About Wayne

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Wayne was born and raised in small-town New England, which infused the proverbial Protestant disciplined work ethic, strong dose of common sense and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor into his personality. Before graduating from high school, he has already held jobs as a newspaper carrier, carnival barker and hospital kitchen clean-up worker, in addition to the usual landscaping and snow shoveling chores.

Following high school, Wayne attended and graduated from the Springfield Technical Institute with an Associate in Science degree in Machine and Tool Design, which lead to job-shop employment as a manufacturing tool designer, exposing him to many New England manufacturing firms and constant movement from one project to the next.

He was lucky enough to be selected for a 2-year stint in the US Army, one year of which was served in Vietnam. Following a rapid rise to sergeant and an honorable discharge, he matriculated in the University of Massachusetts and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Magna Cum Laude. During summer school breaks he found employment as a factory worker in a woodworking firm producing furniture and worked on a solar energy research grant from the National Science Foundation.

Upon graduation he started a journey that would eventually land him in the San Francisco Bay Area (nirvana, or close to it). The first stop was as project planner for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, PA. Being a quick study from his job shop days, he rapidly established himself as the project’s lead planner for handling of spent nuclear material. Also, during this period Wayne worked evenings to earn a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University.

With the nuclear industry waning in the afterglow of Three Mile Island, Wayne uncovered an opportunity with IBM in San Jose, CA, which manufactured disk-drives. He held roles within general management, engineering and project/program management. While with IBM he earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Santa Clara University, attended the Dale Carnegie program, graduated from IBM’s Manufacturing University, earned a certificate in program/project management from San Jose State University, and working with fellow project managers established the Silicon Valley chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI).

After chartering of the PMI-Silicon Valley chapter, Wayne was elected to the position of President-Elect in the chapter’s first election of officers. He continued on as a chapter officer (board of directors) for the next 9-years making many contributions to the chapter’s phenomenal success.

Upon IBM moving his job to Tucson, AZ, Wayne took a personal development sabbatical, which included a period of small-business entrepreneurialism.

He then returned to his project management roots by joining SoftReach Services, a boutique consulting company, leading client programs in telecommunication call centers and automotive race engine development. He thoroughly enjoyed his client visits to Honda/Acura because the engineering, metal cutting and assembly had in a sense brought his career back to where it started.

After many years, he has become well entrenched in the Silicon Valley, CA, with a large family, many friends and professional connections, and an appreciation for the moderate climate, although a New Englander in spirit. He fully enjoys life whether it involves meeting new people, connecting with difference cultures, visiting new scenic vistas, sampling diverse cuisines, debating points of view, or just spending time with family and friends. One of his most memorable cultural experiences was an hour-long conversation with a park groundskeeper in rural Spain.

Because of his life experiences, Wayne is a very hands-on person, whether physical labor, working with people or getting involved in activities. One of his strongest core characteristics is persistence in getting the job done.

Wayne spends his spare time reading in search of new ideas, smarter opinions and different perspectives, especially those that challenge long held beliefs, whether professional, personal, views of the future, perspectives of the past … as Oliver Wendell Holmes said,

“Man’s mind once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimension.”

He is also an aficionado of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comics, He appreciates Walt’s parody of the era in which he wrote and his much quoted underlying theme …

“We have met the enemy and he is us”.