Traci earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. She then entered the master's program in athletic coaching at The Ohio State University. She has coached basketball at the high school and collegiate levels. She was also a project manager for 17 years and directed over 100 consultants for an IT consulting firm.
Today Traci is a sought-after speaker and has been invited to speak at Global Congresses in North America, Asia, and Europe. She applies her background in science and coaching to bring an educational, entertaining, and truly unique perspective to thinking, valuing and change. In her session, Change is Impossible Unless you Change your Mind, she will talk to you about the breakthrough science of neuro-axiology. You'll learn more about her and neuro-axiology during this presentation as well as how to immediately apply your new knowledge to your career and your life.
Brooke Woodruff has over 12 years of applied experience in team building, project management, process management, organizational innovation, and operational sustainability. She has had the opportunity to work in varied environments and organizations including localization/translation, application development, video game development, and higher education.
In addition to management expertise, Brooke also has a significant background in technical development and programming. She is a certified Project Manager through the Project Management Institute and a certified Enterprise 2.0 Practitioner through the Association for Information and Image Management. Brooke's session entitled Stop Killing Trees-Start Managing Projects! will discuss project management compliance for small projects.
Prior to working in his current position, Jim was the Director of Information Technology in the College of Geosciences and served in numerous leadership positions throughout his 20-year naval career. Jim has successfully completed several small to large (multimillion dollar) TAMU and Department of Defense IT projects, including design and implementation of US Central Command’s Regional Intelligence Shared Services (CRISS) infrastructure in the Middle East, supporting Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and ENDURING FREEDOM. Jim holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Building Construction from Texas A&M University, a Master of Science Degree in Management from Troy State University, and a Master of Military Operational Art and Science Degree from the Air Command and Staff College, and is a graduate of the Joint Forces Staff College. Commander Rosser retired from the Navy in 2006 and began his new career at Texas A&M University that same year. In his session Project Portfolio Management, he will discuss a practical approach to portfolio management.
Tracy graduated from Texas A&M in 1996 with a degree in Accounting. She spent 10 years as a Financial Analyst in the Oil and Gas Industry in Houston before moving her family to College Station. She has been with TAMU Division of Finance as a Senior Financial Analyst for almost 6 years now. Also, she is the legislative liaison for the budget office and work closely with System, as well as Governmental Relations.
When the Division of Finance started the Continuous Improvement initiative in January 2008, she was trained as a Process Improvement facilitator and has worked with two teams within the division of finance and the first pilot team within the College of Vet Med It group. She has now become a member of the Division of Finance Continuous Improvement Team, as well as a trained process improvement facilitator.In her session, Application of Process Improvement in an IT Setting, she will discuss the continuious improvement project of the Division of Finance.
Jay Hoskins is the Director of PPM Solution Consulting at PowerSteering Software. He helps companies improve the business value of their portfolios, programs, and other business investments through efficient and effective business processes, change management, and system automation. Jay has been a portfolio management professional for over 10 years,and also has had experience in managing enterprise deployments of ERP systems, portfolio management, project management, and software development methodologies during his 25 year career.
He will be speaking in three sessions, The Maturity Myth: How to Focus PPM on Business Value, an executive session on improving business processes, Introduction to PowerSteering for Executives, describing the features of the tool that directly benefit executives, and The Texas A&M Approach to PPM, describing PowerSteering uses for project managers and teams.
As the university's Chief Information Officer, Dr. Cantrell is responsible for academic and administrative computing, computer networks, telecommunications, public television and radio, and the statewide data and videoconference network. Prior to assuming his current position in March 1999, he served in an interim role for one year.
A member of the Texas A&M faculty since 1982, Dr. Cantrell is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering (EE) and served as the Assistant Department Head responsible for the undergraduate programs in EE and Computer Engineering (EE track) from 1992 to 1998. Dr. Cantrell also served as the Speaker of the Faculty Senate from 1995 to 1996.
Dr. Cantrell received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, all in electrical engineering, from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1970, 1971 and 1981, respectively. From 1976 to 1981 he served on active military duty with the Computer Networking Support Branch in the Intelligence Division at the NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain complex.
Dr. Cantrell is a computer engineer with research in the general area of computer networking. Recent research areas include multimedia networking and videoconferencing over LANs and WANs with multilayer coding over multiple multicast groups. In his session, Implementing Project Management for Texas A&M, Dr. Cantrell will discuss project management requirements and resources for Texas A&M.