Ades, Gary: -
Gary is President of G&L Consulting Group, LLC. He is a hands-on food professional with over 40 years of experience working in the technical, manufacturing, sales and marketing areas of the Food and Food Service Industry. He provides Food Safety, Quality Assurance, Crisis Planning and Strategic Planning assistance to his clients (Farm to Fork) both in the US and internationally.
Having been a consultant to numerous companies both in the US and overseas and having had the actual responsibility for Food Safety, Quality, Regulatory Compliance and R&D (including Product Development) in a wide range of companies, Gary has come to recognize and understand the challenges that Food Safety Professionals face in effectively performing their jobs. Many times, it involves understanding how to demonstrate and effectively communicate the value of what they do to others who are involved in the decisions regarding the allocation of resources whether they are money, people or departmental cooperation. It can often feel like convincing someone to buy an insurance policy that they do not think they need. He is passionate about sharing his findings and solutions with others to help them succeed and protect their consumers and customers and minimize the risks for their organizations. In order to address these issues, he has conducted numerous workshops and written articles on "Effective Risk Communication to Get Food Safety Resources".
He is also involved in working with academia to understand what would make their curriculums more effective in providing the tools that the Food Safety Professionals need to succeed, not the least of which is more business education.
Prior to his current position, he held senior level positions with Wal-Mart/Sam's Club, Foster Farms and Tasty Baking Company as well as with Arthur D. Little (ADL) and Technomic. He has also been a principal with Marketing Spectrum, a marketing research firm with a significant part of its client base being food and foodservice companies and Technical Food Information Spectrum (TFIS), a leading auditing and food safety consultancy.
Gary is a member of numerous organizations and serves or has served on advisory committees such as the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF), the Conference for Food Protection, Food Quality Magazine, Food Safety Magazine and the Food Safety Summit's Executive Educational Advisory Council. He has served as Secretariat for Safe Supply of Affordable Foods Everywhere (SSAFE) an international not for profit organization for six years.
He received his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree in Food Science from The Pennsylvania State University and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Food Science & Technology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Leith, Ken: -
Ken is CEO at (e)Gauge, Inc., founded in 2009, providing software services which enable organizations to fully implement strategic initiatives. The software is designed to allow companies to align their resources to ensure goals achievement. Ken focuses his work on quality, efficiency and systemic alignment. He is the main architect behind the products for (e)Gauge and Chair of the (e)Gauge Product Development Team, ensuring tools are build to simplify complex challenges by hearing the Voice of the Customer.
Since 2006, he has also served as a Managing Partner, for (e)Gauge's sister company, EDGES, Inc. His work with EDGES provides a foundation for client companies to realize substantial growth. In addition to effectively leading teams to accomplish business results, he places a strong focus on helping organizations to build metrics, ensuring a productive culture. He has comprehensive experience across his career in the detailed analysis and documentation necessary to create, measure and enhance efficiency. He is passionate about the integration of technology to support process in order to ensure efficiency. EDGES and (e)Gauge serve industries in logistics, food manufacturing, food handling and mass retail.
With over 30 years of experience as a leader in business management, customer service, purchasing, quality management and operations, Ken was previously in an executive level position over production for a Washington, DC Division of Brookfield Homes. His experience at Brookfield homes also included Strategic Planning, Process Efficiency and Purchasing and Operations. During his career he has lead the successful conversion of under performing teams into top producers. He started and led Brookfield's Vendor Quality Council, establishing quality standards with vendor partners to deliver quality homebuilding. In that capacity, he assisted vendor partners in adopting a culture of quality, safety and collaboration. His team architected and implemented a strategic plan to grow his Division from 400 homes per year to 800 homes per year, ensuring profitable growth while preserving quality.
His corporate career also included time with Ryland Homes and Regency Homes as Director of Customer Service. He has deep experience in media relations. Additionally, he has previously consulted for M/I Homes to build customer service, efficiency and quality.
He has completed research regarding generational differences in the workplace. He has authored white papers regarding process efficiency, technology integration, strategic planning and strategic collaboration. He has co-authored guest columns for the NW Arkansas Business Journal and Talk Business Arkansas. He and Patti speak often and are working on their next book collaboration, Think Big; Be Bigger, A Guide to Business Growth.
Leith, Patti: -
Since 2001, Patti has been CEO at EDGES, Inc., a services company to help organizations find their potential and exceed their growth goals by fully aligning their resources to achieve those goals. In order to grow, organizations must first develop a short and long-term plan for growth. They will need to build capacity and efficiency to support that growth. While both are being done, the people doing the work must grow, as well. EDGES' approach includes planning, process efficiency/technology integration, and people development. If an organization wants to grow, it will require a change of direction in their strategic initiatives. After 15 years of working with growth clients, she has found one thing to be profoundly true, without exception: All of the implications of the change in strategic initiatives must permeate the existing culture in order to take hold and become real. Together, with Ken, they have led a team to develop methods, tools and tracking to substantiate culture change.
She also serves as Managing Partner of (e)Gauge, Inc., where she serves on the product development committee. Her predominant focus within the software suite offered by (e)Gauge, Inc. are on the Talent Management modules, which enable organizations to align Job Descriptions with Performance Reviews and KPI's to hold people accountable for their part in a change.
Patti's corporate career spans 16 years with Walmart/Sam's Club, Food Lion Stores and Sheraton/ITT. She has held corporate leadership positions in Operations, Organizational Development and Human Resources, with 8 years in senior level roles.
At SAM's Club, she oversaw the People Development group for SAM's Club's nearly 70,000 employees and managers. While at SAM'S Club, her People Development team won the President's Award for Excellence in 1999. During that same year, her team was recognized by Northwest Arkansas (NOARK)/ SHRM as the most innovative in the field, while she was named SHRM's "Boss of the Year".
She led Human Resources for Food Lion's widespread employee across 1,000 stores. Prior to taking this role, she worked in Operations, Succession Planning and Organizational Development. She was a key member of the committee assembled to respond to ABC's Prime Time Live television expose in 1992, citing Food Lion's food safety practices. While Food Lion was able to prove the accusations as staged, the Organizational Development department, under her guidance, implemented state of the art practices in Food Safety.
With an M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (and Human Resources Management), and a minor in Statistics and Computer Science, she has authored and validated several skills assessment instruments, including the Inter Face Methods Learning eXcelerator(TM), to foster improved relational influence and build team collaboration and leadership skills. In 2012, she published "Judge Not, A Guide to Influence People Who Think Differently".
