Helen Zak serves as the Chief Development Officer of the ThedaCare Center, a not for profit educational institute with a mission to create a healthcare marketplace that rewards providers for delivering value.
Helen has 30 years of lean leadership experience in a wide range of industries, including automotive, capital equipment and high tech.  Formerly, COO of  Lean Enterprise Institute for 11  years,  Helen worked with Jim Womack to spread the topic of lean throughout the world and to every industry.  Helen has contributed to 16 published works on the topic of lean as well as numerous educational programs and is a frequent speaker on the topic.   Helen helped to establish the Lean Education Academic Network, The Lean Global Network and the Healthcare Value Network. Helen is on the Shingo Institute Advisory Committee, New England VERC Advisory Board, and a Steering Committee Member of the Lean Education Academic Network.  Helen is faculty for the IHI and faculty and coach for the Master of Business of Operational Excellence Program at Fisher College of Business at Ohio State. Helen received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Marquette University and a MS in Operations Management and MS in Manufacturing Management from Kettering University.

As President/CEO of Jøtul North America, Bret has led a lean transformation that began in 2001 and continues today, utilizing a sustainable continuous improvement culture.  Under Bret’s leadership, Jøtul  has grown from 13 employees as a distributor to manufacturing assembly of sheet metal fabrication with 95 employees.  All products sold in North American market are developed in Gorham, ME headquarters for North American hearth products market. 

Jøtul has been a finalist or winner in the Best Companies to Work in Maine in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and won the 2009 Governor’s Award for Business Excellence in the state of Maine. 

Bret received a BS degree in Economics/Psychology Magna Cum Laude from  St. Lawrence University and a MBA from the University of Vermont. 

Bruce has more than 30 years’ experience leading businesses spanning technologies as diverse as high volume consumer goods, high precision machining, fine chemicals enterprises, pharmaceutical-food grade operations, and medical device companies. He skillfully integrates a leadership approach that combines the entrepreneurial mindset of a small company with the discipline of a large stable organization to deliver high impact results. In his current position as General Manager of KARL STORZ Endovision, Bruce was recruited to lead a business turnaround, delivering unprecedented levels of customer service, quality, and cash flow. He has more than 10 years lean leadership experience, and has implemented lean operating systems in several different businesses. An eight time Boston Marathon runner, Bruce understands the discipline required to deliver a long term plan, while executing day-to-day operational excellence.


 

Steven Spear is a Sr. Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and in MIT's Engineering Systems Division, and he is a Senior Fellow at IHI.  He has won numerous awards including the Philip Crosby Medal, for his book The High Velocity Edge, from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) in 2011, a McKinsey Award for his article "Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today," from Harvard Business Review, and numerous Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. He is an authority on how select companies—in high tech and heavy industry, design and production, manufacturing and services—generate superlative performance by converting innovation &  improvement  from inspiration to repeatable, broad-based, skill-based disciplines.  Spear’s “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota,” are part of the lean manufacturing canon.  His “Fixing Healthcare from the Inside, Today” and articles in Annals of Internal Medicine, Health Services Research, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, and Academic Medicine have been on the forefront in health care improvement.  He contributes to the Boston Globe and New York Times, and has appeared on Bloomberg TV and radio, CBS, and elsewhere. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he is on a patient safety advisory board and was recently named to an advisory panel on systems engineering at University of Texas.  He is also a board member for the medical IT company Aceso.  He is founder of a business process software company, "See to Solve."  Spear helped the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative create its 'Perfecting Patient Care System'  which has been credited with eliminating complications like central line infections and thereby improving care quality while reducing cost.  The Alcoa Business System, which he helped design and launch, is regularly credited with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual savings. 

Donald Walsh holds degrees from Holy Cross College (AB), Northeastern University (MA, Sociology) and the Harvard Business School (MBA).  Don retired from NSTAR where he was the Director of Community Relations and Economic Development. He was responsible for NSTAR’s relations with the 108 municipalities in its service territory as well as developing partnerships to strengthen the economy in Massachusetts. Don represented NSTAR on several business organizations, including Mass MEP and AIM. 
 
He was an officer of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the founder of MassEcon (the state’s real estate industrial site-finder service and the leading non-governmental, state-wide economic development organization). He also founded the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, a non-profit that has developed 1,200 units of low income housing bringing over $330m of investment to Dorchester. 
 

Peter Hunter is the Managing Partner of Artemis Capital, a Boston private equity firm focused on investing in Industrial Technology manufacturing companies.  Peter has over 30 years of business experience. Prior to founding Artemis, Peter was a co-founder & Managing Partner of Axia Capital & he continues to represent both Artemis & Axia on the boards of Janis Research, KCB Solutions, Ohio Tool Works, Hydroid, Innovative Pressure Technologies, and Fiberoptic Components.  Peter sits on several non-profit boards including ESC New England and the Stone Family Adoption Assistance Fund. Prior to forming Axia, Peter was CEO of Innovative Microplate,  where he grew the firm’s revenue by 100%. Previously, he was the CEO & director of Inspectron Corporation, a machine vision hardware and software company focused on factory automation. Under his leadership, the company grew over 400% in less than 3 years. Peter was also VP, COO & CFO for Data Instruments,  a manufacturer of industrial sensors and factory automation equipment. During his 12 years at Data Instruments, he oversaw 7 acquisitions that resulted in growth to the company (revenues of $70 million) and the sale of the company to Honeywell  in 1998. Prior to joining Data Instruments, Peter was a CPA for Deloitte & Touche. An attorney and CPA, he received his JD in corporate law and BS in Accounting at Suffolk.

Bob Bishop is a consultant and entrepreneur who supports start-ups, turnarounds, and ongoing entities.  A Lean expert and Shingo Award winner, he serves on the Trustee Quality Committee of Signature Healthcare/Brockton Hospital as well as the GBMP Board of Directors.  In addition to his consulting activities, Bob is the founder of Bishop Innovations, a firm specializing in the development, production, and marketing of new products.
 
Bob earned his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at MIT and his MBA at Northeastern University.  He has held top corporate management roles, most recently as Vice President of Operations and R&D at Brookfield Engineering.  Prior roles included all aspects of technology and product development, manufacturing, quality, and business development.  He began his professional career at Texas Instruments developing high volume automotive sensors and later joined Brookfield Engineering Laboratories, the worldwide leader in viscosity measuring equipment.  At Brookfield he led a lean manufacturing / continuous improvement effort that resulted in the company achieving a Northeast Shingo Prize Gold Award.  He holds thirteen U.S. Patents.

Dr Dickson is President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care, a four hospital healthcare system located in central Massachusetts with over 900 acute care beds and 1100 employed physicians, he also serves as a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.   Prior to being named CEO Dr Dickson served as President and Senior Associate Dean of UMass Memorial Medical Group, Professor and Head of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and Interim Chief Operating Officer for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.  Dr Dickson completed his medical degree and residency training in emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and has a Masters Degree in Health Care Management from Harvard University. Dr Dickson has served as a member of the Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners, lectures nationally on the use of the Toyota Production System in healthcare and is an active faculty member for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, where he works with health systems around the world to reduce healthcare costs while improving quality.

Bill is Chief Lending Officer at the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, a non-profit with the
mission to create and preserve jobs at small businesses, women and minority owned businesses, and to promote economic development in underserved,
gateway municipalities and low and
moderate income communities. MGCC provides a centralized resource at the state level that offers working capital, loan guarantees, and targeted technical assistance to solve specific financial and operational problems. MGCC will
provide 50 % of the cost of such
assistance while the company being assisted will invest the other 50%.