Robert Handfield is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University and director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative.

Helen Muga, PhD, is founder of Pacific Water, a business that provides innovative water products and services and program director and assistant professor of engineering. The student-run company provides innovative water treatment products and services.

Two members of the MAGNET Incubation Center are featured: Lisa Oswald, owner of Kay Chemical that produces high-quality industrial hand cleaners, and Mike Dougherty, founder of SmartMulch that reimagines the lawn staple as lightweight, compress tiles.

Brandon Cornuke is VP of Startup Services at MAGNET. The Incubation Center he leads helps innovators turn manufactured product ideas into growing businesses through strategy development, business model design and lean innovation.

Carla Bailo, assistant vice president for Mobility Research and Business Development at The Ohio State University, helps the university accelerate sustainable mobility and transportation innovation. While integrating related research and education across Ohio State’s academic units, she also helps coordinate Ohio State’s involvement as the primary research partner for Smart Columbus, a $140 million program to transform Central Ohio into the nation’s premier transportation innovation region.

Carla is a leader in engineering and vehicle program management, with 35 years of experience in the automotive industry. Before joining Ohio State, she served as senior vice president of research and development for Nissan North America. She was responsible for vehicle engineering and development operations in Michigan, Arizona, Mexico and Brazil, managing a $500 million budget and 2,500 employees. In addition to her Ohio State activities, Carla is currently the 2016-2018 vice president of automotive for SAE International, a global association of more than 138,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries.

David Levine is co-founder and president of Wireless Environment

an innovative lighting company based in Mayfield Village, Ohio, that produces LEDs, power sources and controls under the Mr. Beams and SwitchSense brands. Exceeding $20 million in revenue in 2016, Wireless Environment produces off-grid, energy-efficient lighting with integrated power sources for light bulbs and fixtures. In 2008, they launched a line of wireless LED light fixtures under the Mr. Beams brand, a best seller on Amazon.com, with lighting bright enough to illuminate a closet, powered only by batteries so it could be installed anywhere, by anyone. ReadyBright, the world's first home portable power outage lighting system run solely on batteries, followed.

David has launched 21 consumer products and built a power tool company to $4 million in sales from start-up. A senior product manager at Black & Decker and DeWalt from 1995 until 1999, he launched their rotary tool business. In 2000, he co-founded Home Products and launched eleven Kitchen Drawer Power Tools, including the first miniature-powered screwdriver. David earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and holds a BA in History from Washington University.

Tom Lix, founder and CEO of Cleveland Whiskey, a company that uses a proprietary process to accelerate the aging of whiskey from 6-12 years to 24 hours. Cleveland Whiskey also creates a series of unique finishes with woods such as Apple Wood, Honey Locust Wood, and Hickory Wood not traditionally used for barrel production. Needless to say, the startup is pushing the boundaries of traditional whiskey; Cleveland Whiskey is well into the commercialization process with distribution agreements in most of Europe as well as distribution in Japan and China.

Tom directed the Center for Entrepreneurship and taught at Lake Erie College; he was also vice president of the Cleveland Lakefront Development Corporation before coming up with an idea to develop a patented technology that dramatically speeds up the process of aged whiskey. He earned a doctorate in marketing management at Boston University. And more importantly, he learned to make spirits during his Navy days.

Enjoy the second of a two-part series from Ohio State's Center for Operational Excellence’s Leading Through Excellence summit. Even though the event was sold out, you can benefit from four of the breakthrough leaders who presented on best practices and industry leading research. In this session, Eric Olsen, Director of Central Coast Lean, Professor and Chair of Industrial Technology and Packaging, California Polytechnic State University offers insights into "The Power of Lean Habits.” And Mark Reich, COO of Lean Enterprise Institute, focuses on "Strategy Deployment and Alignment through Hoshin.” For more information, go to http://mfgtomorrow.org.

Enjoy the first of a two-part series from Ohio State's Center for Operational Excellence’s Leading Through Excellence summit. Even though the event was sold out, you can benefit from four industry leaders offering best practices and the latest research. In this session, Derek Browning, VP of sales and marketing at LeanCor Supply Chain Group outlines “systems thinkers” who focus on business as a series of connected, customer value-driving processes; and Cary Dunston, CEO of American Woodmark, who shares his viewpoints on the benefits that come with leaders who focus on emotional Intelligence.

Ashley Thompson, co-founder and CEO of 50 Strong, a blow molding manufacturer in Lima, Ohio, that produces water bottles and bicycle accessories; these products are distributed to Walmart stores nationwide. 50 Strong was formed in 2012 when Ashley and her husband Brendan launched the business.

The company is a division of Precision Thermoplastic Components, a custom injection molder and extruder founded by Ashley’s father. The firm made nearly 3 million bottles.

Ashley started her career in corporate law. She took a few years off to start a family, then returned to head PTC’s human resources department before launching 50 Strong. Her husband, Brendan, was a mechanical engineer at PTK and served as vice president of sales before filling the same position at the new company.