Patrick Abrami maintains total responsibility for an operations consulting practice, AMS, which includes information systems, performance improvement, and FTE benchmarking. In his 36 years with AMS he has participated in and managed projects at over 400 clients in 30 states. He served in positions of staff associate, senior staff associate, manager for the Southeast Massachusetts region, and regional director of both the Northern New England and Atlantic regions, prior to his becoming a partner. Mr. Abrami has much “grassroots” knowledge of hospital operations at the departmental level, which clients find extremely useful. Prior to AMS, he served as technical specialist in the Office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Buffalo, as well as a part-time instructor in Operations Research in the Department of Industrial Engineering.

Sean Cunningham works for Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, California, where he leads a team of supply chain analysts and software developers responsible for delivering advanced analytics and supply chain management apps. He is a 1989 graduate of the UB ISE Department with a BS in Industrial Engineering. Sean has a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MA in Statistics, both from UC Berkeley. He is currently editor-in-chief for the IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. Sean lives on the San Francisco Peninsula with his wife and two athletic kids.

David Frankenfield has spent the last eleven years improving the effectiveness of the healthcare industry. While majoring in industrial engineering and minoring in mathematics at UB, David participated in The Center for Industrial Effectiveness (TCIE) Student Six Sigma program. While practicing with TCIE David worked with a local medical device manufacturer where he focused on implementing six sigma and lean manufacturing principles. After leaving UB in 2006, David pursed his Master’s degree in industrial engineering at Purdue University where he was a member of the Healthcare Technical Assistance Program (HTAP). During his tenure as a HTAP consultant, David had the opportunity to work with hospital facilities to implement industrial engineering fundamentals and explore the use of RFID technology for the purpose of optimizing patient flow.

In 2007 David joined the United Healthcare team as a Six Sigma Consultant. In 2009 David transitioned from the six sigma arena and is accredited for creating some United Healthcare’s technical competencies to include United Healthcare’s industrial engineering competency and the Advanced Research and Analytics team that he currently resides over. David has worked on solutions in healthcare administration back office optimization, customer and provider service optimization, provider network optimization, payment integrity, and big data analytics. Throughout this journey David has had the opportunity to work with several global partners on both business process outsourcing (BPO) as well as knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) while pursuing the leading edge of the industry. David’s research interests include process optimization, multisource data fusion, process mining, and predictive analytics. His belief is that a complex healthcare system requires complex engineered solutions. David’s focus on creating innovation internally for United Healthcare as well as across the industry exemplifies the mission of helping people live healthier lives.

David currently resides in Denver, Colorado, with his wife Jeany, who he met at UB, and his two sons Trenton and Davin. David is also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and enjoys coaching youth athletics.

Robert F. Hanley Jr.’s SAP expertise includes materials management and quality management; heavy integration experience to related modules; mentoring and training of new SAP consultants; substantial practical experience in supportable implementations, including documents and testing. Bob has applied SAP tools to industry in consumer products; engineer to order; electronics using discrete and repetitive manufacturing models. He has held SAP positions including Consultant I to Consultant IV; Platinum Consultant; Director of Platinum Consulting. Companies that Bob has worked for include, presently Treehouse Foods Inc., and before that, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company. Bob received his ’90 BS in Industrial Engineering from the University at Buffalo. 

Brian Kleiner is the Bogle Professor Fellow in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Kleiner is interested in the socio-technical systems issues associated with safety, health and performance, including a focus on function allocation in automation and collaborative and organizational aspects of engineering and design.

Steven E. Little is the Director of the Emerson Innovation Center – Human Centered Design in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he leads the Corporate Innovation Center chartered with building competency in Human Centered Design across Emerson Electric Company. Emerson is a $24B global corporation with major business groups in Process Management, Industrial Automation, Climate Technologies, Network Power and Commercial & Residential Solutions. Steve began his career at General Electric Aerospace, and then joined MAYA Design holding positions as Director, Human Sciences Group and Managing Director of Relationships where he worked with clients including Merrill Lynch and Dun & Bradstreet.  He was Vice President of Research at the architecture and engineering firm Astorino, and also Principal at CohesiveForce, LLC working with Johnson & Johnson as a client. He is a graduate of the UB ISE department with BS and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering.

Larry Megan is currently a Corporate Fellow and manages the Advanced Process Control and Operations Research R&D group for Praxair, a Fortune 300 company chemical company that provides industrial gas products to a wide variety of manufacturing operations. Larry was been with Praxair since 1993. His team is responsible for developing new technology supporting Praxair’s business and operations worldwide. The group is a longtime collaborator with the UB IE department in the areas of supply chain logistics, and more recently, business analytics and associated decision support. Larry received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1988 and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1993.

After graduating from engineering school in 1978, Daniel C. Oliverio enrolled in the MBA program at the University at Buffalo and then went on to law school at UB thereafter. Upon graduating from law school in 1982, Dan joined Buffalo’s oldest and largest law firm, Hodgson Russ LLP (then Hodgson Russ Andrews Woods & Goodyear). After several years, he joined the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney and worked as a federal prosecutor. Thereafter, Dan re-joined Hodgson Russ as a partner in its business litigation group where he has worked for over 15 years. His practice focuses on a number of substantive areas including regulatory and government compliance, white collar criminal defense, intellectual property (including patent infringement) and whistleblower cases under the False Claims Act and related statutes. Dan’s clients are primarily businesses, including a wide variety of technology companies. As a result, his technical training has proven invaluable during the course of his career. He is currently the in-coming Chairman of the Firm which now numbers over 220 lawyers in five cities Dan is also the chairman of the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority, the state-created entity responsible for overseeing the finances of Erie County. 

Michael Ulbrich is President of EWI’s New York Operations, a non-profit engineering and applied research and development company that works with manufacturers to develop, commercialize, and implement leading-edge manufacturing technologies. In this role, Michael is also responsible for leading Buffalo Manufacturing Works. Michael joined EWI following 10 years with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co in New York City and London, United Kingdom. He most recently served as the Vice President of J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Nordic Region. Prior to J.P. Morgan, Michael was at Walt Disney World & Co. in Orlando, Florida, working on operational planning, forecasting and productivity and process improvement projects. Michael received a BS in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University.

Ann M. Wegrzyn, Industrial Engineering BS ’85, MBA ’91, is Chief Information Officer at National Fuel Gas, an integrated energy company headquartered in Williamsville, New York. Ann has distinguished herself professionally in the energy sector while dedicating her volunteer time to her alma mater and the community-at-large with a focus on STEM education. 

Ann began her career at National Fuel as an industrial engineer, and over the following 30 years has held various positions in field construction, customer service and information technology. She currently has responsibility for information technology and cybersecurity, and for engineering services, which is a team that supports natural gas pipeline design and maintenance activities for the Utility, Midstream and Gas Pipeline segments of the company.

Ann is a proud supporter of the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In the past she served on the Dean’s Advisory Council and on the Board of Directors of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Alumni Association. Ann is currently a Board Member of the UB Alumni Association and serves on the Nominating Committee. She also feels privileged to be on the team that selects the recipients of the UB Alumni Association’s student scholarships.

Tom Wilde is a Principal in KPMG’s Advisory Practice and a member of KPMG’s National Advisory Leadership Team. He currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for KPMG’s Management Consulting practice. He is responsible for all operations for the $1B+ MC unit providing business and technology advisory services to leading commercial companies and government agencies. Tom also serves as the Government Advisory Line of Business Leader. He is responsible for the Advisory strategy, go to market approach, solutions portfolio management and services innovation for the federal, and state and local markets.

Tom has held a number of leadership positions with the firm including Federal Technology Leader, Manufacturing Retail & Distribution (MRD) Advisory Leader and Federal Civilian Account Advisory Leader. Prior to rejoining KPMG, Tom served in a number of leadership roles including the global CIO and global manufacturing industry business unit leader at BearingPoint.

He holds an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University at Buffalo.