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Work experience

Jul 2005Jul 2008

Finance Officer

TSA

ØLed Finance Department team with staff of 8, including CPA’s and Bookkeepers, oversaw financial management of up to 43 units of the Western Pennsylvania Division.

ØManaged a $33 million operating budget in addition to $100 million in assets (legacy/trust funds).

ØResponsible for innovation of new tools to better access business data, real-time.

ØCoached senior leadership on fiscal management.Served as Board Secretary.

Jul 2003Jul 2005

Finance Officer

TSA

ØPromoted to executive-level finance to fuel effective organization-wide resource management; as well as train and motivate unit managers.

ØLed Finance Department staff of 9 with financial oversight of 35 business units.

ØManaged operating budgets as much as $25 million.

ØCoached local Executive Directors in fiscal management.

ØRedesigned and modernized the statewide Good Neighbor Energy Fund (partnership with 20 utility companies), improving customer service and reducing response time 80% – improved information system for cash management.

ØInnovated new tools to better access business data, real-time.

ØImproved customer service and saved $75,000 a year in fraud – redesigned heavy-seasonal systems with greater financial controls, linking 15 sites and preventing duplication.

ØServed as Board Secretary.

Jun 1987Jul 2003

Executive Director

TSA

Ø  During tenure, successfully managed a total of 7 centers in 6 states, restoring or improving positive cash flow.Opened new centers to expand operations.

Ø  Directed staff of as many as 40 members with budgets of over a million dollars.

Ø  Increased income every year for all 16 years of tenure.Oversaw fundraising activities.

Ø  Aggressively developed/implemented new programs and systems which were adopted organization-wide as “best practices”.

Ø  Collaborated with other organizations; served as a member of the FEMA Board.

Ø  Managed State licensure of the Childcare Program – upgraded program and obtained State licensure, expanding from 1 center to 6 centers (5 in public schools).

Ø  Doubled income, reduced costs, and generated $100,000 in additional income after expenses by consolidating the efforts of 5 business units.

Ø  Eliminated debt in 4 locations. In one case, the debt was 40% of the annual budget.

Education

B.S.

Degree with distinction (3.9 avg.); member, Omicron-Psi Honor Society.

Skills

Board
I have been board secretary in two divisions, responsible for assembling agenda, assembling information needed to make decisions, and communicating decisions to stakeholders.  I have also implemented systems upgrades to bring live business data into the boardroom, so questions can be answered during a meeting instead of tabling agenda items to gather information.
Budgeting
I have been responsible for writing budgets for the 16 years as a local Executive Director, and then at State & Regional Headquarters coached other local execs on their budgets.  I also monitored them monthly and gave feedback to keep the local execs on target.
Systems / Process design
I thrive on finding broken internal business systems and making them work to improve customer service, improve business data for decision-makers, save money.  My designs have been implemented nationwide at my last employer, a global corp. with over 100,000 employees.
Lotus Notes
Skilled at application design, including integrating Lotus Notes with other applications.  Have used LN to create new busines systems to streamline processing and improve business data.
MS Office (including application programming)
Skilled at integrating MS Office with other applications, such as Accounting software and email applications (including non-Microsoft products).

CFO / VP Finance / Financial Officer

Creative leader and team builder with progressive experience, integrity and big-picture mentality.

Background in the most efficient organization in the U.S. (Peter Drucker)

Change agent, adept at reducing costs while improving efficiency increased revenues 200%, eliminated deficits and restored cash flow.

Superb interpersonal, problem-solving, organizational, negotiation and communication skills.

Published in international organizational journals.

While background is in non-profit, I am seeking opportunites with any organization (for-profit or non-) that can benefit from my creative, innovative focus.

What is TSA?

TSA is a global organization currently active in 113 countries and territories around the world.

It is a leading provider of Health Care, operating 364 hospitals, clinics and extended-care facilities, including the world’s largest AIDS hospital in Chikenkata, Zambia, which serves over 355,000 people each year.

It is a leading provider of Education, operating 2,280 schools and 6 colleges, serving nearly a half a million students.

It is a leading Responder to Natural Disasters, providing assistance to 1.1 million individuals in 268 disasters last year.

Its Substance Abuse programs provide recovery and job training to 105,000 persons a year.

TSA Child Care centers serve over 100,000 children every day.

TSA has been a leading recycler since the late 19th century and today recycles hundreds of tons every day.

TSA receives more charitable gifts than any other organization in the United States for the last 20 years in a row.It received the largest gift in U.S. history of $1.5 billion for the express purpose of building community centers in dozens of cities across the country.

Global shipments and distribution of food and other supplies require a logistics network rivaling major delivery carriers.

108,000 employees assist 17,000 officers to operate this vast network.

In the United States, TSA’s investment portfolio exceeds $5 billion.

TSA is better known by its legal name, “The Salvation Army”.

Interest

In my spare time, I write children's novels.  Symbala's River was published in 2006.

Areas of Expertise

¨Financial Management / Budget / Internal Auditing

¨Process / Systems Design & Improvement

¨A/P & A/R / Cash Management / Fundraising / Grants

¨Multi-Unit and International Operations / Startups

¨Policies & Procedures Development

¨Property Acquisition & Construction

¨Compliance / Sarbanes – Oxley

¨Board Relations & Development

¨Public Relations / Advertising

¨Training & Development / Coaching

¨Data Mining

¨Board Secretary

How my Innovations have Made the Difference

Here's a couple of examples of my innovative style:

Massachusetts Good Neighbor Energy Fund

TSA operates the Mass GNEF in conjunction with 20+ utility companies across the state of Massachusetts.  Companies solicit donations for the fund in their customer invoices, match the funds, and then TSA uses the money to help people struggling to pay their utility bills.

In 2003, I inherited management of this 20-year-old program, and it was operated using 3-part carbonless forms through the mail.  Time from application to payment: 3 weeks -- way too long for a customer with a shut-off notice!

I designed a system of electronic submission using existing company software (Lotus Notes), and cut the response time to 2 days, while at the same time providing better controls and better business data for the Board.

Management Reports

In 2005, I was transferred to Western PA, where 43 local managers were sporadically receiving poorly-formatted reports that were little practical use in helping them to manage their finances.  An employee was spending a day and a half once a month, when they could get to it, and managers constantly complained that the reports were too-little too-late to be of any use.

I created a system where with one click data was pulled from two different accounting packages (MS Navision Serenic and Shelby Systems), sorted and formatted in MS Excel, and then emailed a custom report to each local manager and HQ department head using the corporate email system (Lotus Notes).  Time for processing:  45 seconds.  Better data, easier to understand, saving employee time.

Both of these innovations saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars... at no cost, because the untapped potential of existing resources was used.

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