Theron Kee (T.K.) Email & Phone Number

Greater Atlanta Area

Georgia

Hickory Hill Solutions, LLC helps people achieve greater job performance – going beyond their own self-imposed limitations to deliver exceptional results. We listen to the pain points through needs analysis and then identify skill gaps, define specific competencies, outline learning paths, and provide customized training. We provide needs analysis and industrial automation training on the Siemens S7-300/400 Classic and S7-1200/1500 Portal software.

Norcross, Ga

• Built a strong, motivated & cohesive team of up to 18 direct reports, 11 indirect reports, and 9 contractors to develop training materials and deliver courses for onsite and offsite international class locations; specified learning paths to facilitate cross-training to maximize efficiency.• Scheduled up to 750 standard, custom, solution partner, and distributor classes per year; along with roughly 470 associated equipment sets and accompanying classroom curricula; maximizing efficiency, satisfying customer requests, and meeting revenue and profitability goals.• Demonstrated leadership skills promoting and establishing cross-functional interactions with business units and outside vendors. • Assisted Operations in developing/deploying a semi-automated class and equipment scheduling tool.• Interfaced with Operations and PLM sectors to specify internal software tool development for identifying projects, determining course offerings, updating class materials, and forecasting instructor/equipment availability.• Developed business plans for new curricula, including developing partnerships, determining mainstream market viability, creating price points, and determining ROI impact.• Contributed to making Training Department profitable for 12 of 14 years; achieved 12% annual P&L profit and doubled revenue over the last 6 years. Managed $500K CapEx and $500K OpEx budgets.• Secured training agreements with internal and external companies to move into new markets and spearheaded numerous development and certification projects to synchronize with product launches, resulting in 11 new courses added to the portfolio of offerings and an additional 150+ cash flow-generating classes delivered per annum.• Served as Captain of Building Emergency Response Team and Building Safety Liaison; conducted monthly building safety inspections, quarterly fire and tornado drills, and Workplace Violence and Active Shooter classes.

Norcross, Ga

• Managed a national team of up to 18 instructors, 6 company, and 14 partner training delivery locations.• Coordinated the IACET accreditation process; became an IACET Provider of CEU credits.• Coordinated with shipping to improve equipment database for equipment tracking.• Defined specifications for web-accessible time tracking tools to accurately record time against projects for development planning, time, costs, and pricing.• Created annual budgets for the training delivery segment of the Training Department with quarterly reviews to determine purchase postponements or accelerations to facilitate cash flow.• Applied creative problem solving to satisfy unique customer requirements through resourceful and rational management.• Monitored weekly course critiques for customer satisfaction; created instructor feedback reporting procedures to address potential problems as they arose in the classroom.• Created web-based curricula as an alternative training delivery tool; evaluated the viability of smartphone applications as an additional method of delivery leading to the development of user apps for class registration and using iPads for course materials in class; generated cost savings of $75-80K per year.• Saved $50K per course by collaborating with product groups to design simulators and re-purpose Sales demo equipment for use in future classes.

Norcross, Ga

• Managed a national team of 12 instructors in 3 locations.• Introduced and developed training for emerging automation and drives products; coordinated product launches with Market Managers using needs assessment, time and cost estimations, and ROI.• Spearheaded the MICROMASTER and G-Series Drive Certification programs; worked with product managers to identify goals, needs, and content; performed gap analysis to identify deficiencies, training requirements, and assessment methods for distributors and integrators; certified 40+ people during a 2-year period. • Instituted the SITRAIN Instructor Certification program; qualified U.S. instructors for the SITRAIN World-Trainer Certification database by establishing stringent standards based on the Siemens Germany core criteria; certified all SITRAIN instructors in technical competencies, biennially.• Tracked scheduling, customer contacts, price quotes, logistics, and customer satisfaction surveys in a Learning Management System (LMS).• Served as Department IT Administrator; installed hardware and software on 150+ Dell and Siemens computers.• Certified Six Sigma Green Belt.• Improved employee satisfaction rating by 50%.

Norcross, Ga

• Managed a local team of 8 instructors/developers and 1 Technical Writer.• Established partnership with SITRAIN Headquarters in Germany on course development using Dr. Robert Mager’s principles and methodologies for instructional design and delivery; became the only training division to co-develop courses for global use.• Secured agreement to develop materials in modules, stored in XML format, for easy course customization and reusability. • Directed creation and updates for 150+ course titles; defined style guide parameters; established document control, software requirements, and computer image libraries.• Contributed to making the Training Department profitable for the first time in over 10 years.• Implemented certification procedures to include written and hands-on proficiency tests.

Alpharetta/Norcross, Ga

• Managed a local team of 5 instructors for Drives and Factory Automation; delivered customized training to the aerospace, steel, energy, and automotive industries.• Lead a curriculum project team to develop and deliver training to a Nuclear Power Plant, using INPO standards.• Edited courseware and delivered classes, as needed. .

Alpharetta, Georgia

• Redesigned Sales Training materials for automation and drives courses.• Worked as Team Leader to produce documentation for the HR Broadband Job Restructuring Initiative.• Collaborated with SMEs; created training materials and labs for new product courses.• Taught S7 and S5 PLC courses (Level I/II Programming & Maintenance), Advanced S7 Programming Languages, Sales Training for industrial software, and WinCC SCADA courses, locally and abroad.• Provided hardware specifications for networking computers with PLCs. Recommended software applications for upcoming projects.• Assisted Course/Instructor scheduling for the Training Department.• Installed hardware, set up classroom LAN using Windows 2000 Server, and established clients.

Minneapolis, Mn

♦ Traveled extensively overseas for the purpose of gathering and analyzing performance information from international market companies to improve documentation, training, machine and preventive maintenance program to reduce machine-operating costs.♦ Organized and facilitated annual International Technology Conferences gathering top 3 global issues to resolve. Engineered solutions as required.♦ Taught control systems, GE-Fanuc PLC programming, computer software usage, and statistical generation for data acquisition. ♦ Reviewed and edited installation, maintenance, and operator manuals for accuracy and ease of customer use.♦ Created and updated 40,000-hour life cycle Tetra Pak Maintenance System (TPMS) for multiple machine types.♦ Programmed Data Acquisition equipment to gather performance and stop causes for analysis.♦ Defined scope for performance, production, and efficiency statistics database.

Lund Sweden & Minneapolis, Minnesota

♦ Designed controls for servo-driven thermoforming/liquid-food filling machine prototype♦ Programmed and debugged filling machinery. ♦ Generated bills-of-material drawings, and electrical manuals.

Carrollton, Tx

♦ Developed and conducted courses on Allen-Bradley PLCs, GE drives, registration controls, inductive heating, computer software, and mechanical maintenance using “Train-the-Trainer” and “Instructional Design” techniques and assisted with CBT development.♦ Recommended hardware and software for data acquisition project to import into a cross-platform database for statistical analysis. Aided software consultants on database design.♦ Assisted with the creation of ISO-9000 standards for training in the USA.♦ Performed Beta testing on various software packages.

Electronic Engineering Technology, 3.68

Electronics Engineering

General Studies