QualPro, Inc.

Seminars/Events

By Industry/Topic
Executive Briefings
Public Seminars
Local Work Force Training

QualPro Leadership Symposium

17th Annual QualPro Leadership Symposium - Featured Speakers

Lifetouch National School Studios
Chuck Feltz
President and COO

Lifetouch National School Studios captures the portraits of millions of preschool, elementary, and junior and senior high school students each year. In addition to capturing "Portrait Day" memories, Lifetouch provides senior portraits, individual athlete and sports team portraits, and portraits of other school organizations and special events. Lifetouch has been providing high quality portraits to schools and parents for 70 years and is the largest school photographer in North America.

Chuck Feltz became President and COO for Lifetouch National School Studios in the spring of 2006. He was previously President of Deluxe Financial Services and Direct Checks (the nation's leading check distributors).

Chuck described how, over the past decade, he has made MVT^® a key component of his strategic tool kit. At both Lifetouch and at Deluxe, Chuck has been faced with the challenge of defending market leading products against new digital and internet technologies. He has used MVT^® to increase service levels, introduce new/alternative products, set pricing, improve marketing and advertising effectiveness, and reduce costs by lifting productivity and efficiency. Chuck is uniquely qualified to describe how MVT^® can help reinvent a business and maintain an edge in an intensely competitive market.

AutoNation
Gary Marcotte
Senior Vice President of Marketing

AutoNation is America's largest retailer of both new and used vehicles. With over $19 billion in annual revenue, AutoNation employs more than 25,000 people at almost 300 dealership locations. AutoNation is also the Web's largest automotive retailer, generating billions of dollars of revenue via the Internet.

Gary Marcotte is Senior Vice President of Marketing at AutoNation. His responsibilities include the company's marketing and eCommerce activities, including the AutoUSA lead distribution subsidiary.

Gary described AutoNation's experience using MVT^® to address a number of marketing objectives. AutoNation's MVT^® efforts range from increasing effectiveness of newspaper advertising (an annual investment of over $100 million) to improving the effectiveness of their internet advertising to determining the best mix of broadcast, print, and internet advertising expenditures.

Big Lots
Rob Claxton
Senior Vice President of Marketing

Big Lots is America's largest broadline closeout retailer. It sells a broad range of high-quality, brand-name products, including consumables, seasonal products, furniture, housewares, toys, and gifts-all at closeout prices. With annual sales over $4 billion through 1,400 stores in 47 states, Big Lots is putting its experience and buying power to work to capture the growing base of cost-conscious consumers.

As Senior Vice President of Marketing for Big Lots, Rob Claxton oversees all areas of marketing, advertising, brand development, and merchandise presentation and is responsible for furthering Big Lots' national brand recognition.

Rob explained how the MVT^® process has helped in the development of Big Lots' marketing strategy.

E.I. DuPont
Ron Burger
Plant Manager, Retired

Ron Burger spent 34 years in manufacturing operations at E.I. DuPont. As plant manager at four different locations, he managed large sites and small. He not only worked with high-margin, value-added, long-cycle batch processes, but he also directed extremely high-volume, continuous processes that survived on very small profit margins. During his career, he participated in a variety of process improvement efforts . . . some more successful than others.

Beginning in 1989, Ron pioneered the use of an approach that was new to DuPont- MVT^®. His efforts achieved unparalleled success, with financial benefits reported as exceeding $100 million annually. His accomplishments were featured in Investors Business Daily. His successes led to similar MVT^® efforts across entire DuPont divisions. After retiring from DuPont, Ron served in executive positions in TG Soda Ash and OCI where he continued to leverage the MVT^® process to make dramatic improvements in manufacturing, mining, and business performance.

Ron described how, with no increase in capital or labor, his MVT^® efforts led to greatly simplified processes, reductions in cycle time, lower costs, improved yields, dramatically higher quality, and increases in capacity. He also shared the keys to overcoming the many obstacles that can derail process improvement efforts.

Newspaper Services of America
Dave Walker
President of Business and Strategic Development

Newspaper Services of America (NSA) is the nation's largest newspaper planning and placement agency. With over 300 professionals working to improve the effectiveness of its clients' print media investments, NSA supports all aspects of planning and implementing print media programs.

Dave Walker is President of Business and Strategic Development for NSA. This experience and his previous roles as Vice President of U.S. Marketing and Advertising for Toys "R" Us, VP of Advertising for Musicland Group, and Corporate Advertising Manager for Circuit City Stores make Dave very familiar with the many challenges a company faces when working to ensure that its print advertising investment is providing the maximum return.

Dave has extensive experience with MVT^® and recognizes the value of simultaneously testing dozens of ideas to improve an advertising program. He has personally witnessed the benefits of using MVT^® to implement the precise combination of actions that will achieve breakthroughs in effectiveness.

Dave described the critical levers in advertising media and share his experience and vision as to how MVT^® can rapidly achieve breakthroughs in advertising performance.

Since 1982, QualPro has used Multivariable Testing (MVT®) with 1000+ companies to test 100,000+ improvement ideas. MVT® tests between 20 and 40 ideas simultaneously, accurately predicting the bottom-line impact of potential process changes in weeks. Take existing process initiatives, like Six Sigma, to a whole new level. All process improvement tools and approaches (TQM, DOE, Six Sigma, Re-Engineering, SPC) can be enhanced through the use of Multivariable Testing by QualPro.