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Tracy O’Rourke, Host
Tracy is Chief Innovation Officer at GoLeanSixSigma.com. She is co-host of the Just-In-Time Cafe Podcast and co-author of “The Problem-Solving Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide To Your Lean Six Sigma Journey." Tracy is an accomplished facilitator, trainer and presenter. She has trained over 2,000 people, mentored 500+ people and has helped complete 500+ projects with results that range between $50,000 and $8M in savings.
Tracy is also the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Instructor at UC San Diego Extension.
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Bob Neuhard
Bob currently serves as the Executive Director of the Office of Operational Strategic Initiatives which is charged with identifying, responding to, leading, and supporting unique initiatives and opportunities across campus on behalf of the Chancellor and the Chief Financial Officer. He specializes in building consensus in highly dynamic situations by developing comprehensive strategies and solutions to the most complicated and novel issues and opportunities. His focus is on strategic leadership and alliances, high impact negotiations, and delivering transformational outcomes. -
Ahren Crickard
Since 2001, Ahren has worked with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Chancellor on various strategic academic initiatives. Her skills in continuous improvement, process efficiency, and change management are utilized to examine business processes, as well. By trade, she is an attorney, but she is also a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. -
Brett Pollak
My experience is developing enterprise strategies, platforms, and teams to support a wide variety of IT Services. Groups I currently direct include Datawarehouse, Analytics and Predictive Technologies, Email, Service Desk, Field Support, Endpoint Management, Enterprise Content Management, Web Technologies, and Integrated Collaboration Services. -
Natasha Martin, Ph.D.
Dr. Natasha Martin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health. She holds an honorary senior lecturer position at the University of Bristol. She is also the co-director of the Biostatistics and Modeling Core of the University of California San Diego Center for AIDS Research (UCSD CFAR). She has worked for 18 years developing mathematical models of disease progression and transmission in both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Dr. Natasha Martin is an infectious disease economic modeler who develops dynamic transmission models to evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of public health interventions. -
Dean Pham
Dean has worked at UC San Diego Health since 2009 and currently serves as an IT Director of Ambulatory EMR (electronic medical record). He works to establish and optimize outpatient clinic workflow as it relates to our EMR. Dean received his PharmD and MBA from the University of the Pacific and completed his residency at San Joaquin General Hospital. At UC San Diego, Dean has worked as an IT pharmacist with a focus on ambulatory care and oncology services before taking his current role.
The Future of Lean Six Sigma Across Higher Education
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Katie Mankins, Moderator
Katie Mankins joined UCSB in 2015 with over 25 years of management and technical experience. She sees her role as Director for Special Projects in the Office of the CIO as an opportunity to solve business problems, craft realistic solutions and deliver value to stakeholders across campus. She is well-versed in the practices that enable projects to deliver promised business value, and she has rich and deep expertise in business process improvement, project, program and portfolio management. Her recent Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification reinforced her love of navigating deftly from big picture to details and back again, and helping engage people from a cross section of backgrounds to find common goals and reach mutual success.
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Tracy O’Rourke, Host
Tracy is Chief Innovation Officer at GoLeanSixSigma.com. She is co-host of the Just-In-Time Cafe Podcast and co-author of “The Problem-Solving Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide To Your Lean Six Sigma Journey." Tracy is an accomplished facilitator, trainer and presenter. She has trained over 2,000 people, mentored 500+ people and has helped complete 500+ projects with results that range between $50,000 and $8M in savings.
Tracy is also the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Instructor at UC San Diego Extension.
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Chris DeMarco, Panelist
Chris DeMarco is a Senior Business Process Analyst and Organizational Consultant at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on business process management, change management, and continuous improvement. As a business process strategist, Chris has 20 years of combined operations experience within higher education, biotechnology and engineering sectors including program management and organizational leadership with a community-driven spirit. Chris completed the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt program at Villanova University and carries a certificate in Change Management from Prosci and comes to UC Berkeley by way of Wesleyan University where he completed his BA with a focus on neuroscience and behavior.
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Quico Gonzalez, Panelist
Quico Gonzalez is a software development manager supporting a digital transformation of IT operations at UC Davis. He manages multiple teams supporting enterprise applications, platform development, web development, cloud brokerage, and automation and analytics.
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Marc Myers, Panelist
During his 12 years as program director at San Diego State, Myers managed a suite of process improvement programs including Lean Enterprise and Lean Six Sigma, both publicly and to corporate clients across a broad range of industries and disciplines. He championed lean projects within SDSU and is familiar with the challenges faced by educators and practitioners in the university and college environment. Myers is currently applying his passion for process improvement by working with a local non-profit focused on food waste reduction and social enterprise to provide training and facilitate the implementation of lean programs. Myers holds a BA in Organizational Behavior from National University, a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from UC San Diego and has been a featured guest on GoLeanSixSigma.com’s podcast, “The Just-in-Time Café”.
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Eric O. Olsen, PhD, Panelist
Dr. Olsen serves as Area Chair and Professor of Industrial and Packaging Technology in the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA. Dr. Olsen teaches undergraduate and master’s courses in lean thinking, six sigma, and operations management. Dr. Olsen had over 20 years of industry experience in engineering and manufacturing management at Caterpillar, Litton, and Hewlett Packard before getting his PhD at Ohio State University. Dr. Olsen is also the Director of Central Coast Lean, a self-funded research project under the Orfalea College of Business. Its mission is to better understand how to build a community of lean practice. -
Brad Sollenberger, Panelist
Brad is a Strategic Initiatives Manager at UC San Diego Office of Operational Strategic Initiatives with extensive Lean Six Sigma experience in higher education and healthcare, as well as a certified change practitioner. His areas of expertise are operational improvement, creative solution development, complex change management, system redesign and implementation, strategic planning, as well as space planning and optimization. Brad is the author of Lean Translated Strategy and a Yellow Belt training instructor.
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Eura Szuwalski, Panelist
Eura Szuwalski is the Business Systems Project Manager in the Process Innovation Team at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Eura Szuwalski earned her Masters in Library and Information Management in 2010 from Emporia State University. Her library science degree has been a strong foundation for her work in organizational change management, process improvement, and strategic planning. Eura joined UCSB in 2015 and for the last three years, she has been an active part of the continuous improvement initiatives, including administering the campus' DocuSign instance and taking part in the first Lean Six Sigma Green Belt cohort at UCSB through UC San Diego Extension.
Empowerment and Innovation: Cultivating a Continuous Improvement Movement
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Elisabeth Swan, Host
Elisabeth is the Chief Learning Experience Officer at GoLeanSixSigma.com. She is co-host of the Just-In-Time Cafe Podcast and co-author of “The Problem-Solving Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide To Your Lean Six Sigma Journey." Elisabeth is an accomplished Lean Six Sigma trainer, program designer, change leader and coach with over 25 years of experience. She enjoys collaborating with clients and colleagues to build problem-solving cultures together.
Elisabeth is also a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Instructor at UC San Diego Extension.
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Ahren Crickard, Moderator
Since 2001, Ahren has worked with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Chancellor on various strategic academic initiatives. Her skills in continuous improvement, process efficiency, and change management are utilized to examine business processes, as well. By trade, she is an attorney, but she is also a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. -
Matthew Helton, Panelist
Matt is Program Manager for Transformational Healthcare at UC San Diego Health and has worked at UC San Diego since 2015. Originally part of the Operational Strategic Initiatives team, he managed and grew the Lean Six Sigma training and scholarship programs on the academic side. In his current role, Matt manages the Transformational Healthcare project portfolio and partners closely with the team in providing logistical support for key departmental activities including the Daily Engagement System (DES), Lean Healthcare Training, Rapid Process Improvement Workshops, and the monthly Transformational Healthcare Report Out event. Matt is proud to be part of a team seeking to create 10,000+ problem-solvers relentlessly improving the value of patient care while loving their jobs. -
Antonio Nava, Panelist
Antonio serves as a Program Analyst on UC San Diego’s Office of Operational Strategic Initiatives team. Antonio is responsible for managing the Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt program, as well as supporting IdeaWave. Antonio has worked in higher education since 2006 in various capacities including Registrar Operations, institutional effectiveness and engagement, and program management. Antonio graduated from UCSD in 2007 with a degree in Theatre, and is keenly focused on affecting culture among staff and students. He was a leading member of Toastmasters for a number of years, created and maintained a student organization, and founded a networking committee in a previous university which launched several events aimed at addressing organizational silos. -
Melani Roberson, Panelist
Melani Roberson serves as the Program Manager for the campus’ ideation tool and program, IdeaWave. Melani is an expert in innovation management, and consults and advises groups on campus, as well as externally, on how to achieve and implement business innovation goals. She is adept at change management and an expert group facilitator who is able to engage groups at events of any size. Melani has worked in higher education since 2008 in various capacities including development and implementation of organizational policy, process improvement, and oversight of complex business problem discovery and solutions architect. She is an enthusiastic learner that enjoys a user-focused experience when aiding various stakeholders in the implementation of creative and innovative changes. Melani earned her M.B.A. with an emphasis in Project Management in 2013, and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from UC San Diego Extension in 2016. -
Prachi Raheja, Panelist
Prachi Raheja is the program manager for Continuous Improvement in UC San Diego's IT Services department. She's an engineer and MBA with specialization in IT, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. She is responsible for leading the continuous improvement program at IT Services and also for managing the Lean Bench – a select group of campus expert practitioners of Lean Six Sigma methodology leading crucial efforts around process improvement, operational excellence and business efficiency.
Community Inspiration: United States Postal Service Lean Journey
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Steven Mummy
Mr. Mummy’s 38-year career has been in support of USPS national automation programs. He developed and deployed enterprise level applications and assisted in developing rules governing the logic in the 11 Digit barcoding scheme which serves as the backbone of automation. Since 2012, Mr. Mummy has led the Lean Six Sigma initiatives within the VP Controller group. He was a project finalist at the 2014 worldwide Process Excellence (PEX) competition and was a member of the ASC Black Belt team awarded "Best Lean Six Sigma Startup Program". Mr. Mummy was awarded Master Black Belt certification through the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. Steve also has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Saint John’s Seminary College. -
Rick G. Thompson
As one of 14 Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belts in the United States Postal Service, Mr. Thompson is active in continuously improving the organization. His 14 year lean journey has stretched many layers of the organization. From customer retention initiatives to logistics to facility redesigns, the opportunity to exercise the art of continued improvement is ever present. With data encoded on almost every mail piece, logistic handling and resource, Mr. Thompson enjoys swimming for correlations, hypothesis testing and running regression models on millions of rows of structures and unstructured information to solve problems. He believes the emerging Master Black Belts will possess the wisdom of Lean Six Sigma and the acumen of a data scientist.
Lean Improvement Principles Make a Huge Impact During the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Ashley Gambhir
Ashley has worked at UC San Diego since 2006 and currently serves as Senior Director of Transformational Healthcare & Ambulatory Innovation for the UC San Diego Health Physician Group. She is a results-driven professional committed to the ongoing and growing success of UC San Diego with experience driving strategy and building operational excellence. Ashley is a certified project manager, certified change practitioner and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. She has a proven ability to lead teams through change in order to maximize efficiencies and innovation. -
Lily Angelocci
Lily is a Transformational Healthcare Coach and has worked at UC San Diego Health since 2013, with previous experience working at an 87-hospital healthcare system in various roles encompassing strategic planning, decision support, clinical informatics, operations and process improvement. Lily was a lecturer at Shanxi University in China where her passion for coaching and teaching was developed. She is courageous in seeking opportunities to improve quality of patient care, insightful in partnership creation, and careful in operational execution and management. She is dedicated to leveraging a holistic perspective and measurable data to solve complex shortfalls and improve processes, with the ultimate goal of strengthening organizations by improving patient experiences and outcomes. She believes superior healthcare starts with “never taking our eyes off the patients." -
Karri Benjamin
Karri Benjamin loves to coach and mentor improvement projects at all levels of organizations. With a population health focus she works to improve issues related to health disparities by addressing sustainable upstream methods. Karri is passionate about team effectiveness and interpersonal dynamics incorporating change management principles into her daily work. She loves public speaking and has worked in a variety of industries including manufacturing, regulatory, administrative and quality; teaching and facilitating various workshops in process improvement and quality metrics. As a certified Project Management Professional Karri loves to ensure planning and communication is at the forefront of the improvement equation, and supports systems thinking and structures. Karri is very passionate about patient experience and has in-depth knowledge of Press Ganey improvement portals that support keeping patients at the center of our work. -
Mike Spencer
Mike joined UC San Diego Health in April 2018 as a Transformational Healthcare Coach. Over the previous seven years, Mike built the Performance Improvement (Lean) group at Stanford Children's Health in Palo Alto. Mike believes that Lean, with its emphasis on engaging and empowering all employees, can be a major contributor to sustained positive change.
Lean Six Sigma White Belt Training
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Rachael Lapidis, Host
Rachael has been at UC San Diego since 2005. After many successful years with the Psychology Department as a graduate student, Lecturer, Graduate Coordinator and Student Affairs Manager, she is now Strategic Program Manager in the Dean’s Office, Division of Social Sciences, working in concert with 15 departments and programs to broaden educational programs and access for new and continuing learners. After her Lean Six Sigma yellow belt training in 2017, Rachael was selected as a team captain for the inaugural ProcessPalooza in 2017 and her team, the Sunshine Squad, won the competition to improve the travel approval process for Associated Students. -
Antonio Nava
Antonio serves as a Program Analyst on UC San Diego’s Office of Operational Strategic Initiatives team. Antonio is responsible for managing the Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt program, as well as supporting IdeaWave. Antonio has worked in higher education since 2006 in various capacities including Registrar Operations, institutional effectiveness and engagement, and program management. Antonio graduated from UCSD in 2007 with a degree in Theatre, and is keenly focused on affecting culture among staff and students. He was a leading member of Toastmasters for a number of years, created and maintained a student organization, and founded a networking committee in a previous university which launched several events aimed at addressing organizational silos. -
Darcy Frailey
Darcy is a Senior Strategic Initiatives Analyst for UC San Diego’s Operational Strategic Initiatives team. Prior to joining the OSI team in 2019, Darcy worked at American University in Washington, DC, overseeing their student center operations. Darcy is a happiness enthusiast who enjoys focusing on building positive people-focused experiences when working with a variety of teams and programs in the development of unique opportunities and solutions that move organizations forward. He has years of experience in higher education, information technology, team and program development, and strategic planning facilitation. Darcy holds a Bachelor’s in Business Information Systems and a Master’s in Organizational Development & Leadership from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.