- Sponsor
- The Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering
- Contact
- Julie Murphy
- jdg5@illinois.edu
- Views
- 28
- Originating Calendar
- ISE Seminar Calendar
- Upon graduating with an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from UIUC, I started my professional life with Cooper Industries the summer of 2003 in their two-year Operations Leadership Program. As Cooper was just launching their formal six-sigma program at the time, I immediately confirmed that my degrees had prepared me well for life in industry. After various manufacturing engineering and dedicated continuous improvement (Lean/Six Sigma) roles at Cooper, Waukesha Electric, and Komatsu, I transitioned to a career path in new product development (NPD) project management.
While driving a three-year, $25M+ "clean sheet" program for a new blasthole drill in the surface mining industry, I confirmed my long term interest in project management and obtained the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2013. I've maintained that certification since then, completing all required continuing education requirements in the process.
My career since then has remained fundamentally in program management, but with some interesting twists and turns. After a brief stint running a small contract manufacturing plant (long story), and three years with Kohler Co. in New Product Integration, I landed a role at CBRE Inc on their Google Data Center account. In that role, I was 100% dedicated to Google for three years, driving the ramp-up of data center infrastructure integrators. Currently, I'm running more traditional NPD programs for Briggs and Stratton, and have enjoyed being part of a significant turnaround in their business.
Personally, I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and have lived in Milwaukee for the last 20 years. I have two teenage daughters at home (plus my wife), so therefore, I like to get out for golf as much as their schedules allow. I've also played drums since an early age, and played gigs with a couple of bands at various campus landmarks back in the day. Otherwise, my claims to fame are that I was part of the original staff at Brother's in the fall of 2000, and I tended bar at Joe's Brewery during my grad school years.