| TRACK Session Descriptions & Presenters |
Important Note: Sessions ending with 1 or 2 are on Day One; Sessions ending with 3 or 4 are on Day Two.
To view presenter photo and brief bio, click on name(s) that appear below each session.
What are you doing today about where you want to be? Haven’t had the time to think about it? Now is the time! Come learn and apply tools that lean out traditional strategic planning steps. Explore high velocity processes to quickly develop or adjust your personal or organization’s growth plan. Walk away with purpose, direction and courage to grow, innovate & succeed.
Being part of a family business presents unique challenges... Examine characteristics that have skyrocketed manufacturing success for Family Business award winners across Montana and discover how they compare to national excellence standards in this workshop. Explore how they fit you and discuss issues threatening your trajectory and what has worked in your operation. Learn more about Family Business Program resources to propel your business.
Explore steps to building a succession plan for you and your business & short analysis of how to determine potential marketplace value. Whether you step down tomorrow or in 20 years, the process of creating a succession plan helps create systems and processes for successful transition in the future but also improves your bottom line today. Probe opportunities to create tax favorable exit strategies as well as financial protection.
Mike Tobiason, Anderson ZurmuehlenA-4 Take the Controls: Leveraging Change for Innovation & Growth
Are you leveraging the naturally occurring change within your organization to drive innovation & growth? Come explore strategies to elevate how your organization utilizes the ever-changing business environment and address gaps that jeopardize innovation & growth. Learn how to continuously identify market trends and organizational pressure points, identify and rank mission-critical priorities and how to develop organizational hunger & tolerance for change.
Colleen Rudio, Rudio Performance Management GroupMyth: Born a salesman. Truth: Sales is a skill you can develop to win. Build your confidence with universal laws of selling from an experienced sales executive. Learn to understand customer needs and how to align with customer buying process, get tips on active listening and strategies for turning “the objection” to opportunity, and how to leave the door open for the next visit.
David Minerath, Quest IntegrationPropel your business by learning about the dynamics of change and how you can more proactively influence changes needed for growth. Get a self-evaluation on where you stand to create pathways that minimize risk in a growth initiative and how to bring your people along. Explore pain points and how to keep change going in uncharted territory.
Leesa Kennedy Nopper, MMEC/MT Dept. of Commerce B2B & John Murdock, Entrepreneur
Probe how e-mail and web marketing tools are greatly expanding the ability to develop and nurture prospects, converting to customers faster than has been typical. While observing specific tools that reside in the Dynamics CRM world, you will get a real eye opener, learning how to market in an age dominated by digital media and social networks.
Doug Sire, InterDyn BMI
Hear how Montana Manufacturers are doing it! – Reaching customers & driving sales directly through the Internet and social media. Explore costs, staffing, and triggers to the next steps. Panelists from Red Oxx Mfg, Botanie Soaps, PFM Landtamer & Skinny Dip Candles.
How and when do you protect your valuable intellectual property (IP) assets? Explore the legal process of obtaining patents, trademarks and copyrights PLUS financial and business factors to consider before filing for protection. Illuminate how the recently passed American Invents Act affects filing of patent applications. Get tips to utilize your IP cost effectively.
Risk capital: what it is, who needs it, where it fits your strategy and how angel and venture capitalists can make the difference. Come learn sources of risk capital and what is needed to approach different resources. See how different sources of risk capital can be used to fund
first the development of new technology and then commercialization.
John Balsam, MT Technology Innovation Partnership
& Diane Smith, Entrepreneur, Northfork Strategies (in for Liz Marchi)
Not long ago, we all wanted to do “Quality” but weren’t sure what it meant or how to do it. We now know it is all about process, culture, leadership & people -- building a sustainable system. Guess what? The same goes for Innovation! Attend and get an overview of the Innovation Pipeline, a sustainable system with specific tools for each Innovation phase (Define, Discover, Develop, Deliver).
See how the National Innovation Marketplace can advance innovation.
Now more important than ever! -- speed in prototyping and a rapid pace for getting new ideas into production. Voyage through the successful product development process and conceptual design for improvement, marketing, and protecting your concept or innovation. Explore common industry terminology and tips for working within a modest budget. Check out hands-on prototype examples made at
light speed right here in Montana.
Lean Manufacturing in production alone will not propel your company to world class levels. Come boost understanding of Lean concepts as they apply to Production, Administration, and Engineering/ Product Design. Explore how support services that surround manufacturing can embrace Lean to truly reach the next level and how non-manufacturers can also benefit. Discuss ways to ignite implementation and probe tools for more success thru Lean Office, Lean Engineering, & Lean Leadership.
Explore how progressive companies take their Lean Manufacturing programs to the next level using techniques from Lean Accounting and Value Stream Management. Follow the evolution of West Paw Design over the last 12 years and see how they are growing the business and staying ahead of the competition by aligning the entire organization to their customer base. Discuss strategies for your business.
D-3 Ignite Initiatives with Lean Leadership
D-4 Propel Lean w/ Root Cause Analysis & Problem Solving
NOTE: THIS IS A SESSION CHANGE from brochure listing.
As an analytical tool and one that can help keep your Lean initiatives
going, Root Cause Analysis is an essential way to perform a comprehensive,
system-wide review of significant problems and the events and factors leading
to them. Using an eight step problem solving processes focused on an
application to safety incident investigations, you will see how this can
be successfully applied to other organizational problems that relating to
cost, quality and delivery. Learn
to identify Causal Factors
and get to Root Cause through the Five Why’s;
understand how to set up Corrective Actions and
Follow-Up.
Understand why Kaizen helps minimize the need for Root
Cause Analysis in the future.
Catalyze sales efforts with knowledge from Montana peers about what works and pitfalls to watch out for in this panel presentation on selling to large tier one and tier two firms and to government agencies. Learn about resources available for soft landing. Q&A. Panelists from PFM Landtamer; Creative Sales; Spika Welding & Mfg; Timberline Tool and Nomad Global Communications
Doug Bolender, MT Procurement Technical Assistance Center at MTCDC
Barry Nelson, Proxity-EC
Discuss changes in food safety standards in response to consumer and food business concerns about food safety from farm to table. Explore how to address these concerns and comply with your customer food safety demands. Learn more about GFSI and the Food Safety Modernization Act, HACCP planning and what 3rd party audit means. Get a certifying body auditor’s perspective with guest registrar NQA.
Leads to more profitable customers, markets and products. Explore several complimentary web-based supplier & innovation connectors intended to help small businesses engage with commercial supply chain and with technology and business opportunities: “The Supplier Connection”, “NIM – National Innovation Marketplace”, and for a more local twist the MT Manufacturing Information System (MMIS).
Forget the old model of getting injured employees healed to get back to work. Learn about surprising bottom line benefits and plusses of getting people back to work to get them healed. Explore the philosophy behind “work heals” and how to implement within your safety program. Get tips on reducing leave impact in the workplace and an overview of pertinent laws.
Peer Panelists Steve Bixby, MorTech; Mike Hetherington, Cleanwaste; BD Erickson, Satic, Inc., & Curt Pijanowski, the Milky Whey; with resource providers in the audience for Q&A
Get the latest on business financial assistance and programs available to fit your growth initiatives from loan options to grants. Hear from program specialists who can answer questions about options that best fit your goals and help you overcome challenges.
Panelists: Herb Kulow, MT Board of Investments; Amita Patel, SBDC at MTCDC; Matt Jones, USDA Rural Development; &
Karyl Tobel, MT Department of Commerce
