Coaches

Our team

Our coaches don’t have “off the shelf” solutions that you must adopt. We start by listening, observing, and assessing your situation, compared to your strategic objectives. Then, working alongside you, we collaborate on the path forward.

You will find our coaches to be fun, energetic, and engaging to work with your team.

Scott provides his nearly 40 years’ experience in the food and beverage industry with Del Monte and Nestle.

His leadership responsibilities include New Product Development and Commercialization, Supply Chain Optimization, Quality/Food Safety, Consumer Affairs, Regulatory/Government Affairs, Environmental Services, Corporate Engineering, Real Estate, Sustainability/Corporate Responsibility and Agricultural R&D. He supported the company’s compliance with the new FSMA regulations and achieved top ratings by all company operated production facilities under the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

Mark’s expertise and passion is in helping manufacturing teams accelerate improvement and build long term organizational…

capability through sensible implementation of Process Reliability, TPM, and High-Performance Work Systems. He has numerous experiences turning around under-performing operations, taking them from “worst to first.” His 38 years of manufacturing operations experience spans three Fortune 500 CPG companies including Procter & Gamble, Campbell Soup Company, and ConAgra Foods. Mark’s responsibilities included Sr. VP Supply Chain Operations, VP North American Manufacturing, General Management of multiple plants, HR Site Management, and Corporate Leadership of strategic initiatives.

James’ experience in the meat industry spans 43 years. His career began in operations and production, later advancing through…

maintenance, purchasing, worker safety, engineering, project engineering, and the environmental field. He has held several corporate level positions in the Beef and Pork industry during his tenure. He joined the corporate management team of Smithfield Foods in 2008. Other company experience includes John Morrell & Co. and Packerland Packing.

Darling has over 32 years of experience in multiple manufacturing industries including automotive, glass, machine tools, and food…

processing. Chris spent the first 16 years of his career in an engineering capacity as he designed and built automated production lines and facilities. Chris then spent the next 13 years at Beechnut Nutrition as a packaging engineer, engineering manager, and Director of Engineering, Maintenance, and Facilities. In this role, he was responsible for the engineering design and build of their new automated facility and their food manufacturing processes. Once operational Chris helped develop their maintenance and facility reliability programs and teams with a focus on OEE. Later in Chris’s career, he worked for Green Thumb Industries where he held multiple operations roles, first as General Manager of their largest manufacturing operation as well as having responsibilities for their National Reliability Program. Over time, Chris changed roles to Regional Director of Operations for Mid-Atlantic, and then a National role as Sr. Director of Quality and Scientific Technologies. Chris focused on safety, quality, production, cost, and new product development in these roles.

David Drum has over 35 years of experience in the food processing industry. He worked at the Kellogg Company for 16 years…

with global hygienic design responsibilities, plus major process engineering projects within the snacks network. In plant projects, he focused on raising OEE through capacity improvements, scrap reduction, and rate and yield improvements. Previous employers included Hill’s Pet Nutrition/Colgate-Palmolive, M&M/Mars, Ralston Purina, and Wolverine Proctor & Schwartz. He is well known for his expertise in sanitary equipment design and clean facility design. He is the primary author to OpX Hygienic Design, a collaboration between CPGs and OEMs to get the cleanest equipment at a competitive price.

Joyce Fassl is a well-known and respected journalist in the food and beverage manufacturing industry where she spent most of her…

career. In 2016, she joined PMMI Media Group launching ProFood World magazine, Joyce’s Voice weekly enewsletter, the Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards, the Manufacturing Innovation Awards, and the ProFood Live conference. Previously, she was Editor-in-Chief of Food Engineering magazine for nearly two decades. For a brief time, she was Content Director for the launch of packexpo.com in 2001 and 2002. In 2022, Joyce retired from PMMI Media Group/ProFood World and joined the staff of the FSO Institute specializing in corporate white papers, blogs, and more.

Roy Greengrass is a California licensed mechanical engineer with over 35 years of experience in manufacturing/food technology, energy and sustainability….

He has held numerous leadership roles including Director of Manufacturing, Corporate Operations and Plant Engineering Manager leading sustainability and engineering efforts. His expertise in food technology innovation includes fast growing alternative and new food categories for companies such as Impossible Foods, Leprino Foods, Del Monte Foods and Safeway Manufacturing.

He has received the PMMI line of the year award for his work on Milk Bone Dental Chews. Serving on the executive board of PMMI’s OPX Leadership Network, he was the primary author of OPX’s Nov 2023 “Journey to a Successful ESG program” work product. He is passionate about current environmental trends impacting CPG and food businesses. This includes technical expertise in packaging, recycling, energy, and automation. Most recently, he completed Harvard Business School’s program on Sustainable Business Strategy.

Mark has 48 years of experience in asset intensive, complex manufacturing companies. Applying his Reliability Professional certification,….

he was responsible for developing and leading the reliability excellence commitment at Land O’Lakes. Until his retirement from the company, he focused on engaging all stakeholders in the adoption and application of new processes that would drive substantial value to the bottom line. Prior to Land O’Lakes, Mark applied his engineering and performance improvement skills while working at Kraft Foods, Welch’s, Sun Chemicals and Rapistan Demag.

One of the key points in Mark’s methods is belief in the fact that Reliability is not solely a Maintenance responsibility and true reliability is driven by the entire organization. You can improve Maintenance all you want, but if Operations is not where they need to be, the gain will be minimal. Developing targeted training programs for all levels is a strong desire for Mark. He has authored several manuals including “Reliability Improvement Team Development” and “The Reliability Roadmap”.

Mark led the OpX Leadership Network’s OEE Solutions group which developed tools to put a dollar value to OEE improvements. Using the OEE Starter Tool provides a view of the “Size of the Prize” on projects by using 5 values readily available in any company. The OEE Benefit Tool gives an accurate picture of potential savings by making changes to several areas like specific
downtimes or changes in packaging material. He was also a strong participant in the Asset Reliability Solutions group.

Mike Hayes has over 30 years of experience in the food industry specializing in mergers & acquisitions, business integration,…

innovation/R&D, food safety, supply chain management, regulatory compliance and continuous improvement across numerous food categories. He is a founding member of one of the fastest growing companies in the food industry, Sovos Brands.

Prior to forming Sovos Brands, Mike worked for >20 years, through 16 Mergers & Acquisitions, leading technical teams at Heinz, Del Monte, Big Heart Pet and The J.M. Smucker Company. During this time, he worked extensively in both the food and pet food industry, building high performance teams globally.

Doug brings over 30 years of manufacturing experience in the food manufacturing and packaging industry. The breadth and depth of…

his experience includes Sara Lee Foods, The Wornick Co., Zwanenburg (Baxter) Food Group USA, and AmeriQual. As Global Vice President of Continuous Improvement of Baxter Food Group, he was responsible for implementing the Baxter Operating System (TPS) in Scotland, Australia, Canada, Poland, and the US

Richard brings over 40 years of food manufacturing expertise in his career at Honeyville Food Products, a primary supplier of baking…

ingredients and bulk grains to the food industry. He held several leadership positions including its Vice President Product Development and Chief Facilities Officer. His core strengths are in the development of simple to fully automated systems in milling, blending, line manufacturing, packaging, distribution, E-Commerce, and retail operations. He has served in a variety of capacities in the OpX Leadership Network as Vice-Chair of the Executive Council and a co-author of the Asset Reliability Roadmap.

As Managing Director of PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network for the past decade, Stephen has helped teams of Subject Matter Experts…

from both the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) communities collaborate on and produce more than twenty “By Industry, For Industry” process guidance documents to help improve their production operations and boost overall manufacturing excellence. Stephen spent thirteen years at the Food Marketing Institute, a leading international trade association representing the retail and wholesale supermarket industry, where, as vice president of education, he was collaboratively responsible for the continuing education of the more than 5 million associates across all functional areas and levels of management within the $800 billion retail food industry.

A Certified Baker, Paul has over 40 years of experience in baking and food manufacturing. Some of that experience includes…

UTZ Quality Foods as VP of Manufacturing and Earthgrains/Sara Lee Baking as Plant Manager and Director of Total Quality Systems Nationally, and General Manager for multiple Sky Chefs’ facilities.

Paul’s career is highlighted by his specialization in turnaround performance for each of those companies’ most challenging facilities. In one he readied the plant to optimize the sale to a major CPG. He accelerated the performance of 4 plants in 5 years, winning awards from its major customers. Having run the flagship bakery for this national company, he successfully integrated 22 different manufacturing locations into this public company. In the two snack food companies, Paul was accountable for delivering exponential growth in manufacturing reliability to meet major customer requirements.

Dan brings his over 25 years of CPG manufacturing experience including manufacturing leadership and site management…

positions in Procter & Gamble and Sugar Creek Foods. Dan was instrumental in leading the implementation of Lean Processes using an Engaged Workforce that provided results such as adding 21 production days back into the system. He began his CPG career with Procter & Gamble in 1990, providing wide exposure to and experience in P&G’s High-Performance Work System, Process Reliability, and TPM systems. As a member of the OpX Leadership Network Executive Council since its formation, Dan has been integral in best practice development, adoption, and advocacy.

Margaret is a highly experienced and credentialed HR leader with expertise in building high-performance organizations and cultures.

She has a strong track record of aligning business and HR strategies to achieve organizational goals. Margaret has held executive HR positions in several companies, where she developed and managed people strategies, transformed HR functions, and led organizational change and talent assessment processes. She has also developed company-wide performance management and compensation programs, improved recruitment processes, and developed DE&I strategies. Margaret also served as a Trustee and Vice Chair of the Committee on Trustees at Peirce College, and Board Chair for Crowded Castle Brewing Company, and as a management liaison to the Compensation Committee of the Board at both C&D Technologies and Sunoco Logistics.

Scott Spencer has over 25 years of experience in the food, beverage, and nutraceutical industry. His early career in technical…

engineering projects seamlessly transferred to implantation of multiple continuous improvement models and finally into executive leadership. At General Mills, Scott led the deployment of millions of dollars of capital improvements driving productivity, reliability, and efficiency in cereal manufacturing. At Snyder’s-Lance Scott leveraged both Engineering and TPM based continuous improvement programs to transform the snack manufacturer’s Supply Chain. While the VP of Engineering and Strategic Initiatives at The Nature’s Bounty Company, one of the largest nutraceutical manufacturers in the US, Scott drove the strategic optimization of the Supply Chain through plant consolidation, capital deployment and the launch of a company-wide high performance work system. In his most recent role as the President and COO of Island Abbey Foods, the makers of the honey-based Honibe® brand, Scott drove improvements across the company including performance management systems, multiple capacity expansions and commercial growth.

Tony has dedicated his career to the food/beverage industry working over 40 years as a technical leader with several world…

class organizations – Frito-Lay, Ocean Spray Cranberries, Diageo, Dannon, Tropicana and PepsiCo Beverages North America. His leadership focus was in manufacturing engineering, new product development and project management. He received special training, implemented projects and mentored others on using a P&G’s propriety ‘Early Management’ methodology as part of an overall TPM program to ensure projects successfully have vertical start-ups. He also provided leadership in PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network Solutions Group developing Secure Vendor Access and Total Cost of Ownership tools. As Director of Supply Chain Engineering at PCBN, he was responsible for capacity-related capital improvement projects at over 60 manufacturing sites. Tony is experienced in
evaluating, acquiring and launching new beverage brands and is currently supporting PMMI’s Emerging Brands Alliance as an Expert Advisor.

Our team

Scott Butler

Mark Cacciatore

James Couch

Chris Darling

David Drum

Joyce Fassl

Roy Greengrass

Mark Hanley, CMRP

Mike Hayes

Doug Herald

Rich Larsen

Stephen Perry Ph.D.

Paul Schaum

Dan Sileo

Margaret Sofio, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CMS

Scott Spencer

Tony Vandenoever

Contact us to find out more about our Coaches

(571) 332-4594

schlegel@fsoinstitute.com

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