History
While working at a small defense subcontractor making infrared detectors, I and an office mate shared a new tool for compiling quality statistics, a personal computer with Lotus 1-2-3 and a printer. Armed with trend graphs and Pareto charts, I was able to highlight where the biggest quality problems were and measure the effectiveness of corrective actions.
Later I took a course on Statistical Process Control and met W. Edwards Deming at a seminar. It was part of a roll out of Total Quality Management based on the book 'Quality is Free', by Philip Crosby. Still in the defense industry I took a course on Taguchi Design of Experiments and was blown away by the simplicity of isolating the critical few variables from the trivial many in a system. I became a lead trainer/facilitator in TQM and a practitioner of DOE while still using basic SPC and and charting to solve problems.
I later joined a consulting company. In one assignment I helped solve a problem with wasted powder coat at a manufacturer of steel shelving. Doing a complex industrial experiment using the entire belt driven assembly line, I showed that the parts could be coated by optimizing the settings and using proper fixturing. The result was a more uniform finish, less wasted powder, and the elimination of spray can manual touch up. Later working for the same company I was assigned to the General Electric Six Sigma roll out and became a Certified Master Black Belt. The processes I worked on were mostly white collar front and back office processes dealing with airplane leasing, commercial real estate, and trailer leasing. I trained and launched scores of teams.
In 2000 I gave up the road warrior job and went looking for a more entrepreneurial setting. I joined with a founder of a software company where I used his subject matter expertise in program management to create a suite of Internet enabled products in product lifecycle management. In 2003 the company was acquired and the team started another Internet software company in 2004, this time in EdTech. I wrote the specs and performed testing on the initial releases of a Learning Management System (LMS) that would eventually be one of the first SaaS Cloud Freemium ad supported applications in its class. Later I would also repurpose a CRM system to be used as a recruitment and enrollment platform for Online Program Management.
Continuing my entrepreneurial pursuits I assisted a cloud-to-cloud backup company called Backupify (acquired by Datto) in building a product roadmap and strategy. While there I got immersed in the Agile Development Process and Scrum. Not long after wards I took on the complete Agile Transformation at a financial services provider, Charles River Development. I hired the Agile Coach and set about improving the performance of 35 Scrum Teams. Together we created an assessment regimen and visual scoring for continuous improvement. I also hired a rotation of co-op students from Northeastern University who helped me build product portfolio dashboards on the Intranet that displayed progress towards completion of major features for each release.
As an independent consultant I also helped launch a mobile app for rewards, implemented ERP and BOM management at a health & wellness startup, and trained all the product managers in Agile concepts at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
And most recently I took a role as a co-founder at Community Wellness where I created from scratch a complete digital telehealth platform with remote patient monitoring. When funding dried up I was on my own again ready to assist the next company with whatever in my background fits their needs.
As an entrepreneur I have worked with developers in India, China and Vietnam to release software that enables the Fortune 50.
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Staff
president
Steve Bowler
Steve has spent his career helping businesses create or improve products and processes. He has worked in hardware and software, private and public companies. He has led quality departments of over 180 people, been program manager of hundred million dollar plus defense contracts, and has been employee number 1, 2 or 3 at startup companies multiple times as the Chief Product Officer. Two of his startups have successfully exited. He has created profitable new products from a blank sheet of paper, written patents, managed off shore development, and hired winning teams. He has re-engineered development processes and has improved quality and yields resulting in bottom and top line growth.
Education
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
BSEE
vice president and secretary
Helene Bowler
Helene began her career as an admin at J.H. Albert, an international risk management firm in Needham, MA. She then moved to GTE Government Systems in the Quality Department and Communication Systems Program Management Office. Later she joined the sales team at LTX, a test equipment maker in the semiconductor industry. She also worked in the Aegis Program Management Office at Raytheon Corp. in Wayland, MA. She gave up her outside career to raise seven children and run the household.
Education
ACQUINAS JUNIOR COLLEGE
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