Board of Director's Bios
The Michigan Lean Consortium is governed by an all-volunteer Board of Directors that believes Lean principles and tools can help organizations of all kinds thrive and turn around the state of Michigan's economy.
Holly has a background in Industrial Engineering and Project Management. She has spent over 25 years fostering organizational change to strategically deploy methods of process improvement in both the manufacturing and transactional environments. She enjoys working together with organizations to develop collaborative teams and implementing systems to facilitate process excellence sustaining positive change.
Born and raised in Michigan, Holly has her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Michigan State University and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Lawrence Technological University. Holly has also been an active member of the Michigan Lean Consortium since 2010. Outside of work Holly and her husband, Ken enjoy spending time with their children and two dogs. She looks forward to any activity out of doors, especially gardening and fishing. She also samples as much chocolate as humanly possible.
Performance Improvement Professional at Covenant Healthcare in Saginaw, MI.
Bob has over 25 years experience in plant, field service operations, government and healthcare (inpatient and outpatient). He is proficient in quality engineering techniques including internal and external auditing, Six Sigma, Lean and supplier development. Bob has served as the President for The Michigan Association for Healthcare Quality and a subject matter volunteer for the Michigan Lean Consortium. He is a graduate of Cleary University, a current student at the University of St. Francis and holds numerous professional certifications. In his spare time Bob enjoys referring soccer and spending time with his three grand-kids.
Pamala is a lifelong resident of Michigan and is married with two adult daughters. She began working for the State of Michigan in 2015 and is currently a Lean Technology Process Improvement Consultant for the Office of Continuous Improvement. Before working for the State, she spent ten years as a facilities manager in the financial sector, with an emphasis on continuous improvement.
Pamela attended Davenport University, she has a Master of Management degree and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. She is certified in the State of Michigan’s Lean Process Improvement facilitation program and has earned a Six Sigma Lean Black Belt in Government certification from the Management & Strategy Institute. She also has training and experience in Project Management, Change Management, Contract Management and Emergency Management.
Stephanie Welch
Secretary
Stephanie has over 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry, she specializes in training and continuous improvement. Her career has been dedicated to enhancing operational efficiency and fostering a culture of learning and development. She is passionate about developing and teaching continuous improvement and professional development courses, to share her knowledge and help others grow in their careers. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Applied Science from The Ohio State University, which laid the foundation for her career in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, she is a Training Manager at Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing, where she continues to share her expertise and passion for professional development.
Stephanie was born and raised in Michigan, she currently lives in St. Johns Michigan with her husband and their “mini farm” of animals. In her free time, she loves to read and has plans to write a novel someday.
Melissa Sherman
Small Events Lead
Melissa has worked in the utility industry for over 27 years, both for an Investor Owned and Cooperative, gaining experience in Electric and Gas Distribution Engineering, Business Support for Pumped Storage, River Hydro and Renewable Generation, Online Scheduling for Fossil Generation, and Enterprise Change.
Throughout her career, Melissa has instituted lean methodology while embedding change management methodology. From scheduling to warehouse redesigns, to value stream analysis. Melissa analyzes and measures the effectiveness of existing business processes and develops sustainable, repeatable, and quantifiable business process improvements. She analyzes data to drive problem solving, root cause analysis and functional area process improvement. Responsible for delivering significant results in Company Breakthrough Objectives.
She is passionate about leading others on their continuous improvement/lean and change management journey. She enjoys being able to share her love for teaching/coaching others and seeing the “ah ha” moments when someone truly understands the methodologies. It is through breaking down those methodologies in terms they understand that they can then tackle those big problems.
Melissa has also taught higher education since 2008 both in-seat and on-line in management, entrepreneurship and engineering disciplines, relating a lot of her teaching to the utility industry.
Melissa holds a Bachelors in Industrial Engineering Technology, a Master’s in Leadership Studies from Baker College, along with a Graduate Certificate in Leadership Strategies from Davenport University. She also holds an Associates Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University and is certified in Change Management through Acuity Institute.
Emir was born in Bosnia and moved with his family to Augsburg Germany at the age of 11, where he spent years working and studying. At the age of 19, he decided to move to Michigan for the great education and to study international business. Emir has since set his roots and started a family.
Emir has worked for over a decade in the Treasury & Foreign Exchange Markets with the world’s biggest banks across the world. He was responsible for trading billions of dollars and have managed and executed strategic business development programs in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
In the last ten years, Emir has worked with businesses across the world in the IT, Finance, Automotive, Furniture, Manufacturing and Telecom industries as a consultant. Resolving client’s problems in the North America’s and all over Europe focusing on Market Entry Strategies, Supply Chain Optimization and Process Improvement. He has developed a true passion for Lean Six Sigma, has an Executive Six Sigma Black Belt, and have applied Lean throughout many organizations on multiple continents.
Emir has focused on the development, management and execution of strategic business development programs across global markets. This includes management and coordination of globally based employees and resources to develop international expansion strategies, validate sales opportunities, identify, and vet strategic partners, guide clients through acquisitions/greenfield operations in international markets and execute international expansion strategies.
For the past two years, Emir has been employed at Sebright Products Inc, a Recycling and Waste Compaction OEM, as COO where he oversees all operations and business activities within Sebright Products and Bright Technologies.
Josh Smith
Internal Training & Education Lead
Josh and his wife, Samantha, decided that life was not crazy enough with just the boys, so they added a Labrador puppy to their family this summer. Maizey is now four months old and a great playmate for the kids!
Josh is currently working at ZFS as the Director of Operational Excellence. Josh has been with ZFS since early 2020. Prior to that, he worked at US Marble, where he was introduced to Lean manufacturing and helped champion Lean implementations in multiple stone and marble manufacturing plants throughout the US.
Josh graduated from Ferris State University with a BA in Science-Integrative Studies. He is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt.
Josh grew up on a small dairy farm in Morley, Michigan. He is an avid sports fan and very passionate about his teams – GO BLUE! Josh is a firm believer that the Tigers will someday make the playoffs again – and hopes he lives to see that day! Josh is also on the board of directors for the Zeeland Little League and he coaches baseball during the spring/summer seasons.
Dr. Patricia Malone is a CPA, CMA and Certified Professional Facilitator. She works primarily with organizations and individuals to help them reach their highest potential through the practices of organization development, strategy facilitation, leadership, and operational excellence. She has served as CFO, COO, and SR Transformation leader in both small and large private equity and publicly held organizations and has worked with teams all over the world to develop strategy, streamline and manage business processes, facilitate, and implement lean projects, and create and manage operational excellence programs.
Dr. Malone’s dissertation research was focused on developing a theory and emergent framework of creating strategic capacity, which is defined as the ability of an organization or individual to obtain their vision, mission, and goals. To that end, she helps individuals and organizations create purpose and meaningful results for positive change.
She earned a Doctorate in Business (DBA) from Lawrence Technological Institute, an MBA in Finance and Marketing from The Ohio State University, and a BA in Accounting and Finance from Wright State University. In her free time, she adventures with her husband of 25 years and her two children, bikes, meditates, gardens, and hikes.