Robert B. Boehner

Strategy Expert and Trainer

Distinguished Lecturer

 

Robert Boehner, J. D. is a Distinguished Lecturer in Marketing Management and Strategy at the Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. 

Boehner worked for Xerox for 30 years, retiring in 1996. While at Xerox he held a variety of senior management positions including VP World Wide Marketing Strategy, VP Technology Strategy, and VP World Wide Channels Development.

He earned his JD from the School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999.  Boehner teaches graduate courses in Marketing, Competitive Strategy, Technology Management, Innovation, and New Product Commercialization.  He has consulted and trained extensively on innovation, strategic growth management, and marketing strategy.

Bob has recently been awarded an Outstanding Teaching Award by graduating Executive MBA students. He has been interiewed on many local television stations and quoted for his expertise in new product commercialization, strategic marketing and business development. He is enthusiastic about his subject matter and brings that energy into the class.

 

Dan Wiersma

Strategy Expert and Consultant

Web-DECIDE Partner

 

 

Dan Wiersma is Principal of MyGrayMatters, a consultancy providing executive-level expertise in improving client’s operational performance and customer satisfaction levels. Dan retired from Sony as a Senior Vice-President after  successful careers at Sony and Kodak where he ran multiple mission-critical, customer-facing organizations focused on diverse areas of strategy, operations, service, measurement systems, and quality and customer experience management. Wiersma builds on his experience – over 36 years holding a variety of executive, service, manufacturing, and technical positions.

Wiersma’s experiences include almost ten years at Sony Electronics. Under his leadership, Sony’s Consumer Service Platform registered unparalleled growth in customer loyalty and satisfaction as measured by Net Promoter Scores (NPS).Mr. Wiersma also led Sony’s Professional Service group focusing on business and professional customers. His major accomplishments included technical, product and personnel support of NBC’s Olympic broadcasts in Sydney, Salt Lake City, Turin and Athens as well as creating a partnership between Sony’s System Integration Company (SIC) and the Ascent Media Corporation.

Prior to joining Sony, Wiersma was an executive for almost 27 years at the Eastman Kodak Company including key roles in its Health Imaging and Electronics businesses.

Wiersma holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Toledo, specializing in semiconductor technology and a MS in electrical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology with a specialty in micro-electronics.

He resides in Tucson, Arizona and can be reached at 858-243-6358 or email at MyGrayMatters@q.com.

 

Greg VanLaeken

International Sales and Trainer

 Web-DECIDE International Partner

Greg Van Laeken is the business manager for RIT Global Delivery Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Rochester Institute of Technology (“RIT”) established in 2004 for the purpose of delivering RIT’s academic programs to various locations around the world. In this role Mr. Van Laeken works directly with senior management across all divisions of the university to provide leadership in the areas of: strategy and financial planning; daily operations; and risk management. In addition to these duties, Mr. Van Laeken has been tapped to oversee the university's short-term investment portfolio, as well as advising senior management on the university's debt portfolio and interest rate hedging strategies.

Mr. Van Laeken also serves RIT’s Saunders College of Business as an adjunct faculty instructor for the MBA program, specializing in the fields of international finance and derivative products.

 

 

 

 

Matthew Richter

Trainer and Program Design

Web-DECIDE Partner

Matthew Richter is the President of The Thiagi Group. He is a facilitator, game designer, instructional designer, and management consultant. Richter has consulted with organizations that include Redwood Trust, CenturyTel, EA, Microsoft, Carolina Power and Light, IGT, Cadence Design Systems, and Sony. He is an expert in the areas of management, leadership, and performance technology. He specializes in employee motivation. Richter mixes corporate, not-for-profit, academic, and independent experience, enabling him to adapt and best serve his clients.

Richter is the co-creator (with Scott Rigby of Immersyve, Inc. and Richard M. Ryan of the University of Rochester) of MAPS (Motivation, Assessment, and Performance System), an innovative performance management system that breaks all of the traditional paradoxes of management.

He is a sought-after public speaker and has delivered keynotes and conference presentations for such organizations as the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), American Society of Training and Development (ASTD), Training Magazine, the International Alliance for Learning (IAL), North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA ), Influent, and the National Society for Black Engineers. He was the 2006 ISPI National Conference Chair, and has been an encore presenter for the last five years for his presentation Creating a Motivating Environment.

Richter is a featured author in the 2001, 2002, and 2003 Training and Performance and/or Team and Organization Development Sourcebook, published by McGraw Hill. His most recent articles on learner motivation are published in the upcoming Pfeiffer book, the Trainers' Portable Mentor, due out in May 2008. He has also written several articles on leadership, motivation, instructional design, storytelling, and organizational development

Click here to learn more about The Thiagi Group

Victor Perotti, Ph.D.

Web Designer and Trainer

Associate Professor

 

Victor Perotti, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Management Information Systems (MIS), Saunders College of Business, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He teaches MIS and e-business courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Dr. Perotti has been honored for both his teaching and research. In March 2000, he was awarded the Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching. This award is available to faculty who have been at RIT less than seven years. In March 2005, he was awarded the Eisenhart Outstanding Teaching Award. The second Eisenhart award is given to outstanding teachers who have been at RIT seven years or more. Dr. Perotti and co-author Dr. Thomas Pray received the "Best Paper Award" at the 2000 ABSEL conference for their work, Visual Modeling.of Business Simulations.

Before joining the Saunders College of Business, Dr. Perotti was a research assistant at The Vision Lab at The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, he wrote several publications in the area of visual perception. Since that time, he has been doing research on a variety of MIS topics, centered on the theme of understanding business through complex adaptive systems. In this research, he has applied a variety of techniques including: computer graphics, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and information visualization. He has also published methodological papers on active learning techniques and technology-enhanced education.

Dr. Perotti earned bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science, as well as a master's degree and doctorate in cognitive psychology. All of these degrees were earned at The Ohio State University. In 1996-1997, Dr. Perotti served as a Visiting Professor at Ohio University in his hometown of Athens, Ohio.

Dr. Perotti has done multimedia consulting for Ion, San Rafael, CA, and technology consulting for the Gerig Law Firm, Athens, OH. He has also consulted on the development of RIT's Executive Program web sites.

 

 Dr. Pray is a former president and member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning (ABSEL), the international organization for the field. After winning multiple awards for Best Research Paper, he was named an ABSEL Fellow, the highest honor bestowed by that organization.  Having published more than 30 papers dealing with the use and design of simulations, in 2002 Dr. Pray was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA).

Dr. Pray began his career by co-authoring three business simulation books and corresponding software.  Recently, he has been active in the development of two new strategy-oriented simulations: Web-DECIDE: A Total Enterprise Business Simulation and INNOVATE: A Strategy Simulation with New Product Development Elements.

Dr. Pray is a world class trainer who knows how to motivate an audience and present sophisticated concepts to a mixed audience. He always receives the highest evaluations. At the university level, he has received two major awards for outstanding teaching: the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching, awarded by RIT, and earlier in his career the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, awarded by the State University of New York at Geneseo.

Dr. Pray received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Clarkson University in industrial engineering and industrial management, respectively, and received his doctorate in managerial economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Dr. Pray has modified his DECIDE business simulation to support RIT's management development efforts, working with the business college's Executive Programs. He has conducted DECIDE-based programs in cooperation with the following corporations and business units.

 

• Eastman Kodak Company
• Colorado Division (KCD) - Kodak
• Health Imaging  (HI) - Kodak
• Greater China and the Asian Pacific Regions for HI and Dynamic Imaging - Kodak
• CIGNA Corporation
• Harris RF Communications Division
• Cadence Design Systems
• Paxar Corporation
• Taconic Farms
• Constellation Brands
• Harris Corporation Melbourne
• Century Tel
• Redwood Trust
• Xerox Corporation