Victor
F. Figurelli retired from Shell Chemical Company after 31 years of service. His
career included staff and management assignments in product applications,
technical service, sales, marketing and product planning. His last position in
Shell was Quality Management Consultant. In that assignment, he advised and
guided Shell Chemical’s Leadership Team, Shell Oil corporate leaders, and other
senior managers throughout the Shell system in developing and implementing
Baldrige-based strategies for improving performance. Vic ensured that the
appropriate training programs were developed to provide managers the knowledge
to set up a process to guide their organizations towards continuous performance
improvement. Vic also was responsible for communicating Shell Chemical’s
performance improvement policies and initiatives to key stakeholders inside and
outside the company.
In
his eleven years as quality management consultant, Vic conducted over 100 workshops
and seminars on quality management and the Malcolm Baldrige criteria for
Shell’s managers, customers and suppliers. He designed and coordinated internal
assessments based on the Baldrige criteria. He also developed and managed Shell
Chemical’s “Champions Of Quality” recognition program for individuals and teams
who made significant contributions to Shell Chemical’s business performance.
After
retiring from Shell, Vic continued to consult and to conduct workshops on the
use of the Baldrige Model to assess and improve an organization’s management
system for performance excellence. His clients and audience have included
organizations from the business, non-profit, government, health care and
education sectors. Since his retirement from Shell, Vic has conducted probably
another 100 workshops on the Baldrige and Texas Award Criteria for Performance
Excellence. He has also facilitated strategic planning sessions, primarily for
non-profit organizations.
Vic
was on the board of examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Award Program
in 1990 and 1991, the latter year as a senior examiner. He played a key role in
starting up the Texas Award For Performance Excellence program, which has
fielded more winners of the national award program than any other state. He
served three years on the first Quality Texas board of overseers and then on
the panel of judges from the inception of the state’s award process until 1999.
Vic returned to the Quality Texas Board of Overseers, serving as Chair from
2001-2003. He also participated on Quality Texas examiner training teams from
the award program’s inception through 2004. He also worked with Quality Texas
to design and deliver orientation workshops for organizations new to the
Baldrige model. For his contributions to Quality Texas over the first decade of
that organization’s existence, Vic has been recognized as a Quality Texas
Foundation Fellow
Vic
was a faculty member of the National Graduate School, an accredited institution
that offers an accelerated master’s degree in quality management. He taught
from 1996 –2004.
He
has been active in a number of volunteer activities. He was vice-president and
president of Senior University Georgetown, a non-profit organization dedicated
to life-long learning for people 50 and over, from 1998-2004. He was on the
board of directors for Georgetown Partners in Education from 2001-2005, serving
as Chair in 2003-2004. He is still a mentor in the PIE program. He also served
on the board of the Georgetown Symphony Society. Vic currently serves on
the board of the Habitat For Humanity Williamson County, and volunteers at the
local animal shelter.
Vic received a B.S. in chemistry
from Wagner College in New York City and a M.S. in management science from
Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. He is a member of the American
Society for Quality.
Vic
and his wife, Camille, live in Sun City Texas in Georgetown. They have five
children and six grandchildren.
Ron Asbury is a member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and served as Chairman of the Board, president, and president-elect and as a vice president. For four years, he served as senior examiner on the board of examiners for the Baldrige National Quality Award and was a member of the original design team for the Texas Quality Award. He is a former member of the board of directors of nHand Solutions and Falmouth Institute of Quality Management. He was also a member of the Conference Board’s Global Quality Council, and on the Texas Quality Award board of judges. Asbury retired from Texaco, Inc., Houston, Texas, in 1999, where he was the corporate director of quality consulting for eleven years. After retirement he was an independent contractor working with organizations in the USA & Europe on quality and business excellence. He recently retired from consulting but is still available for select organizations that need support in performance and business excellence.
Recent clients included:
- Nokia Mobile Phones - Europe. (Helped them win the 2000 European Quality Award) – Headquarters in Helsinki, Finland
- Nokia Mobile Phones – Americas – Headquarters in Dallas, TX
- University of Houston – Houston, TX
- QuEST Forum – A consortium of world-wide telecommunication companies – Headquarters in Milwaukee, WI
- Konecranes International – Headquarters in Helsinki, Finland
Prior to joining Texaco, Inc., Asbury served as manager of engineering services at Allied Signal Automotive Products / Seatbelt Division and manager of productivity at Union Carbide Nuclear Division, both in East Tennessee. He was also vice-president of productivity and quality at Lamar University’s John Gray Institute in Beaumont, Texas. Asbury received a bachelor’s degree in industrial management from the University of Tennessee.
Ken Leach is Founder and President of Leach Quality, Incorporated (LQI), a consulting
company he founded in 1990 to assist companies in the interpretation and use of
the Baldrige criteria. He is also Executive Vice President of Quality for Kool
Smiles, a dental care provider to children headquartered in Atlanta.
Ken has
personally guided more than 20% of all Baldrige winners from 1988-2006. His
Baldrige-winning clients include AT&T, Motorola, Merrill Lynch, FedEx, and
Ritz Carlton, as well as approximately 50% of the winners in the Small Business
and Service Categories. He was also a consultant to SSM Healthcare, the first
winner in the Healthcare Category.
Ken served
four years as a Senior Examiner for the Baldrige Award, six years as a judge
for the Georgia Oglethorpe Award (Georgia's state award based on the Baldrige
criteria), six years as a judge for the USA Today/Rochester Institute of
Technology Quality Cup, and two years as a judge for the Shingo Prize for
Manufacturing Excellence.
Prior to
LQI, Ken served as VP of Administration at Globe Metallurgical (one of the
inaugural Baldrige winners in 1988) from 1985-1990, and guided Globe to
breaking all the quality audit records at Ford and GM. Besides the inaugural
Baldrige Award, Globe also received the inaugural Shingo Prize for
Manufacturing Excellence in 1989 under Ken's guidance.
Prior to
Globe Metallurgical, Ken was employed by Ohio Ferro-Alloys Corporation, his
first post-college employer. At the age of 25, Ken became the youngest plant
manager in the history of the ferro-alloy industry, with full P&L
responsibility over a manufacturing facility in Alabama that generated greater
than $40 Million in sales per year. The plant established records for
productivity, quality and volume that were unprecedented in the industry.
Ken has
delivered over 300 speeches on quality and process improvement on four
continents and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Inc.,
Business Week, Industry Week, and many other publications in the United States,
Asia, Europe and Australia, as well as being featured in a Tom Peters video,
The Quality Revolution.. He has been published related to quality in the United
States,
Japan and Mexico. Ken is a graduate of West Virginia University with a B.S. in Business Administration.
David R. Rockett, Jr. serves as the Executive Director/President of the Greater Bossier Economic Development Foundation. Since taking over this position in the spring of 2005, the GBEDF has grown exponentially into many difference areas in order to grow jobs, create investment opportunities and work with existing business partners in Bossier City and Bossier Parish to promote the positive business atmosphere that Bossier is known for.
As a graduate of the Economic Development Institute, Mr. Rockett couples his previous experience in commercial real estate and construction to promote and manage industrial and commercial development in Bossier. He has also been instrumental in creating nearly a 1,000 new job opportunities along with several hundred million dollars of new projects in the community over the last few years.
Mr. Rockett serves on the boards of Barksdale Forward, Bossier Parish Community College Foundation, Red River Valley BIDCO, Shreveport/Bossier Film Advisory Board, the Strategic Action Council. He is an active member of the Louisiana Industrial Executives Association (LIDEA), SEDC, ICSC and many other professional and civic organizations. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and locally from Loyola College Prep. Mr. Rockett is an active member of First Baptist Church of Shreveport and is married with three children.