The average instructor rating mentioned (4.5+/5.0) is the average of all instructor-related ratings in the attendee evaluations from all courses taught by Doug since 2010 that were focused on TOGAF^® 9 training and certification preparation; rated items include depth of instructor knowledge, handling of questions, use of examples, and general learning facilitation. Attendees were from prominent companies across many industries (including financial, healthcare, telecommunications, media, IT solution / technology providers, and government), and from many backgrounds (including business analysts, business relationship managers, project/portfolio managers, solution sales reps, enterprise architects, solution architects, application / data / infrastructure architects, technical domain specialists, IT operations / service management, and systems / software engineering).

The instructor evaluation data mentioned above includes courses he delivered as a contracted instructor for other TOGAF^® training companies. The course materials and instructional approach used across all these courses was similar (as nearly all courses were derived from the same foundational training materials from The Open Group^® and were delivered using Doug’s instructional approach and lecture style), but were not 100% identical due to some variations in editing, sequencing, and exercises. Hide

“…Not only did [Doug] teach an appropriately distilled set of materials, but [he] also delivered it so well, giving us very relevant examples and rationale, and letting us know key areas and concepts to remember. I learned so much from [him] ☺ …”

“…Doug brilliantly complimented the TOGAF material with many real-world examples making the content real and tangible for each student. The course was delivered in a manner that each student could safely come out of their respective shells and participate, this led to a number of very informative in-class discussions…”

“…I had the opportunity to participate in a TOGAF course [taught] by Doug and can testify [to] his communication skills and the depth of his knowledge on this subject. It was a great experience…”

“…[Doug] was willing to customize the class content to the majority of students needs including extended discussion on actual application or shifts in schedule due to pop-up events during the class…”

From management colleagues at United Technologies (prior aerospace career):

“…As Director of Electronics Operations Engineering, Doug was an extremely bright and technical professional that had a strategic vision and tactical nuance to back that up with efficient execution. He has the ability to quickly sum up the business scenario and come up with solutions that work. He is a team leader and brings the best out of those that work with him. He is results oriented and expects the highest quality effort from the team…”

“…[Doug] demonstrated a remarkable ability to grasp the context of the problem or task at hand and to convey it to those around him in a manner which always enhanced their ability to succeed. Doug’s strengths of tenacity, technical knowledge, and team building (among others) enabled him to be a strong and effective leader in a brilliant career at Hamilton Sundstrand (an aerospace systems company of United Technologies)…”

“…Doug brings a unique problem solving ability to tackle tough business issues. His experience ranges from formulating a strategic vision, to effective selling of plans and actions, and delivering results to the bottom line…”

Experience rooted in envisioning and delivering transformational change: Doug’s industry experience with UTC is very important to his effectiveness as a TOGAF^® trainer. In his engineering and transformation leadership roles, his teams were faced with many challenging problems that spanned large portions of the enterprise, and crossed a number of boundaries among highly independent organizations – the organizational context took many forms, due to an evolving mix of centralized functions that supported and relied on decentralized units, each of which was narrowly focused on their unique products, systems, and markets. To respond to these challenges with appropriate changes, the teams needed to first understand the true business needs and motivations, especially those requiring cross-functional cooperation among “silos” that were operating in locally optimized ways (ways that were often sub-optimal for the broader enterprise). Those needs were then addressed by identifying appropriate best practices to exploit, creating or enhancing capabilities (considering process, tools/tech, and people) supported by streamlined integrations of previously siloed processes and technologies, and standardizing on shared foundational capabilities and “platform” approaches to the greatest practical extent (without sacrificing the flexibility needed for the legitimately unique needs of the organizations involved). Doug’s understanding of these architectural aspects, along with his experience in leading and coaching teams, managing change, selling ideas, and communicating with many types of professionals, greatly enhances his effectiveness as a TOGAF^® trainer (and underpins his interests in architecturally-driven business improvement). Equally important is the subject matter expertise Doug gained in the engineering disciplines, business management and transformation, quality/process improvement, and integrated product development.

Key roles and architectural initiatives: Over his 28 year career at UTC in business/technology transformation, executive management, project/program management, design engineering, and cross-functional team leadership, Doug was responsible for several major transformation programs with company-wide impact, integrated product development (IPD) processes, the design/development of aircraft electronics and software, and product test system development. Many initiatives that he led involved the integration, standardization, and alignment of engineering/early manufacturing processes, tools, and technologies across multiple business units, using flexible platform strategies and the principles of IPD.

The concepts of “platforms” as mentioned above, and the associated common “building block” elements, were applied to product test systems, product designs, and manufacturing processes and setups. This allowed shared, standardized hardware and software elements to be used across many diverse product lines while still providing the flexibility needed for the unique customer-driven requirements of individual products. The results of such initiatives were higher quality, lower development and manufacturing costs, faster cycle times/greater automation, shorter learning curves, and greater customer satisfaction in product development, test system development, early and full production manufacturing, and lifecycle support.

Formal positions held at United Technologies Corporation (aerospace systems unit): •
• Executive-level: Director of Electronics Ops Engineering (staff of 100+, 6 departments, multiple sites) (7 yrs)•
• Engineering Department Manager (3 positions: Test Eng’g, Software Eng’g, Ops Eng’g) (11 yrs)
• Group Engineer (technical and supervisory, HW and SW) (3 yrs)
• Electronics / Software Design Engineer (7 yrs)
• Periodic dedicated and part-time assignments as program manager for major product, software, or capability development programs

Key responsibilities and accomplishments:
• Improvement of engineering processes and integration across disciplines
• Improvement of new product introduction by better integrating design engineering with manufacturing
• Standardization and streamlining of manufacturing assembly/test setups for new designs, allowing early automation to replace more error-prone and costly manual processes
• Standardization of product and test system design elements across several decentralized engineering organizations
• Development of common test strategies and common automated test platforms for both manufacturing and engineering across multiple business units and many product families (with ability to support unique product characteristics with simplified adaptations via flexible platform interfaces)
• Development of aircraft control electronics and software, automated product test systems, and related process improvements, while in roles as design engineer, project/program manager, and functional discipline manager (these products supported dozens of major commercial and military aircraft development programs)

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