Speakers

Cristina Acevedo is a business and technology executive in antimicrobial material for the healthcare space. Her distinguished career spans more than two decades of product development in the wound care, animal health and medical textile fields.

As the director of Acteev MED, a business dedicated to a novel technology that uses natural zinc to protect medical devices from the growth of damaging bacteria and microbes, she is expanding that focus to include applications for compression and other therapies that could benefit from antimicrobial protection.

Dr. Acevedo holds a doctorate in organic chemistry from Purdue University and an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She brings decades of hands-on experience both in the lab and in the field and is an inventor on nine patents for healthcare devices. Prior to her role with Acteev MED, she held science and innovation roles at Milliken Healthcare Products and Milliken Chemical.

PACCS’ principal, Paul, is a prominent leader in the engineering industry as he is a Professional Engineer and a Certified Building Official. He has earned countless certifications and licenses to further his knowledge from residential and building codes to now include a remarkable understanding of fire codes. His more than fourteen years with ICBO and ICC as a staff Engineer/Technical Services Manager for ICBO and ICC Vice President of Architectural & Engineering Services has provided him a unique knowledge and expertise about the code that is more in depth than any other code consultant. Furthermore, his engineering style combined with his unequalled knowledge has gained him industry-wide recognition. He has taught countless seminars domestically and internationally, and he is also the recipient of CALBO's prestigious Instructor of the Year for 2010. 

Senay Yacob is an assistant professor who works at Federal Technical and Vocational training Institute as dean of textile and apparel fashion technology, Addis Aababa, Ethiopia. He received his PhD in Textile Chemistry and Dyeing & Finishing Engineering from Donghua University, Shanghai, China in 2021. In 2014, he received his Master of Science (M.Sc) degree in Textile Chemistry from Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Furthermore, he completed his Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Textile Engineering from Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia in 2007. His research work focused on the preparation and application of Pickering emulsions stabilized by nanochitin for applications in foods, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. As well as development of biobased functional product and bio mordant from agri waste. Moreover, Dr. Senay Yacob has rich experience in research and teaching at different higher institutes and industries.

Bastian Baesch studied mechanical engineering at University of Stuttgart. He worked as scientist in the field of Technology Integration into textile products and is now Head of Sensors an Actuators and Deputy Head of the Technology Center Smart Living Textiles at DITF.

Sara provides government consulting services and trade analysis to U.S. manufacturers and associations and works in government relations advocating on behalf of the domestic textile industry. Her work focuses on tracking pending trade initiatives and pressing for strong textile rules in U.S. free trade and preference agreements. Sara represents the United States Industrial Fabrics Institute (USIFI) and Narrow Fabrics Institute (NFI), two divisions of the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI), and the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) as well as serving on the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Textiles and Clothing (ITAC 13).

Nate advises on US trade remedies, export controls, economic sanctions, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and related areas of national security and international trade laws. Nate has successfully litigated more than 100 cases and appellate proceedings involving US antidumping and countervailing duty laws before the US Department of Commerce, US International Trade Commission, Court of International Trade, and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He also regularly helps clients successfully navigate the complex CFIUS process and national security issues involving investments and cross-border transactions. Nate has extensive experience with emerging technologies in the aerospace, defense, oil and gas, medical, transportation, semiconductor, consumer electronics and telecommunications industries.

He has helped hundreds of companies across various industries successfully resolve internal and government investigations and compliance issues involving these laws. Due to his extensive experience with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Nate has been appointed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs to serve on the US State Department’s Defense Trade Advisory Group for three consecutive terms, most recently for the 2020-2022 session. He also advises companies on compliance with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions and US export control laws.

Before entering private practice, Nate was an international trade specialist at the International Trade Administration of the Department of Commerce, where he worked on trade negotiations and trade agreement enforcement and compliance.

Gregg Burrows has over 20 years of successful selling experience. In 2014 he began selling shade sails wholesale in San Marcos, California. Gregg's focus is on experienced contractors and shade sail installers in the industry. He works to support his customers with top-notch customer service, technical aspects of shade sail design, installation and maintenance, ordering, and more.

Harry Centa, Jr. currently serves as a Senior Program Manager for PartnerShip LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NACS. He started with PartnerShip in 2005, and is responsible for the program management for over 80 national trade associations, including the IFAI Shipping Program. Harry oversees the planning, coordinating and execution of strategic sales and marketing plans, program monitoring, and growing member participation. Harry received a B.S. in Sports Sciences from Ohio University, and a M.Ed. in Sports Management from East Stroudsburg University. He also completed TIA’s Marketing Transportation Brokerage curriculum in 2008, and received a Management Development Certificate from Baldwin Wallace College in 2010. Prior to PartnerShip, Harry worked in professional sports in various sales, marketing, and management positions for over 10 years.

Rebecca is a materials scientist with a passion for renewable technology and green chemistry. At Claros Technologies, she develops textile chemistries with the goal to retain or improve function while limiting pollution and waste.

Kevin Croneigh is the Quality Manager at Situ Biosciences, where he oversees the development, implementation, and maintenance of quality management systems for ISO 17025 Laboratory Testing, Good Laboratory Practices, and ISO 17034 Certified Reference Material Production. He formerly worked at Medline Industries as a Material Science Engineer and Assistant Laboratory Manager. He gained extensive experience in developing and testing medical products, analyzing data to ensure their safety and efficacy, maintaining a quality system, and understanding the quality and regulatory requirements of products and their performance claims.

Mr. Ike Dosch’s expertise is in the three dimensional representation of accident reconstruction, specializing in the collection of 3D data via laser scanning, 3D scanning, and photogrammetry. He also works alongside experts to provide 3D analysis, quickly assisting in the comprehension of 3D data. He has years of experience providing animations, illustrations, and exhibits, skillfully translating technical drawings, motion data, graphs, and engineering expertise into easily digestible formats.

Robin DuBroy brings over 10 years of educational and training experience to Shazeebo. As Director of Operations at Shazeebo, she oversees many aspects of the business from selling and marketing, to training and installation. Her main focus is developing the Shazeebo brand and ensuring that all of our customers and contractors get a great product. In 2021 she launched the Shazeebo Dealer Program to further support and grow the industry.

Bob has spent his professional life in business and academia. He holds a doctoral degree in Psychology and area of expertise is in Leadership. He often likes to say the more he studies leadership the less he knows. He has worked in the area of family business succession planning and has worked with professional athletes transitioning out of sport and into the private sector.

Bob and his business partner, Kingshuk Mukherjee, began their business back in 2018. Basically, the textile industry is as old as time and while there are perceptually more exciting careers in technology and the like textiles are always needed by the broadest spectrum of life. It is a fun and interesting industry to be a part of, especially with the advancements being introduced into the textiles.

Frank Henderson began his career at Amoco Fabric and Textile Division of Amoco Chemical in Nashville, GA; after finishing Auburn University in Textile Engineering. Frank’s work at Amoco began with engineering with polypropylene fabric in fabric development.

In 1976 Frank returned to Henderson Sewing Machine Company, a family owned distributor of industrial sewing machines, parts, supplies and automatic systems for sewn product manufacturers.

Having just completed his 44th year at Henderson Sewing Machine Company, Frank has had the opportunity of travelling domestically to 42 states and internationally to more than 60 countries, visiting manufacturers and suppliers of more than 80 different product types of textile sewn products.

Frank speaks at industry events and conferences numerous times a year across the global textile industry.

As the Senior Technology Manager at Bolger & O’Hearn, Inc. Frank Keohan has led the development of high-performance fabric effects including repellents for the past ten years. He holds a BA-Chemistry from Holy Cross College, an MS-Chemistry from Virginia Tech, and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before his position at Bolger & O’Hearn, he served as a Materials Program Manager at 3D Systems developing novel polymers for 3D printing. Mr. Keohan has over 30 years of experience in polymer synthesis, applied chemistry, materials science, and textile finishing.

Carsten Linti is Head of Technology Center Biomedical Engineering at the German Institute for Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) since 2022. He studied biomedical and precision engineering at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.

His working group focuses on the research and development of implantable fibers and textiles, injection molded and fiber reinforced resorbable implants, additive manufacturing e.g. of porous drug release materials as well as Smart Textiles in Health Care Applications. The Biologic Testing Laboratory of the center performs biological evaluation of medical devices as well as microbiological tests such as biocontamination control, determination of bioburden and various tests for antibacterial effects.

Tammie Miller, Managing Director, has over 20 years of investment banking experience with an extensive background in healthcare, business process outsourcing, manufacturing, industrial services, and food ingredients. Prior to forming TKO Miller, Tammie was a Managing Director at Grace Matthews where she was responsible for managing transactions in a variety of industries. Tammie particularly enjoyed working with family-and-founder-owned businesses.

Tammie’s operating background developed when she acquired 8 companies to create Innovative Resource Group as part of Cobalt Corporation (Formerly Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin). She served as Senior Vice President of Operations at Innovative Resource Group (now APS Healthcare), where she oversaw 400 employees and was responsible for $50 million in revenues.

Tammie's prior investment banking experience includes positions at Alex. Brown & Sons, First National Bank of Chicago, Kidder Peabody, and Lehman Brothers.

Tammie is a Chartered Financial Analyst and holds a B.A., with High Honors, in Latin American Studies, as well as an M.B.A. with an emphasis in finance, both from The University of Chicago.

Professor Kingshuk (King) Mukherjee is the Chair of the Global Business Leadership Department at College of Saint Benedict + St. John’s University (CSB+SJU) at Collegeville, MN as well as the Gross Chair of Business in Liberal Arts. He has been with CSB+SJU since 2008. His major area of focus is Global Supply Chain Management along with Capstone Strategy courses. His areas of research include Global Supply Chain Management, Sourcing, Logistics, International Business, Strategy, and Experiential Learning.

Professor Mukherjee has connected students across the globe by linking CSB/SJU with business schools in Mumbai, Kolkata, Vietnam, and other parts of the world. He emphasizes hands-on experience, networking with companies, and experiential learning for his students and their future careers.

He attended St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata, India, where he received his undergraduate in Finance and Accounting. After his undergraduate, Mukherjee worked at a foreign bank in his home city of Kolkata. He proceeded to obtain his graduate at Coventry University in Coventry, England. As soon as he finished graduate school, he began teaching for an affiliated business school of De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. Afterward, he moved to L.A. where he worked in the textile industry. Then he moved to Central Minnesota where he started teaching again.

Over the years, Professor Mukherjee has received many awards/achievements. He has received the Leadership Award from MBAA for the Academy of International Business, Midwest Chapter. He was also the Advisor of the Year Award here at CSB/SJU in 2015. He was the intern chair of the Global Business Leadership department in 2019. He is an active member of the Central Minnesota Business Community and was recognized by Greater Saint Cloud Development Corporation. He is also a member of various boards, such as the Emerging Technology division of Advanced Textiles Association/ Industrial Fabric Association International, Thakur Institute of Management Studies & Research (in Mumbai, India), Bright Global Futures, MN, and others.

Outside of his teaching career, Mukherjee is a practitioner, scholar, and entrepreneur. He enjoys creating businesses and has created many corporations throughout his lifetime, including Prestige Impex, Global Impex USA, Guild Apparel Co., and Stryv Medical. He is the Founder and President of Global impex USA along with its two subsidiaries Gameday Merch and Stryv Medical.

King is the advisory board member of the Emerging Technology division of Advanced Textile Association previous known as IFAI

For Mukherjee, the best part of teaching is being able to share a legacy of business knowledge and help bring up the next generation in the business world.

If you want to learn more about Professor Mukherjee, check out:
- Podcast: "The Golden Age of Textiles" by the Advanced Textiles Association
- YouTube Video: "The State of Small Business" by Global Impex USA
- News Article: "Global Supply Chain Issues are Changing Business and Economics Classes in College" by the St. Cloud Times

Andrew Nasarczyk is the subject matter expert at GALE Pacific on both coated and knitted Technical Textiles. He has been involved in various production, technical, and development roles over his tenure, including a three-year assignment to establish GALE’s world-class knitting plant in Ningbo, China. Leveraging over 20 years of manufacturing experience, Mr. Nasarczyk is GALE’s Director of Research and Development and enjoys exploring new materials, technologies, and innovations to propel the company and broader industry into the future. Andrew sits on the Standards Committee for Australia’s Synthetic Shade Standard and has a Bachelor of Engineering in Polymers.

Toby began his career in 1998 as an inside sales professional at American Management Services – a turnaround management consulting firm specializing in profitability improvement for small and medium sized businesses. He later managed and trained the inside sales team of 40 people. In 2003, Toby founded Sale Away LLC - a sales training practice, where he helped numerous companies improve their sales processes and implemented predictable systems to enhance revenues. Toby sold Sale Away in 2007 when he went on to become Director of Sales at one of his clients, Advantec Computer Systems, leading a team that brought in the largest deals in company history.

Since 2014, Toby has worked as a sales trainer at Sandler Training, in both Manchester, NH and Portland ME. In October 2021 Toby became the president and owner of Sandler Training, in Orlando, FL. He offers broad expertise in training and consulting to business owners, sales leaders, and professionals on sales effectiveness revenue growth strategy.

Adam Penner is an Authorized Rhino Trainer, CNC technician, and consultant who works to help businesses of all sizes transform their processes.

After graduating from the Colorado School of Mines in 2017 with his degree in Engineering Physics, Adam went to work at Paul's Custom Canvas. In 2019 Adam was part of the team at PCC to receive an MFA Outstanding Achievement award. Afterward, Adam went to work for SDS Automation where he installed and repaired automation equipment all over the world.

Combining all this experience at AP Consulting, Adam takes digital fabrication to the next level. He specializes in taking manual processes and digitizing them, combining artistry and craftsmanship with modern manufacturing techniques so that businesses can work more efficiently and profitably.

Eric is the Director of Marketing at Spradling International. With over 20 years of experience in coated fabrics, he leads Spradling’s new product development, sustainability programs, and brand strategies. Eric lives in Medina, OH.

David Proctor is Technical Director at the International Antimicrobial Council, where he promotes the responsible use of microbial and odor control technologies through education and community building. He is also Adjunct Faculty in Chemistry and Biology at Mid Michigan College. Previously, David was Adjunct Faculty in Chemistry at Saginaw Valley State University, and an Associate of the Michigan Math and Science Centers Network where he directed a STEM education funding program. Before working in education, David was a Scientific Review Officer with CSRA Inc., a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation, and a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. David began his career as a visiting scientist at the University of Dundee after completing a PhD in chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University.

Shade Sails Canada is a family owned, proudly Canadian company designing, engineering and building Shade Structures for over 15 years. Byrdon graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce Degree. He travelled extensively in Europe, Asia & Down Under. In 2000, he joined with other members of the Roe family to form Shade Sails Canada. In 2007, Brydon migrated from Toronto to Revelstoke BC to expand Shade Sails in the West by opening the Western office. During the last decade, Brydon has gained extensive experience with tensioned fabric shade structures as well as Cyclone Umbrellas and out Tulip Umbrellas.

William F. Rooney has 48 years of experience in transportation management covering a broad range business functions. He is currently Vice President, Strategic Development for Kuehne + Nagel Inc. and has been with Kuehne + Nagel for 10 years. Prior to Kuehne + Nagel Mr. Rooney’s positions have included President of Hanjin Shipping America; Senior Vice President, Service Delivery for CMA-CGM; and Vice President, Ocean Services for GT Nexus, a logistics software provider. He also held a number of senior management positions with Sea-Land Service over a span of 25 years including 5 years in Europe. Mr. Rooney started his career doing economic research for the US Department of Transportation. Mr. Rooney’s board memberships have included: the Pacific Maritime Association, the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, The US Maritime Alliance, Consolidated Chassis Management, OCEMA, and the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Mr. Rooney received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Marist College in New York and a master’s degree in economics from Northeastern University in Boston.

Steve Rye has 20 years of experience in the coated fabrics industry, 5 years of yarn manufacturing experience and an extensive knowledge of textiles and textile backings for coated fabrics. Steve spent 3 years as an expatriate in Thailand as Director of Operations for OMNOVA (2012 – 2015). Additionally, Steve has been awarded 5 technology awards over the past 8 years for recognition in product innovation and new product commercialization.

Dr. Walker's areas of expertise include biomechanical analysis of the spine and lower extremities in various sport movements as well as textile comfort, moisture management, and heat stress mitigation with personal protective equipment. Specifically, she has studied gait, jumping, drop-landing, throwing, cutting, and stair ascent as they relate to sport performance and/or the development of injury with athletes and clinical populations with or without the use of athletic equipment.

Dr. Walker has investigated the effects of multiple rib protector garments from large sports equipment companies on the performance and spinal mobility of quarterbacks while completing an overhand football pass. Additionally, she has evaluated methodologies used to quantify fabric- and garment-level effects on heat stress and has collected and interpreted data with these measures for various protective and/or athletic garments. She has consulted for several sport technology and equipment companies in various phases of research and development of their products.

Her biomechanical research studies have included the use of motion capture, force plates, electromyography, and dynamometry technology to assess movements. Additionally, she has utilized several moisture management, dry heat transfer, and evaporative resistance measurement systems, including instrumented manikins and physiological wear trials to assess the effects of various textile configurations in government, military, and athletic applications.

As a former athlete, personal trainer, corrective exercise specialist, and performance enhancement specialist, Dr. Walker is able to use a multifaceted approach, in conjunction with her research expertise, to assist clients with evaluating questions related to evaluating human performance and product development.

Dr. Andre West is the Director of the Zeis Textiles Extension (ZTE) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Textile Apparel Technology and Management at the Wilson College of Textile at NC State University. His role as the Director of ZTE is to keep sustainable textiles at the forefront of future textiles, cultivating a more responsible ecosystem for the fashion industry. This is achieved by education and mobilizing students, industry, and consumers to be positive advocates while leveraging industry-related partnerships. He is involved in sustainable manufacturing techniques with Wholegarment knitting for zero waste. He has made numerous national and international presentations on how textile production should achieve a total circular economy.

Seonyoung Youn is a Ph.D. candidate in Fiber and Polymer Science at North Carolina State University. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design and a Master of Science in Textiles from Seoul National University, she brings a diverse perspective to her research. Seonyoung's exceptional academic achievements have been recognized by the prestigious 2021-2022 Provost Fellowship and her Ph.D. research funds from the North Carolina Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program (DMCSP) from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Seonyoung's research is focused on cutting-edge technologies in advanced textile digitization and virtual reality, with an emphasis on the development of health monitoring smart fabrics. Her innovative work is driven by a passion for improving people's quality of life through digital technology.