process improvement initiatives and process re-engineering teams, delivering courses on how to understand and manage the dynamics of change providing consultation on meeting facilitation, interventions, performance improvement, process improvement, project management, strategic planning, team participation, and training development and delivery. Dianna successfully negotiated with the U.S. EPA regarding environmental self-disclosure issues resulting in a cost avoidance of several million dollars. She led a massive re-engineering effort to outsource noncore processes for a large telecommunications company resulting in $22 million saved.

Ms. Smith holds an M.B.A. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is a Cum Laude graduate of UAB in Business Management and a member of both the Golden Key National Honor Society and the Beta Gamma Sigma National Business Honor Society. Dianna studied Statistical Methods for Quality Improvement at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Dianna was selected as one of 2,000 Notable American Women in 1996.

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Dr. Ed Popvich, SIX SIGMA MASTER BLACK BELT, is an experienced leader in business transformation and organizational performance enhancement including the deployment and application of Lean Six Sigma. As either a full time resource or as a lead consultant Ed has demonstrated success in various fields. In healthcare, as a Vice President, Ed led a hospital to deploy Lean Six Sigma as a precursor to the development of a new teaching hospital; introduced Lean Six Sigma to the Office of the Surgeon General, Army Medical Command leading to a full-scale deployment across the organization; and as a lead team member facilitated the introduction of Process Excellence at Johnson and Johnson. In financial services, Ed has trained and coached Master Black Belts, Black Belts, and Green Belts at various organizations including GE Capital, First Data Corporation, Wachovia, Quicken Loans which is a large online mortgage broker; and provided assessments or assistance to other banks such as J P Morgan and CSI Financial Services. In manufacturing, Ed has worked with Motorola, SONY, NCR, Lockheed Martin, Jaguar Cars and others. Recently Ed has added “Lean and Green” as he has led strategic Lean Six Sigma consulting services with the Green Building Certification Institute that provides credentialing to green building professionals along with certification to building projects in keeping with the LEED Certification established by the US Green Building Council.

Ed is an author of several Six Sigma papers appearing in Quality Engineering and coauthor of a Prentice- Hall book titled Design for Six Sigma for Green Belts and Champions: Applications for Service Organizations. Ed has served as an Adjunct Professor and instructor within the Executive MBA Program at Duke University, and also at Florida Atlantic University and Nova Southeastern University in their respective MBA programs, at the University of Central Florida in the department of Statistics, and the University of Florida in the departments of Mathematics and Statistics. As a private sector representative, he served at the request of the Governor’s Office as a member of the Florida Council on Educational Management (focusing on educational leadership improvement of superintendents, principals, etc.) for a four-year term.

Dr. Popovich has a Ph.D. in Statistics, an M.S. in Statistics, and a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Florida.

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Jonathon Andell, SIX SIGMA MASTER BLACK BELT, has been a quality professional since 1987, a consultant since 1998, and a Fellow of the American Society for Quality since 2008. As his career advanced, he has implemented a variety of Lean (and Six Sigma) initiatives. He is equally effective leading strategic planning sessions with executives, providing training and coaching for technical staff, and implementing hands-on improvements on the work floor.

He has streamlined processes and operations at such diverse organizations as manufacturing facilities, hospitals, blood banks, construction firms, software developers, design firms, and a variety of service organizations. He is renowned for his ability to diagnose a situation or organization quickly, and to hone in on the most value-added interventions.