President, VGO Associates LLC. A Senior Fellow of NuTech Solutions, Inc. More than 25 years in industry, with primary specialization in optimization and data mining applications. Many successful, fielded optimization systems. Author/editor of two books on genetic algorithm optimization and more than 40 papers. Elected in the inaugural class of ten Senior Fellows by the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Ten years running his own genetic algorithm consulting company. Clients have included Air Liquide, BB&T, Chevron, Ford Motor Company, the Internal Revenue Service, Manugistics, Marks and Spencer, Motorola, NASA, Steelcase, United States Sugar, US West, and Wells Fargo.


President of P S Bender & Company, LLC. Expert in supply chain and logistics management worldwide. More than 30 years as a senior management consultant mostly with his own company and 8 years as a high-level executive with several major corporations. Focuses on the development and application of quantitative techniques and automation technology to the solution of complex management problems. Has developed original management concepts, methods and techniques, using large-scale optimization, and probabilistic and statistical analysis. Helps clients develop innovative strategies, turnaround problematic situations, and implement advanced concepts and techniques offering major strategic competitive advantages. Clients have included Campbell Soup, Compagnie de St. Gobain (France), Ford Motor Company, Foster's Group (Australia), Georgia-Pacific, General Electric, Grupo Gerdau (Brazil), IBM Corporation, International Paper, The Kellogg Company, The Mahaphant Group (Thailand), Nordstrom, Siemens (Germany), Sony (Japan), Tenneco, UPS, White-Martins/Praxair (Brazil), and Whirlpool.


Managing Director, Zero Delta Center for Enterprise Alignment. Sixteen years of experience across industry and management and technology consulting. Zero Delta has statistical modeling, econometric modeling, and optimization background and experience. Specializes in enterprise alignment, strategy formulation, and value optimization; cross-industry experience with deep energy background. Former CTO of a Fortune 500 company; held senior management positions at a 900+ person consultancy and several startups. Clients have included Amersham, Baxter, Duke Energy, Enron, Flowserve, MI-Swaco, and W.W. Grainger.


Associate Dean of the College of Engineering, Director of the Human Automation Integration Laboratory (HAIL) and a Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, San Jose State University. 20 years as a researcher in computational cognitive modeling, human performance analysis, human-system measurement methodologies, human-automation system integration and issues in control and display in large-scale dynamic systems. Previous 10 years Director and Program Manager NASA Ames Research Center on basic human performance and aeronautical systems engineering. Prior employment includes UC Berkely, Bolt Beranek and Newman, and Cal Tech. Prior clients include the European Commission, Stotler-Henke Inc., BAE Systems, CSSI Inc. and Micro Analysis and Design Inc. Grants sponsors include NASA, FAA, and DOD.


President, Industrial Science, LLC. Over twenty years of experience in corporate strategy and business simulation for both operational and financial analysis, across a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, and financial services. Industrial Science is a consultancy specializing in applying quantitative methods and simulation modeling to highly complex business problems. Special emphasis in agent-based simulation modeling, Monte Carlo simulation, System Dynamics, Game Theory, and Real Options. Prior to founding Industrial Science in 2002, George was a leader in the US National Strategy Practice of Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, based in Houston, Texas, USA. Clients include Ford Motor Company, Shell, Target, BP, Anadarko Petroleum, US Department of Defense, Amerada Hess, Sun Microsystems, US Navy, and Halliburton.


President, BlueTone Consulting Associates, Inc. Twenty years as a consultant specializing in large systems integration, project and program management and IT organizational development. Former Consulting Partner in the Utility / Energy vertical of Ernst & Young LLP. Clients have included several interstate gas pipeline companies and multinational energy concerns.


President, Full Extension LLC. Fifteen years as consultant, trainer, and speaker on management and leadership, including interest in chaotic processes and systems as they affect businesses. Previous background as producer and director for WGBH-TV, Boston (ZOOM, Evening at Pops). Ten years with the Tom Peters organization, named a Tom Peters Fellow. Clients have included Bank of America, Ernst & Young, Fidelity Investments, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Microsoft, Herman Miller, The MathWorks, and UBS.


Hunter Professor of Mechanical Design, Washington University in St. Louis. Seventeen years as an engineering faculty member teaching and conducting research in the general areas of mechanical design and product realization. Previously with the MIT department of mechanical engineering, where he served as associate director of the Computer-Aided Design Laboratory. As a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator (awarded by the NSF Division of Design, Manufacture and Industrial Innovation), he conducted research dealing with real world applications of evolutionary optimization. He has had significant research collaborations with Nissan, Ford, Gillette, and Hitachi. Currently, he is investigating new modes of computer-supported interactivity that will encourage innovation and entrepreneurism.


Partner, VGO Associates. Fifteen years experience in industry. Expert in genetic algorithm and other approaches to optimization. Has written programs for multiple real-world, fielded systems. Clients have included United States Sugar, Motorola, US West, Cisco, and Hershey.


President, Syntragy, LLC. Over thirty years experience in the Exploration and Production sector of the Oil and Gas Industry as a senior technology executive with Chevron, an executive consultant with IBM Global Services, and an independent consultant. Focus areas have included geophysical research, exploration operations, upstream data management, and technology management. Expertise includes strategy and planning, operational modeling, business process management, project valuation, portfolio decision-making, and technology implementation.
Syntragy is a consultancy specializing in the implementation of Upstream Petroleum Technology - including the strategy, planning, and change management that are a necessary part of this process. Focused on the improvement and sustainability of oil and gas portfolio and asset performance, they are able to help clients create competitive advantage by solving important operational problems.


Recent Chief Executive Officer of the IMS Global Learning Consortium since 2000. Also co-chair of the MERLOT Advisory Board and a member of the Advisory Board of the Global eLearning Consortium. He brings broad experience in cognitive science, organizing research and development projects and business development to leadership and strategic decision making roles. Previously, Ed was a Visiting Scientist with the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and worked as an independent consultant. He was Vice President of business development for BBN Systems and Technologies, as well as a director of projects in intelligent tutoring, knowledge representation and management, distributed collaboration, command and control and logistics planning. He was a Principal Research Scientist and founding member of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, where he did post-graduate work, taught undergraduate and graduate courses, and administered research laboratory facilities. He received a Leverhulme Fellowship at St. Andrews University and general management training at the MIT Sloan School. While at BBN, he led projects for a wide range of government and industrial clients.


Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Colorado State University. Twenty years of experience in optimization and machine learning. Expert in technology transfer to industry, with 4 awards from the Colorado Advanced Software Institute (CASI) for exemplary research and technology transfer. Chair of the Governing Board of the International Society for Genetic Algorithms for four years. Editor in Chief of the MIT Press journal Evolutionary Computation for five years. Elected in the inaugural class of ten Senior Fellows by the International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation. Has published more than 120 papers on Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Evolution Strategies, Tabu Search, Neural Networks, Decision Trees and Reinforcement Learning. Application experience includes resource and warehouse scheduling, manufacturing and jobshop scheduling, satellite and radar communications scheduling, plant optimization and control, atmospheric science and siesmic data interpretation, classification problems and autonomous control. Dr. Whitley has worked with Raytheon, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, IIT, Hewlett Packard, Coors, Texas Instruments, Amoco, TRW, Landmark Graphics, Advance Geophysical, RML Technologies and Noranda Corporation.