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Principal Consultants
Layne Pearson has spent over 25 years in high technology manufacturing, holding senior level positions in Operation management, Program management, & Strategic planning. Prior to joining Aveus, Layne spent over 20 years with Seagate Technology LLC., where he held various high level operational roles, including being responsible for the start-up of two new factories and the deployment of Lean Manufacturing in two of its major components divisions. Layne’s most recent role was executive lead responsible for the start-up of Seagate’s media substrates operations in Asia, which included managing the build of a new facility in Johor, Malaysia and the transfer of existing operations from Europe. Layne is a results-oriented leader with a strong technical background and highly effective strategic management and operations expertise.
Mike Verdin has 25 years of experience as a consultant, industry practitioner, change leader, and educator with success stories on three continents and in numerous cultures. His industry reach spans hi-tech and electronics to multi-administrative, aerospace and defense, distribution, pharmaceuticals and many in-between. Mike’s passion is to improve processes and overall company performance, and creating new methods, metrics, and concepts are always exciting elements of any improvement process Mike leads. Prior to Aveus, Mike held management positions in industry and consulting firms such as Seagate Technology, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and Tefen USA. Verdin holds an MBA in Operations Management from The University of Arizona and a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin. In rare non-work hours, Mike enjoys writing poetry and music, running, racquetball, volleyball, basketball, and meatballs.
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Paula Morgan has over 25 years in health care sales, marketing and strategy, with a diverse experience in both products and services. She started her career as a licensed physical therapist working in private practice, hospital, and home care. Paula held both line and staff positions during her 22 year tenure at Schering-Plough, including Director, Oncology/Biotech Sales, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Operations, Vice President, Sales during the company’s successful launch of Claritin, and later Vice President, Managed Care Sales and Customer Market Development. In 2002, Paula assumed the position of Senior Vice President, Global Business Development for the Ingenix CRO (now i3 Research), a division of UnitedHealth Group. Upon leaving there in 2005, she founded Morgan Consulting LLC, and began working with Aveus in 2007.
Paula is a member of the advisory board to the Women’s Business Leaders in Healthcare, has served as a mentor in the Virtual 100 program of Menttium Corporation, and was a former member of the Board of Directors of Synergy Bank. She holds a BS degree from East Carolina University, in Greenville, North Carolina (yes, she still has a great accent). Most any chance she gets you’ll find Paula on a tennis court, or on a train from her Westfield, NJ home into New York City to see an indie movie or new Broadway play.
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SS Yeow has over 20 years of experience in the high tech industry. He has spent 18 years with Seagate where he ran Manufacturing, I.E. and led the Lean Organization in Asia for the past 9 years. As a division Lean leader, he was responsible to institute Lean metrics to all the plants in Asia and drive operations and supply chain improvements across factories at different geographical locations within the company. He has experience working on many projects involving flow improvements and setup, improving bottlenecks capacity and throughput time reduction across the supply chain. He has developed a method and system for replenishment that is being widely used within the company.
SS Yeow has an MBA from the University of Portsmouth and attended the Executive Management Program at the Harvard Business School. During his free time, he enjoys tending to his garden and being outdoors with family.
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Consultants
Nancy Norman has spent the past 20+ years in supply change management and finance leadership roles. Her supply chain experience includes work in the highly regulated industries of health care, medical device manufacturing, and airline transportation. Similarly, her finance background encompasses those industries and banking as well. Nancy also teaches for both Metropolitan State University and Moorhead State University. She is known for her ability to look at the same old problem and develop a new insight or approach to creatively solve it.
Prior to working with Aveus, Nancy has worked for Wells Fargo, Northwest Airlines, Regions Hospital, Accellent, and American Medical Systems. She holds an MBA, an MA in Library Science, and a BA in English – all from the University of Minnesota. Her certifications include CFPIM [APICS], CMA, and CIA. She is past president of the Twin Cities APICS Chapter. Nancy loves to read, garden, snorkel, and kayak. In exchange for golfing with her husband, he takes her ballroom and swing dancing.
Pam Sveinson has been consulting a variety of clients since 1999. Prior to that, having received her Masters in Industrial Relations from the University of Minnesota in 1980, she held executive HR positions with Cowles Media Company/Star Tribune and with First Bank System and has served as a member of the board of directors for several firms. In her consulting role, most of her current work involves individual executive coaching, facilitation of management team sessions and consulting on large scale culture initiatives. Pam purchased and has been subdividing and developing property in her home state of Montana near West Yellowstone, which includes the operation of Kirkwood Resort & Marina.
Phil Maher is both a consultant and business developer for Aveus. He has been an independent consultant for two years, after working in the technology manufacturing industry for 16 years. As Vice President of Operations he set up Seagate’s first off-shore disk drive plant in Singapore. After running this factory for five years he returned to the US to oversee the company’s Lean Manufacturing initiative. He has set up manufacturing in Asia for two clients as well as serving on the Board of Directors for a measurement equipment company in California. Prior to working in high tech, Phil was a high school teacher for ten years. His most interesting assignment was in working at a boarding school for Eskimos in Alaska. Outside of work, Phil is involved in his local parish and serves as the Secretary for the Booster’s Board of his daughter’s high school. Other interests include volleyball, movie-going and yoga.
Russell Anacker has spent over 30 years in facilities-related work. During that time he has held many different job titles starting at a technician, Preventive Maintenance process writer, Scheduler, Planner, Lead person, managing an out building with 8 technicians to managing a large complex with twenty employees, and contractors. Russ received his BA from Saint Scholastic in 2007. Russ received his Lean Master certification in 2003, and since has been driving Lean Manufacturing change everywhere he works.
Susan Ng has over 15 years of experience in the manufacturing industry and is a Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Master. As Senior Manager of Lean Manufacturing Department, Seagate Technology Singapore, she led the setting up and implementation of Lean Manufacturing programs, and executed layout optimization and line balancing projects to facilitate increase in capacity. With her team of industrial engineers, she drove numerous projects in Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of bottleneck processes to ramp up production cells, expand plant capacity, and transfer backend processes from a US plant. She also managed budget planning for factory capacity and headcount requirements. In her most recent appoint as Capacity Investment Planning Manager at STMicrolectronics central backend operations, she evaluated and planned manufacturing improvements and expansion projects for 6 worldwide plants to ensure that sufficient CAPEX and timely investment is maximized to fulfill the demand plan in the Groups.
Susan has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management from La Trobe University. She enjoys trying out new cuisine and restaurants with her family and friends.
administrative and project support team
Nicki Beyioku has been the finance manager at Aveus since 1999. She has an MBA in Finance from the University of St Thomas. Born in Nigeria, Nicki has lived for extended periods on three continents and travels extensively, so she considers herself a true citizen of the world. If finance weren’t her calling, she’d love to be a travel writer.
Molly Danielson is the office manager at Aveus, handles our secondary research and the administration for many of our diagnostic projects. Molly has been part of Aveus since 2000. Molly has a B.A. in psychology from St. Olaf College. She loves to spend as much time as she can with her two young sons, but when given the chance, also likes to go to movies and read. When she’s not juggling partner schedules, you might find her juggling beanbags—or any three items she can find. We all say if you need to know anything, ask Molly!
Katie Morrow joined Aveus in 2009 as the marketing / project assistant. Katie has a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing / Management from the College of St. Catherine. When she is not creating eye catching powerpoint decks and reports, Katie loves to read, bake and spend time with her family.
