Rob Stewart, President, CEO, Co-Founder

Rob is a highly accomplished, and motivated advocate for the power of blended e-Learning content and systems as a foundation for driving organizational transformation, utilizing decades of technology experience spanning manufacturing, services, telecommunications, government, education and healthcare environments. Rob’s success record is largely due to an ability to envision break-out possibilities, and then work collaboratively across all levels of an organization to implement and deploy innovative and game-changing solutions. Rob has been a thought leader in learning technologies and process improvement since the early ‘90s when he co-founded The Quality Group, as a quasi-spin-off from IBM’s Education Business Unit. Rob is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Emory University and he also holds a Masters degree from Columbia Theological Seminary.

Carol Dierdorff, VP of Workforce Solutions

Carol brings over 20 years of training and workforce development experience to her role as OpusWorks' VP of Workforce Solutions. She assists academic institutions, state governments, and national associations in providing process improvement training using blended e-Learning courses. Carol has presented at seminars, workshops, training sessions, and a variety of National and Regional Conferences. She also manages WinAt-Work, a web-based program that teaches employability skills for career and personal growth and is specifically designed to serve at-risk youth and adults. Carol is passionate about making a difference and helping communities build effective and sustainable workforce development programs. Like others on the OpusWorks team, Carol is active in her community. She volunteers for several organizations and is a former marathoner, an avid hiker and cyclist.

Susan Muha, Workforce Solutions Advisor

Susan has over 40 years of experience in workforce and economic development. She has held Senior level management positions at three community colleges, a private nonprofit, a for profit corporation, and both state and federal government agencies. Susan has worked extensively with colleges and industries to develop scalable training solutions and provide project resources for the telecommunications, semiconductor, petrochemical, maritime, energy, manufacturing, health care, and information technology industries. Among Susan's other accomplishments, she has provided leadership for the Goldman Sach's 10,000 Small Business initiative, has served on Workforce Investment Boards, was the Southern Regional Director for the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council, served on the Global Cleveland Board, the Greater Houston partnership Energy Collaborative, and numerous other Chambers and Economic development organizations. She has a passion for building and launching new programs, working with industry and getting people into jobs. Susan is a proud and active alumna of the University of Georgia. She earned her master's degree from the University of Central Arkansas.

John Best, Vice President, Process Improvement, Master Champion Network

John is a highly-experienced and results-driven Industrial Engineer with extensive experience in Lean Sigma, Project Management and Quality Engineering. He has special expertise in problem solving, educational development adult learning and blended learning. He has additional experience as adjunct faculty at a major university with consulting and educational projects in healthcare, manufacturing, lean logistics, systems engineering, state and federal government, military and retail management. He has international experience leading and facilitating cross-functional project teams. As Principal Master Black Belt and Lean Master with Seagate Technology, John served as program manager responsible for Corporate Business Excellence training and educational development. He has a BS in Industrial Engineering and Management from Oklahoma State and currently serves on the graduate Engineering Technology Management adjunct faculty at OSU conducting distance learning courses in engineering technology management, lean sigma implementation and FMEA techniques.

Greg Surtman, Contract Training Edge

As President of Contract Training Edge, Greg is committed to helping community colleges, technical colleges, and universities across the United States achieve higher levels of revenue and profitability while helping their local economy thrive. Throughout his career as Director of Business Development for Cuyahoga Community College, and Senior Account Executive for New Horizons Computer Learning Center, Greg was responsible for initiating and growing relationships with strategic accounts in Northeast Ohio. He has more than 16 years of business development experience across several industry sectors. By driving the right conversations with the right people at the right organizations, Greg has conducted over 4,700 sales calls and generated more than $17,000,000 in contract services revenue during this time. His consultative approach focuses on high priority initiatives, develops long term client relationships, and a deep understanding of client need - all key ingredients to establishing a sustainable account portfolio. Greg earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Toledo. He is a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and DiSC facilitator. He resides in Olmsted Township, OH with his wife and two sons.

Joel Ehle - Formerly head of Process Improvement at AT&T

Joel recently retired from AT&T after 36 years of service. At the time of his retirement, Joel was the Executive responsible for AT&T’s Quality Management System Center for Excellence (QMS-COE) where he and his team delivered over $2B in financial benefits while keeping the quality and process improvement program focused on customers. The ultimate mission of his organization was to drive a deeper ‘customer first’ culture across AT&T by creating a common quality management framework, providing expert guidance, and building a sustainable Quality infrastructure.

Jennifer Ralston - Master Champion

Jennifer Ralston is a multifaceted Manager with a unique blend of experience in quality, process improvement, process engineering, quality auditing, software quality, change management, and lean six sigma. Jennifer Ralston has successfully learned the applications of Six Sigma from a Motorola Master Black Belt, and was certified as a Master Black Belt by an award winning ASQ Master Black Belt. In addition, Jennifer has supervised and managed a team of 13 process improvement staff including: Master Black Belts, Black Belts, Lean Engineers and Simulation Analysts, as well as trained and certified over 200 Champions, 40 Green Belts, 20 Black Belts and 4 Master Black Belts.

Laura Taylor - APN Client Services Manager

Laura Taylor oversees the client services side of the Academic Partner Network. She helps new clients set up their portal and get familiar with the OpusWorks® suite of administrator tools so they can get started right away. Laura also helps our Academic Partner by creating and administering classes as needed and helping with any and all portal related questions. She will arrange multiple training sessions and help your administrators and instructors become familiar with the content and tools available. Laura has a BA in English from the University of Georgia, and while it hasn’t been the most useful degree, she can at least tell the difference between “their” and “there” and “they’re.” Working at OpusWorks® by The Quality Group is a dream job, providing a fantastic group of co-workers and an amazing bunch of clients that teach her something new every day.

Steve Ford - Master Champion

Steve Ford has thirty plus years of experience in training development and delivery, quality management system development and deployment across AT&T business units with expertise in adult education, strategic planning, data analysis, facility reviews, program management and professional development. After taking early retirement, Steve formed a consulting company performing quality/process improvement and Lean Six Sigma related work.

Michele Stuart - Master Champion

Michele Stuart, PMP, has performed operational and quality improvement projects using Lean/6 Sigma tools, advanced analytics and simulation for 40 years, concentrating on Healthcare organizations over the past nine. Since 1994, as President and founder of Efficiency Engineers, she and her staff have been bringing together the expertise and experience of internal teams utilizing the Lean/6 Sigma tools for sustained meaningful change. Whether the organization is a single hospital/physician office or a network of over 20 hospitals, Lean/6 Sigma teams under Michele’s facilitation have not only made the patient experience better, but better improved the clinical outcomes and made the organization work more effectively.

Chuck Jenrich - Master Champion

Chuck Jenrich comes to us with a rich and varied background including manufacturing, the service industry including government, education and health care. Chuck has been a Black Belt since 2000, having been trained with ASQ/Six Sigma Academy and recertified in 2010 by Caterpillar. Chuck retired as Dean/Senior Executive Director of Corporate and Continuing Professional Education at Prairie State College as of May 1, 2009. Chuck is currently engaged as a consultant, trainer, mentor and coach for many companies in North America. He does consulting, training and auditing for Perry Johnson Consultants, Southfield Michigan and marketing and training for AJA Registrars, a UK registrar with USA offices in Orlando, Florida. He has taught at several local area colleges and universities, serving as adjunct faculty for Saint Xavier University for twenty seven years, teaching in several subjects and designing their Risk Management Course in the MBA program. Chuck is currently adjunct faculty for Benedictine University in graduate and undergraduate studies. He also teaches on a contract basis for Illinois Valley Community College, College of DuPage, Rock Valley College and Triton College. Chuck serves in advisory positions for Governor State University and South Suburban College. Chuck has been lead auditor qualified since 1992 by Perry Johnson Registrars and his TS Lead Internal Auditor training was received by Plexus and AIAG in 2001. Chuck also has experience with AAR M-1003 J standard for those companies required to have certification for the country’s railroads. Chuck’s knowledge of standards and/or regulations includes the ISO series including 9000, 14000, 18000, 13485, 17025 and 22000. Others include TS16949, AS9100, Safe Quality Food and AIB. Training is provided in a great variety of programs, including supervision, teams, project management, problem solving, diversity, lean manufacturing and six sigma. PSC, under Chuck’s direction also operated the training at three sites for Ford Motor Company and the first ever North American Supplier Campus in Chicago. Chuck is a certified trainer in Achieve Global (1989), Development Dimensions International Leadership Training (2004), a Plexus Master Trainer (1999), Baldrige National Quality Criteria and as an examiner (1998). He has worked in the Toyota Production System and Ford’s training and leading lean initiatives.

Walt Tillman - Master Champion

As a OpusWorks Master Champion, Walt brings with him over thirty eight years of combined industrial and private sector experience as a senior member of the Siemens VDO management team and with HKPO Proactive Solutions. He is Black Belt certified through HKPO. Walt commands a unique set of skills ranging from managing multi-million dollar manufacturing operations to working as a Human Resource Specialist responsible for employee selection, training, and development. Walt also provides a strong inventory of “hands on” experience with implementing Project Management systems, Lean and Six Sigma initiatives, as well as utilization of 5S, JIT, and Kanban tools. He was instrumental in implementing the Siemens VDO Automotive QS-9000 and ISO-9000 business system programs. Walt is a graduate of Christopher Newport College (William & Mary College) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management/Administration. He has excellent verbal and written communication skills and is proficient in use of Microsoft Excel, Power Point, Word, Visio, and Project Management software.

Norma Simons - Master Champion

Norma Simons is a highly successful business leader and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience driving organizational improvements for leading names across diverse industries. She has utilized many proven methodologies to identify the root cause of quality issues, and achieved significant improvements in operational performance by devising customized solutions. Norma has built highly qualified cross-functional teams through focused training and leadership, and coached teams in executing problem solving systems and implementing improvement initiatives. In addition, Norma has provided customized training programs to client personnel, including "Train the Trainer" programs that enable development of problem solving teams. Additionally, she has spearheaded many Six Sigma programs for clients, with results of $200,000 in average cost savings per year for each project as well as engineered $150,000-300,000 in cost improvements per project for Goodrich Aerospace by pioneering a 3-stage Six Sigma training and implementation process.

Vickie Kamataris - Master Champion

Vickie Kamataris is the principal consultant of E-Squared Performance Partners and provides business consulting services including training, deployment planning, project leadership, and process optimization. Vickie is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and has been applying Six Sigma to healthcare processes since 1996 and, while healthcare is her specialty, she has experience in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries, with military and civilian organizations, in the US and abroad. Her expertise extends beyond Lean Six Sigma to include Theory of Constraints, TRIZ, and Change Management. A registered nurse with more than twenty years of clinical experience, Vickie earned her BSN from Southwestern College where she graduated valedictorian in 1988 and a MSN/HCSM from Loyola University, New Orleans. She has achieved multiple specialty certifications including CPHQ and COHN-S. Vickie served as Director of Commercial Healthcare and MBB for Military Healthcare for NOVACES, LLC, a leading international provider of SystemCPI consulting services. As a NOVACES consultant, Vickie provided expertise and leadership to develop and guide CPI deployment strategies, lead complex, enterprise-level projects and events, develop and provide LSS training and mentoring services. As Quality Leader for General Electric Corporate Healthcare and Medical Programs, she developed and deployed a balanced scorecard and drove quality, compliance, cost, and productivity initiatives across GE’s global clinic network. Other experience including Environmental Health and Safety and Occupational Health management, clinical and leadership roles in primary care and specialty clinics and medical centers, and as an educator in the clinic and college classroom provide a blend of expertise and experience that have allowed Vickie the privilege to pursue her passion and, for more than 30 years, to lead clinical, business, and military teams, receiving multiple academic and professional awards. She is a co-author of ‘Performance Improvement for Healthcare: Leading Change with Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management’ published in 2012. Vickie has published numerous quality-related articles and presented at national and international venues.