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Our Instructors: Experts at OpusWorks® Institute

Meet the OpusWorks® Institute Instructor and Consultant Team. Our team of seasoned professionals brings extensive experience and expertise to deliver exceptional learning experiences and provide valuable consultation. They are dedicated to helping you achieve your goals through innovative, technology-powered solutions.

Vickie Kamataris

As Chief of Content & Delivery and lead Master Black Belt for the OpusWorks Institute, Vickie Kamataris leads a diverse and dedicated team of senior Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) practitioners to empower people to use CPI tools and methods to make a practical, meaningful difference in their work. Employing extensive experience in many industries, from aviation to healthcare, a relentless passion for excellence, and decades of teaching in the corporate, college, and virtual classroom, Vickie breaks down barriers. She simplifies the complex so that CPI tools and methods can thrive in industries and processes where they supposedly do not work. Because they do!

Contact at: vkamataris@opusworks.com

Vickie Kamataris

OpusWorks Institute, Chief, Content and Delivery, MBB Instructor and Mentor

Meet Vickie Kamataris, Lead Master Black Belt of the OpusWorks Institute.

Vickie lives to make a difference — and everything she has learned in the military, as a nurse, and as both a college and corporate instructor, comes together at OpusWorks and allows her to do her work well.

Vickie is driven by an unshakeable belief that Lean Six Sigma, when applied properly, transforms organizations and individual lives. She treats each student as a patient who will excel if given proper personal attention.

As a leader, she loves to take an initial idea, probe it, engage others with it, explore it, expand it, imagine possibilities for it, and then collaboratively shape it into a workable strategy that a team can make into a reality that yes, makes a difference.

Vickie’s mission is to be the growth master of the OpusWorks Institute. She loves the challenge of creating a global team, and finds it extraordinarily rewarding. She’s always tackled the toughest problems and pushes herself to provide her instructors with the best possible tools and support. She wants a clear path for every student to have a superior experience with the OpusWorks e-Learning content, materials, instructors and instructional processes.

Vickie is inspired by her team of masters and embraces each different personality, unique perspective, and distinctive experience. She values the constant flow of ideas, suggestions, and requests from customers. Vickie thinks it’s so cool that she gets to pull it all together, look at the big picture, and make the Institute better, especially for OpusWorks customers. She wants to move faster — more rapidly update materials, do more gaming, expand innovation content and more … while also making sure internal processes and capabilities keep up so students always get the latest and best from OpusWorks.

Vickie’s suggestions for clients:

Define, agree, and get executive commitment to what you want your people to do differently after the training, even before you design your first class. Too many organizations get halfway through their first session only to discover that their business really needs something different.
When you sign up for OpusWorks Institute delivered classes, sign up also for OpusWorks Institute project related mentoring support services. Too often, when mentoring is done by internal experts who are unfamiliar with the ASQ-aligned OpusWorks curriculum, students receive guidance that does not reinforce or even conflicts with their learning. Unfortunately, new students cannot yet embrace the nuances of Lean Six Sigma. Consistency of training and mentoring is especially important for emerging practitioners.
Get the OpusWorks Institute involved early in your relationship with OpusWorks so we can help you avoid pitfalls, not repeat mistakes, and prevent rework as you embark on the new approach. Also, if Vickie and her team can understand your vision, they can help you plot the course.
Start small and when you’re ready, scale simply and rapidly!

Fernando Cardoza

Fernando brings over 15 years of hands-on experience in Lean Six Sigma, innovation and process transformation in diverse industries and environments: Technology, Telecommunications, Retail, Human Resources and Financial services. As bi-lingual facilitator and Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with OpusWorks Institute, Fernando guides his students to use process improvement to achieve customer delight while maximizing financial returns.

Contact at: fcardoza@opusworks.com

Timothy Clancy

Tim Clancy brings nearly three decades of business, government, and military enterprise-level, performance and process improvement deployment experience, plus time as Chief Methodologist of Lean, Six Sigma, and Agile at IBM and as a pioneer in complex system dynamics computer simulations, to his work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Tim's training sessions are hands-on and inspirational, especially when Lean is applied to improve IT, technology, and knowledge area processes.

Contact at: tclancy@opusworks.com

Alexandre Fonseca Torres

From his base in Itajubá, MG, Brazil, Alexandre Torres brings a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the Federal University of Itajubá, plus experience as a bi-lingual professor, practitioner, and instructor to his work as a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Alex pushes his students to experience "AHA" moments because he knows that though knowledge transfer is integral to the education process, it is never enough. In addition to being an instructor, Alex serves as the OpusWorks Institute Director applying his expertise and experience to creating content and advising on new product development.

Contact at: atorres@opusworks.com

Alexandre Fonseca Torres, Ph.D

Director OpusWorks Institute, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Instructor and Mentor

Through service to companies like Amazon, Cargill and others - plus learning about leadership, time discipline and soft-skills from his OpusWorks Institute colleagues -- Alex is a transformed instructor. Though always dedicated to excellence, Alex's mindset is now completely different. Before OpusWorks, he was anchored in a teacher-as-instructor model that in hindsight, he realizes, fostered student passivity. Today, his students are actively involved and fully engaged because he is a facilitator-as-instructor enthusiast ... and he's never going back.

Alex's critical-to-quality measure, as an instructor, is the quality and frequency of "aha" learning moments. Such moments occur when students possess the core knowledge and are wrestling with ral world application. With OpusWorks blended learning - OpusWorks e-Learning transfers the core knowledge (Alex is "100% convinced" that it is the superior way) and OpusWorks class materials built on defined learning objectives that promote real-world application -- Alex can unleash class energy and creativity to inspire exceptional moments that are even more impactful because of Alex's use of metaphor, humor, and experience.

Alex’s top tips for OpusWorks Institute students are:

Make a detailed schedule for completing pre-work, on time, so you are fully prepared for class. Review specifics with your boss so they commit to support you.
Take the training and do your project, simultaneously. For instance, after you do a Charter in class, do it with your Project.
Commit to continuous learning. To enhance your hard and soft skills, these readings should be on your shortlist:

    - The Machine that Changed the World (Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T., Ross, D.)
    - The Goal (Goldratt, E.M., Cox, J.)
    - How to Make Friends and Influence People (Carnegie, D.)

For deployment leaders and sponsors, Alex requests that you:

Affirm the rigor of the course. Review your student's detailed schedule. Help them stay on track.
Query your students about project specifics. Clarify as appropriate.
Assure students of their project's importance to the organization. Promptly respond to questions and requests for support.

Steve Ford

Steve Ford brings over thirty years of operations experience, including leadership of a Lean Six Sigma Center of Excellence for a major telecommunications company. Steve added recent service to airline, and online retail clients to his work as a Six Sigma Black Belt and ASQ Certified Quality Auditor and Certified Quality Engineer for the OpusWorks Institute. Gifted with a consultative mindset, Steve enjoys seeing his students apply their learnings to improve day-to-day work and lead improvement projects that impact the bottom line.

Contact at: sford@opusworks.com

Steve Ford

OpusWorks Institute Six Sigma Black Belt, ASQ Certified Quality Auditor and Certified Quality Engineer

Gifted with a consultative mindset, Steve enjoys seeing his students apply their learnings to improve day-to-day-work and lead improvement projects that impact the bottom line.

Meet Steve Ford. As an OpusWorks Institute instructor for companies like Amazon, Cargill and others, Steve views himself as an "Application Facilitator" who measures success by how well students apply knowledge of a topic — tool, technique, or methodology -- to make their company more effective and efficient.

Polling, chat, and subsequent dialogue are Steve’s means to the end. Through polling, he discovers each student’s prior experience level with a topic. Via chat, he uncovers ways the topic has been used to make improvements. And with dialogue, he advances the topical skill level of experienced students and builds a support network for those newer to a topic. As always, the goal is to bridge knowledge to application.

Throughout a training engagement, Steve finds that by referencing and continually reinforcing a simple, easily understood core theme — such as the wide-ranging application of y=f(x) — enables students to further build confidence in their ability to find more streamlined ways of doing things.

Steve’s suggestions:

Students, use the sequenced layout of e-Learning, class sessions and activities in the learning portal as your roadmap toward becoming a proficient problem solver and practitioner. Remember, the 'Search' capability enables you to quickly find impactful learning points, just-in-time.
Instructors, allow discussion time for drilling down into key and relevant topics for your class. Avoid zooming through all the material, just because it’s there.
Clients
- Assure that students — during class — have a problem to solve for immediate benefit and quick win momentum.
- Confirm that students want to be in-class and that they embrace the blended learning model.
- Increase ROI with infrastructure support for practitioners, projects, and the program itself.

Dennis Godwin

Dennis Godwin brings over 20 years of Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints practitioner, consulting, and teaching experience spanning industries including Aerospace MRO (NASA and DoD), Software Development, Healthcare, and Transportation to his work as an OpusWorks Institute Master Black Belt. Dennis believes that (i) true continuous improvement can only be sustained when it is practiced in an organization by everyone, everywhere, every day; (ii) people develop processes and leaders develop people; and (iii) his greatest accomplishments live in those he has taught and mentored along the way.

Contact at: dgodwin@opusworks.com

Rod Loucks

Rod Loucks is a Business and Operations Excellence consultant with over 30 years of experience and $20MM in verified CI savings. Rod has served in engineering, quality, supply chain and operations roles across many different industries. From ASQ, he is a Certified Quality Engineer and Certified Lean & Six Sigma Master Black Belt. His passion is applying tools and methodologies to create flow and capacity while streamlining manufacturing operations. Rod is driven to make businesses more competitive and make people better leaders and problem-solvers through Kata-inspired training, coaching, and mentoring.

Contact at: rloucks@opusworks.com

Beth Morrison

Beth Morrison brings over 20 years of passionate Six Sigma and Lean practitioner experience with several large manufacturing companies and consulting firms to her work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Though Beth excels at introducing her students to the world of continuous improvement and its multitude of tools, she is especially passionate about encouraging them to embrace change.

Contact at: bmorrison@opusworks.com

Beth Morrison

OpusWorks MBB Institute Instructor and Mentor

Meet Beth Morrison, OpusWorks Institute Master Black Belt instructor and mentor for Cargill and other OpusWorks clients.

Beth Morrison brings over 20 years of passionate Six Sigma and Lean practitioner experience with several large manufacturing companies and consulting firms to her work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute.

Though Beth excels at introducing her students to the world of continuous improvement and its multitude of tools, she is especially passionate about encouraging them to embrace change.

Beth has several recommendations for OpusWorks blended learning class instructors.

First, have every student work a project concurrently as they complete the e-Learning, class, and Capstone material.

Second, for better communications, request that a client resource be actively involved with each class.

Third, invest time up front to train students in how to work the training platform to their advantage with chat, materials sharing, hand raising, muting and more.

Fourth, use the real-time data from the "At-A-Glance" report, to encourage higher performing students, support those on pace, and cajole the ones who are falling behind.

And finally, for those students with English as a second language, budget as much as 30% more self-paced learning, class, and project time.

Beth also has a few tips for prospective OpusWorks clients. Embrace the power of the OpusWorks blended learning model.

Leverage the exercises in the Capstone Simulated Project event to develop student confidence that they can indeed apply the concepts and principles learned from the e-Modules and class activities.

Prioritize selecting projects that fit the training and are aligned with business objectives.

Make students aware that modules are topical, and that some will take longer than others.

And above all, ensure that students accept that it is their responsibility to manage their time, avoid last-minute cramming and complete the assigned e-Modules, on-time, before class.

Eddie Perez

Eddie Perez brings rich experience as a bi-lingual speaker, author, conference chair, instructor, implementer, and leader in Innovation, employee engagement, Lean in Healthcare, and quality, high-reliability, and performance improvement in healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, and nonprofits to his work as a Lean Expert and Six Sigma Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Eddie prides himself on helping his students become proficient and inspired practitioners and leaders of their organizations.

Contact at: eperezruberte@opusworks.com

Er Ralston

Er Ralston brings over thirty years of experience in operations and quality leadership interventions to his work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Formerly with the Juran Institute and a major university medical center, Er draws upon his business process excellence, planning, Lean Six Sigma, and Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award accomplishments as an executive coach, trainer, consultant, and examiner to inspire others in their quest for performance excellence.

Contact at: eralston@opusworks.com

Er Ralston

OpusWorks MBB Institute Instructor, Mentor

Meet Er Ralston, OpusWorks Institute Master Black Belt instructor and mentor for REV Group and other OpusWorks' clients.

Er brings over thirty years of experience in operations and quality leadership interventions to his work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute.

Formerly with the Juran Institute and a major university medical center, Er draws upon his business process excellence, planning, Lean Six Sigma, and Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award accomplishments as an executive coach, trainer, consultant, and examiner to inspire others in their quest for performance excellence.

Though Er enjoys developing content and building new client relationships, it's teaching the classes, and enabling students to effectively apply learned knowledge, that inspires and motivates him. Er believes in the OpusWorks brand and appreciates how his affiliation builds his own credibility as a consultant. Through the Institute, Er especially values the opportunity to network, enjoy camaraderie, and share best practices.

Regarding OpusWorks' content offerings, Er sees them as far more expansive than any one individual could develop on their own. He notes that the content is well aligned with widely accepted bodies of knowledge. Though familiar with blended learning before joining the institute, Er now has a greater understanding and appreciation for how the OpusWorks blended approach can be used and leveraged to better serve clients.

Er notes that with OpusWorks, deployment champions, perhaps for the first-time ever, have access to the data and dashboards they need to:

Get more fully engaged in the overall learning process
Better support student performance
Promote internal information sharing
Foster project collaboration
Design additional exercises to further drive ROI

In planning a rollout, Er suggests a PDCA mentality. Start with a pilot class, learn from it, improve subsequent classes, accelerate the pace, continuously improve, and scale. It is of top importance that management supports and commits to their students that they will indeed have the off-the-grid, uninterrupted time necessary to complete pre-work e-Learning on-time and fully participate in all class sessions and activities.

Theodore Revilock

Ted Revilock brings over 20 years of wide-ranging business transformation value-creation success managing complex improvements across many industries and functional departments and has led multiple Continuous Improvement program deployments. In Ted's work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute, he is an expert in the application of Lean, Six Sigma, Design Thinking, and Agile concepts to help organizations improve performance while building capability.

Contact at: trevilock@opusworks.com

Ted Revilock

OpusWorks Institute Master Black Belt, Instructor and Mentor

An expert in the application of Lean, Six Sigma, Design Thinking, and Agile concepts to help organizations improve performance while building capability; meet Ted Revilock, MBB with the OpusWorks Institute.

As a Green and Black Belt blended learning instructor, Ted admires the quality of the OpusWorks e-Learning modules and pushes hard for his students to complete their assigned e-module pre-work, on-time, before class to maximize the blended learning experience. Ted is looking forward to the latest release of updated modules that are more bite-size, tightly scripted, and streamlined as part of OpusWorks own continuous improvement activities.

Regarding the Institute’s always improving virtual blended learning class materials, Ted praises their rigor, structure, and the built-in flexibility for him to share personal experiences that increase learning impact. Ted acknowledges the trend to deemphasize statistics, particularly at the Green Belt level, and affirms the quest for content to be as relevant and practical as possible. To assure that knowledge gained is effectively applied, Ted believes that confidence, performance, and value are greater when clients engage their OpusWorks expert to mentor their students through their critically important first projects.

Ted’s top tips for instructors who embrace the OpusWorks approach and materials:

Recognize that despite your best efforts, many students will still not be prepared for class. To promote engagement, be ready with trigger questions and push yourself to call on people randomly.
Don’t rush! Take time to understand the class flow. Practice! There is more time than you think and every word on the slide does not have to be said as students are reading along in the virtual setting. Get to the point.

Ted’s top tips for deployment leaders:

Prioritize sending the right students to class, pave the way for them to complete class assignments on time, hold them accountable, and be sure they go to class with a well-defined project.
Increase your training ROI from OpusWorks by also leveraging their deployment, program management and mentoring services.

Junell Scheeres

Junell Scheeres brings decades of Lean Six Sigma practitioner, leadership, change management, and project management course design and facilitation experience, plus know-how gained from guiding performance improvement initiatives and organizational transformations for many private and federal government entities to her work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Junell is passionate about enabling new practitioners to apply the skills and tools they need to improve performance in their organization.

Contact at: jscheeres@opusworks.com

Penny Schoonmaker

Penelope (Penny) Schoonmaker brings over twenty years of award-winning Lean Six Sigma experience in manufacturing and nonprofits to her work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. With expertise in project leadership and facilitation, belt coaching, project portfolio management, and Continuous Improvement tool implementation, Penny loves to help others find their "Aha" moment when their learnings click into understanding, growth, and savings for them.

Contact at: pschoonmaker@opusworks.com

Brian Stockhoff

Brian Stockhoff, with demonstrated business process reengineering, organizational performance assessment, project team leadership, training, coaching, and management consulting capabilities, brings rich biotechnology, healthcare, service, and manufacturing experience to his work as a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. As an instructor, Brian measures success by how well his students can apply statistics, process optimization methods, and project management skills to reduce defects, waste, and cycle time in their business processes.

Contact at: bstockhoff@opusworks.com

Cynthia Tschantz

Cindy Tschantz brings perspectives from a 40-year career in the telecommunications industry, including the last 20 years as a Lean Six Sigma continuous improvement practitioner, to her work as a Master Black Belt with the OpusWorks Institute. Cindy is an enthusiastic, highly motivated, voracious learner who is infectiously passionate about process improvement activities, tools, and techniques because of the unique insights they reveal about solving business problems.

Contact at: ctschantz@opusworks.com