Ursula Powidzki

Ursula Powidzki offers over 30 years of managerial experience in real estate, finance and economic development, with a history of operational leadership in a variety of organizational settings.

Ms. Powidzki is the Assistant Secretary of the Business and Enterprise Development.  She manages the finance, business development, international and regional and sector development functions of the department, and overseas a staff of 70.

Prior to joining DBED, Ursula was a senior manager for an emerging market investment management business affiliated with MuniMae (MMA), a publicly held real estate and energy finance company.  She was responsible for portfolio management and investor relations, and played a leading role in creating the business infrastructure for a $220M equity fund investing in the South African housing market.  During her earlier MMA career, she managed a diverse set of projects and teams across functional areas such as credit risk management, IT and strategic marketing.

Ms. Powidzki's career has spanned privately held firms, a not-for-profit organization and the public sector.  She was COO for a regional real estate development firm, Himmelrich Associates, and directed marketing for a high-end commercial millwork and fixtures company.  Ms. Powidzki was the managing director of the Baltimore Advisors from 1996-2000, an affiliate of the National Initiative for led Competitive Inner City (ICIC), letd by Harvard Business School Prof. Michael Porter.  Ms. Powidzki staffed USAID economic development contract in Poland in the mid-1990's, and was senior vice president of the Baltimore Development Corporation until 1992, overseeing small business lending, the development of incubator facilities, and re-positioned industrial properties.

Ursula has a B.A. from Brown University in Urban Studies and has completed an executive MBA course in Finance, and University at The Wharton School, Unversity in Pennsylvania.

Van Reiner

Van Reiner is a native of Lakewood, Ohio, holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wittenberg University and a master’s degree in chemistry from Lehigh University. He also has completed executive education programs at Duke University and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

He joined Bethlehem Steel in 1974 and spent the first 10 years of his career as an engineer in the coke oven department at Bethlehem’s Lackawanna, NY, plant. In 1984, he was transferred to the Burns Harbor, IN, Division as assistant superintendent of the slab mill/plate mills department and in 1990 was promoted to superintendent of that department.

In 1995, Mr. Reiner was appointed superintendent of the Galvanized Products Division, an operating unit of Burns Harbor located at Lackawanna. He became senior manager, operations, for the Burns Harbor Division in 1997, and president, Bethlehem Lukens Plate, when that division was formed in May 1998 following Bethlehem’s acquisition of Lukens Inc. He was then named president, Bethlehem Sparrows Point Division in August 2000. During his career at Bethlehem, he was a leader for introducing six sigma and lean throughout the company.

Professionally, Mr. Reiner is a past member of the board of directors of the American Institute of Steel Construction. He also held memberships in the American Iron and Steel Institute, Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, American Chemical Society, Western States Blast Furnace and Coke Oven Operators Association.

Since the closing of Bethlehem Steel, Mr. Reiner has served as interim Director to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore, MD, and in March of 2005, was named its permanent President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Reiner also serves on the Board of the Maryland World Class Manufacturing Consortia and is a founding member and Treasurer of the Partnership for Baltimore’s Waterfront.

He and his wife, Shirley, are the parents of three children. They reside in Bel Air, MD.

Joe Riley

Joe Riley has more than 36 years of experience in a variety of manufacturing and general management positions. He has worked as an Industrial Engineer, Quality & Safety Manager, Plant Manager and Director of Operations, from 1968 – 1984 for Baltimore Aircoil Company, a world wide manufacturer of evaporative cooling equipment.

From 1984-1990 he was President and CEO of Chesapeake Wood Products a lumber distribution and fabrication company with operations in Baltimore and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

He rejoined Baltimore Aircoil in 1990. Since then he held positions as Director of Operations- International, Corporate Manufacturing Engineering and North America Customer Service.

Joe was most recently Senior Lean Leader with Baltimore Aircoil with a mission to simplify the business processes within the Corporate Headquarters and three manufacturing facilities in North America using Lean techniques and kaizen events to improve information flow to support shop floor continuous improvement activities.

Joe was instrumental in getting BAC to join the Consortia and implement lean manufacturing in North America. He served on the first two implementations that converted batch production and bay assembly into continuous flow production in 2000, using Consortia consulting resources.

Joe currently serves as Chairman of the MWCC's Board of Directors.  He is a Senior Member of SME and has served on the Howard County Committee to Improve Workforce Quality.

Joe has a BS from the University of Maryland- College Park and an MBA from the University of Baltimore.

Gary Ruddell

Gary Ruddell is President of Total Biz Fulfillment, Inc., a leading provider of back office and customer relations services, in addition to warehousing, picking, packing and shipment of merchant and consumer orders throughout North America. Companies depend on TBF to build their brands and to support their sales growth. Client manufacturing companies are headquartered in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Denmark and the Philippines. Re-engineered from a publishing company in 1992, Total Biz Fulfillment has built six warehouse expansions over two campuses in western Maryland over the last sixteen years.

Total Biz Fulfillment allows companies to focus on their core competencies of building a brand and selling their products. The challenge of successfully doing so requires managing a myriad of details, including the last-in-line presentation of products, transport of products, order management, credit and financial management, and customer relations. In 2000 TBF lost a large contract for 15 (fifteen) cents per transaction.  Research suggested that, had lean principles been employed, they could have enabled TBF to offer a lower commercial cost that could have won the contract. Total Biz Fulfillment thus joined the Maryland World Class Consortia.

Gary has been actively engaged with the Maryland World Class Consortia for a number of years and has been a missionary for lean principles and membership in the MWCC. In September 2007 some forty-eight companies listened as First United Bank and Trust (first bank in the State of Maryland to join MWCC); New Page (paper manufacturing); and TBF presented their lean business journeys. Gary and other bevy from his firm have attended a bevvy of MWCC meetings.

Gary’s academic background is Marketing and Sales where he holds a Bachelor’s degree from University of Maryland (College Park).

Gary resides in a home overlooking Deep Creek Lake in Garrett County with his wife Luanne.

Robin Sokoloski

Robin Sokoloski is the Sector Director for Continuous Improvement for Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, responsible for improving people and process capability through the use of continuous improvement techniques such as Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints and Systems Thinking.  She and her team are responsible for training and implementing high leverage lean/six sigma projects as well as other strategic process improvements. 

Robin holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from Penn State University, and has over 25 years of manufacturing experience in process engineering and/or management roles. Robin is a Master Black Belt and a certified Results Coach.

Prior to joining Northrop Grumman 12 years ago, Robin was Operations Manager, responsible for Manufacturing, Purchasing, Operations Engineering and Production Control, for two different frequency control companies, and achieved significant improvements in throughput and operating margins in those organizations.

Mrs. Sokoloski previously served on the board for AME MidAtlantic region, and currently serves on the board for the Chesapeake Arts Center.  She lives in Ellicott City with her husband, Carl, and has two children who are studying engineering at the University of Maryland.

Jerry Solomon has had a unique opportunity to implement Lean accounting and Lean Business Practices, as he's held simultaneously positions of Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Manufacturing simultaenously at three middle market manufacturing companies.  In his dual role he was able to cast aside traditional departmental barriers and galvanize the accounting and manufacturing areas to develop timely and actionable information.

In 1986, while Mr. Solomon was additional responsibility Financial Officer of Vermont Castings Inc., he assumed the addtional responsbiloity for the manufacturing operations of this heavy industrial company.  He immediately realized that a key customer of the accounting department, the manufacturing organization, was getting information that at best was marginally useful.  Mr. Solomon redesigned the accounting procedures and teamed with the operating folks to provide user friendly reporting that facilitated the improvement process taking place on the production floor.

In 1998, Mr. Solomon became the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Manufacturing at PACE, Inc., an electronics manufacturing firm providing equipment to the telecommunications, consumer electronics, automotive, computer and medical industries.  Mr. Solomon led the Lean transformation that resulted in customer lead-time reductions of 75%, productivity improvements of 64%, space reductions of 50%, quality improvements of 100%, and a doubling of inventory turns. In addition to the improvements taking place on the plant floor, the cost accounting system was simplified and the use of MRP for executing the production plan was eliminated in favor of a pull system with electronic links to all suppliers. As a result of these efforts, PACE, Inc. was the first company certified to World-Class levels by the Maryland World Class Consortia.

Shawn Wolf

Shawn Wolf is currently President of Wright Manufacturing Inc. (WMI) in Frederick, MD. Shawn started his career at Wright as a consultant handling marketing and management issues, then joined the company in 2001 as the Chief Operating Officer. Shawn, along with Bill Wright, the CEO of WMI, completed the MWCC leadership program and aggressively began transforming Wright from a traditional batch manufacturer to a lean enterprise. Wright Manufacturing remains focused on its lean journey and proudly promotes lean enterprise to other businesses through tours and other means. Wright Manufacturing produces commercial lawn equipment serving the professional lawn care industry.

Previously, Shawn spent ten years in higher education as an administrator for three different universities. He also spent several years as an independent consultant focused primarily on leadership development, management, and marketing. He has a B.S. degree in Business Administration, Bryan College, an M.S. in Management, Eastern University and is currently a student at Regent University pursuing a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership.

Shawn resides in Frederick County with his wife Denise and their three children - Ryan, Lauren and Connor.