a Christian Man, American Patriot, Service-disabled Veteran-owned Small Business
BETTER DECISIONS. BETTER BUSINESS.TM
Meet Our Leadership Team
Mr. Jim Bowie, PhD Candidate, President, is a Strategic Performance Improvement Expert with more than 29 years of experience leading high-impact efforts in diverse environments and industries around the world including Government, Corporate, and Non-Profit organizations. Jim is the President of Roxtar™ Consulting (a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business), author of the revolutionary book from Quality Press (American Society for Quality), Lean Acres: A Tale of Strategic Innovation and Improvement in a Farm-iliar Setting, Executive Director of WarYours, Inc., a non-profit Veteran’s organization, a Professional Conference Speaker, and the creator of the Lean Six Sigma Samurai® and the innovative strategic planning model, the StrateTree™. He is known for his hands-on approach and dynamic, passionate delivery.
He is a former United States Army Infantry Officer and an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, holds a Master of Business Administration, a Master of Science Degree in Business Data Analytics, is a Kaplan-Norton Balanced Scorecard Certified Practitioner, a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt (including American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Six Sigma Black Belt), an ASQ Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence, an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, an ASQ Certified Quality Auditor, a Certified Lean Master, a Certified Project Management Professional, an ISO 9001:2008 Lead Auditor, and a certified facilitator. His expertise was also recognized as he was selected to serve as a member of the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Jim’s educational track has included Salisbury University, the US Air Force Institute of Technology, Villanova University, University of Tennessee, Yale School of Management, University of Michigan, Auburn University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, West Virginia University, and the “Benning School for Boys” (Infantry Training).
Mr. Jim Lacey, Senior Director, is an industrial engineer and operational excellence professional with over 30 years of experience leading teams and transformation efforts in manufacturing, defense, aerospace, and consumer goods industries. He is a sought-after professional with proven skills in Lean Six Sigma, project team leadership, operations management, capital and operating budgeting, industrial engineering, capital equipment justification, quality systems, process engineering, maintenance, and special project assignments with emphasis on applying Toyota Production Systems (TPS), Kaizen, Statistical Process Control (SPC), training design and delivery, and MRPII assignments.
At Kennedy Space Center, Jim supported the space shuttle flight crew engineering group in reconfiguring the crew module components and provided engineering support to a lithium hydroxide logistics refurbishment facility. Additional industry experience includes but is not limited to the following: steel extrusion, architectural aluminum extrusion, automotive textiles, fiberglass coating and woven metal screening manufacturing, automotive aluminum tubing, fiberglass boat assembly, aerospace component fabrication for MDA testing, food grade salt processing, medical device manufacturing, sunscreen manufacturing, prosthetic fabrication, medical kit fabrication, large water pump machining and assembly, rail road controls fabrication, electronic component packaging, sonobuoy manufacturing, retail distribution center, solid material screening, and sifting manufacturing.
Jim holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Pennsylvania State University and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Mr. Canfield, Senior Director, is a continuous improvement leader with extensive experience across all elements of the quality profession. He has worked with key executives from the boardroom to government regulators to define and document strategic plans, define and optimize processes, develop statistically driven analytics and reports, identify improvement opportunities and implement a risk-based framework to drive data quality across the enterprise.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology, Master of Science in Quality Assurance and is certified as a Quality Auditor, Quality Engineer, Reliability Engineer, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, an ISO 9000 Quality Management System Lead Auditor, and a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Examiner.
Dr. Tom Lawless, PhD, Senior Director, is a proven Lean Six Sigma and operations leader with more than 40 years’ experience working with a diverse range of clients in pharmaceutical, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, banking, service industries, and logistics. Tom is a results-oriented change agent with extensive operational expertise and implementation experience in Lean Manufacturing, Total Productive Maintenance, Lean Enterprise, Six Sigma, process reengineering, corporate turnarounds, Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), change management, and organizational performance. His secret sauce is his ability to influence, persuade, and motivate the entire organizational culture to transform and grow. Tom is experienced with developing and interpreting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and associated benefits tied to financial and other industry specific business processes and how the KPIs relate to specific measurable and predictable business outcomes. He is also proficient in communicating difficult and intangible concepts in a very clear and understandable fashion. His expertise includes all aspects of manufacturing and distribution, operational excellence, supplier development, strategic planning, non-conforming material disposition, interfacing with regulatory agencies, and advanced statistical analysis.
He is a former United States Army Infantry Officer and an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, holds a doctoral degree in Business Administration, (two) Master’s Degrees (Civil Engineering and Business Administration), (two) Bachelor’s Degrees (Business Administration and Electrical Engineering), and Tom completed the Command and General Staff College and Logistics Management College programs.
Mr. Don Johnston, Vice President, is a recognized Performance Improvement Expert with over 30 years of experience. He has successfully led major projects, advised executive teams, and has trained and mentored professionals who are changing the world. He has served in Production and Plant management positions and functioned as interim Senior and Executive leadership roles. His industry experience covers a wide spectrum, from local government agencies through space exploration companies. Don is a highly sought-after educator, trainer, and content developer. Don has trained over a thousand Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belts, Green Belts, Black Belts, and Master Black Belts in various industries around the world. Known for his ability to draw on relevant examples in real time that relate to the student’s interests, Don connects with his audience quickly and can convey complex concepts in easy-to-understand ways. In addition to training in areas including Lean, engineering, problem solving, and leadership, Don has led the flagship Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training at the Lean Six Sigma World Conference for the last five years, reaching participants from all over the world. Key to his success is Don’s emphasis on student involvement through exercises and examples that provide participants the opportunity to apply what they have learned.
Don holds multiple degrees, including a Master’s of Science in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology and a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and a ScrumMaster (Agile methodology).
Mr. Steve Darrish, Senior Manager, is a recognized transformational leader with over three decades of program, process, and product improvement experience. Steve is a strategic and operational practitioner with experience managing large landscapes of projects across companies in financial services and software development sectors. He possesses substantial experience leading large Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) across financial services and technology businesses with responsibility for large portfolios of projects and governance including change management, technology, and associate- and marketing-facing initiatives. Steve maintains significant re-engineering and consulting experience with a Big 4 management consulting pedigree. He is a professional program leader with design, deployment, and execution experience in retail, commercial, and mortgage banking. Steve is trusted as a highly skilled leader responsible for optimizing, integrating, and migrating large core banking risk and regulatory platforms from source to target environments. Steve is also an expert in predictive modeling, with deep statistical analytical and interpretive capabilities, and he is an experienced innovation leader with a focus on leveraging emerging technologies to create service platforms that enable product/service innovations (offerings) in the marketplace.
Steve holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mathematics from Ohio University and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.
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Dr. Patrick Traichal, Senior Manager, is a proven executive with extensive experience in multiple Fortune 50 companies. He is skilled in Business Planning, Operations Management, Management, Project Portfolio Management, and Business Intelligence. Patrick has successfully led change using scientific data applications at the department, division, and enterprise levels. Recent data-intensive projects include warehouse completion time (for an organization with approximately three million orders in 2018) and annuity speed to market (company-wide product development time). He published his first "Big data" peer-reviewed research in 1997 using approximately two million tick-by-tick foreign exchange transactions.
Patrick holds a Doctoral degree in Finance from a US Research I Institution plus undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Psychology. He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and has completed both Visa Bankcard Management School and the Wharton SIFMA Security Industry Institute Program. He has published peer-reviewed research in various outlets including Managerial Finance, The Journal of Small Business Strategy, Advances in Accounting Information Systems, Marketing and Psychology, and The Global Finance Journal.