RG FREEMAN GROUP - Key Persons
Denis Esslinger has over 25 years' experience in Information Technology and Education, and enjoys working with organizations to pragmatically improve their service management. Denis brings a wealth of experience having achieved success in many areas including application development, operations, and IT strategy.
Denis excels at developing sound strategies and implementing people focused practices to improve the value of IT enabled services. And it's his ability to relate to people at all levels of an organization that have made him a highly sought-after educator and consultant. Denis has successfully led hundreds of classes with his focus on two-way learning - as the people in his class have vast amounts of knowledge to share. It's in relating to where they are in their journeys that creates a synergistic learning environment. Denis has worked with hundreds of private and public sector organizations and draws upon that experience in each of his engagements focusing on how teams can work together better to help achieve the organization's goals.
Job Titles:
- CTO and Principal Agile Trainer
Dr. Charles Suscheck specializes in software development methodologies and project management. He has over 25 years of professional experience in information technology, beginning his career as a software developer. As a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org, Chuck is one of a select few PSTs across the world who facilitates 9 of Scrum.org's 10 Professional Training and Certification Programs, including Professional Scrum Foundations (PSF), Professional Scrum Master I and II (PSM I and II), Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO), Professional Scrum Product Owner-Advanced (PSPO-A) , Professional Scrum Developer (PSD), Professional Scrum with Kanban (PSK), Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) and Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL-E).
Dr. Suscheck holds a Doctorate, Masters, and Bachelors in Computer Science. An educator at heart, he has over 30 published articles and has spoken nationally and internationally at various software management conferences.
Greta has extensive experience as an executive and consulting IT professional, both domestically and internationally. Her areas of experience include program management, project management, PMOs, agile/adaptive development, business analysis, customer relationship management, and business intelligence.
In addition to her PMP certification, she also holds program management (PgMP), business analysis (PMI-PBA), and agile (PMI-ACP, DASSM, CDAI) certifications from Project Management Institute (PMI).
Greta has taught project and program management, business analysis and agile foundation and certification courses worldwide for the last fifteen years. She has also published numerous articles and blogs on these topics, as well as a Linkedin Learning course "Foundations of Business Analysis".
She is a frequent presenter at various PMI and IIBA meetings and conferences at the local, regional, and global level. She has been recognized as a SME and reviewer of the Business Analysis Standard, Benefits Realization, Earned Value and Scheduling Practice Guides from PMI, and also as a reviewer of the 4 th edition of the Program Management Guide and contributor to the 7 th edition of the PMBOK guide.
James has more than 30 years of experience in business and IT, offering business consulting and project management services to Fortune 500 companies in the US, Europe, Africa, and China. His responsibilities have included establishing a corporate web presence for a Fortune 500 company, creating a successful organization-wide employee development plan, and developing the IT infrastructure for a start-up company in both project management and leadership roles. He is a contributing author of 4 books:
"Making Sense of Sustainability Project Management"
"140 Project Management Tips in 140 Words or Less"
"Program Management: A Life Cycle Approach"
"1,000 Questions and Answers for the PMP Exam"
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Microsoft Certified Trainer
Kelsey Apple has been a consultant and educator for over 25 years. Kelsey Apple has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer and an IBM/Lotus instructor since 1995. In that capacity, she helps organizations identify their training requirements, builds customized technical education plans, transfers knowledge through her teaching skills and writes courseware to meet the customer's requirements.
Laura Gray is a senior instructor at RG Freeman Group LLC with 20 years of experience in project management, education and training, and financial management. Her experience includes work within civil service, large corporations and universities, and small consultancies. She provides project management and instructional design consulting, development and delivery, and is an adjunct faculty with Northeastern University and senior Project Management instructor and consultant with RG Freeman Group LLC.
Corporately, Laura exercises Project Manager oversight on multiple training and budgeting classes for the federal government, including several Defense Department agencies. She manages development and delivery teams, including creating project and task schedules, staffing plans and budgets, and monitoring project performance to make adjustments where necessary. She is also currently an instructor with multiple universities, developing and teaching a full project management curriculum both online and in the classroom at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Laura has previously worked as a Financial Analyst, where she created and monitored project budget estimates for several private and public companies as part of their ongoing operations. She also has worked as a Resource Manager, helping project teams schedule appropriate personnel for required tasks (involving over 2,500 personnel). Laura has also trained employees to record and track costs and labor hours more effectively, including writing guidance and creating spreadsheet tools to help them do so.
Laura has a Masters in Education (distance learning specialty) and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. She also has certifications as a project management professional (PMP) and a classroom facilitator, and is a member of the Project Management Institute and the American Society of Training and Development.
Laura works closely with the other writers and instructors on the RGF Group team in providing the latest best practices for business analysis to help organizations improve their Enterprise business process skills and productivity. She has over 30 years of progressive IT experience, 20+ years in business analysis, 10+ years of IT project management, and over 10 years of BA management experience with the responsibility of overseeing BA resources, strategy, processes, standards, and tools. Her BA professional development contributions are:
Chair of BABOK® 3.0 (2010 - 2014)
Project manager IIBA® BABOK® version 2.0
Lead author/chair PMI BA Practice Guide 2015 and 2017 PMI BABOK Guide
Laura has an extensive background working with formal development methodologies, including Agile. She has BA experience working in all phases of the SDLC and over 10 years as a BA/PM instructor at both the corporate and collegiate levels. Laura also has extensive experience working with volunteer teams to advance the practice of business analysis across the industry and the world, building standards, practice guides, and developing training and webinars.
Job Titles:
- Senior BA and PM Instructor
In the course of Lou's career, he has traveled widely and worked in industries from banking to manufacturing, teaching, and management in culturally diverse settings. These have been in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Lou has more than 25 years of project management experience implementing and administering small to medium sized projects in several countries and industries as well as training and mentoring in project management and business analysis best practices. He has strong interpersonal and management skills and is comfortable working with culturally diverse staff. He blends a manager's perspective with project management skills and an understanding of technology to serve the customer's business processes needs.
Mark brings 25 years of experience leading projects and teams, improving business processes, and developing business and technical governance strategies. He possesses a powerful mix of interpersonal, organizational, and technical competencies that ensure-top quality results. Mark's areas of expertise include:
Governance solution design
Implementation and management of ITIL, CobiT, MOF, and ISO20000
Consulting and training
Executive, team, and client coaching and mentoring
Software testing and QA
Project portfolio demand management
Software selection and implementation
IT strategy and business alignment
Team leadership
He has delivered or managed multiple projects within the IT service management space to include ISO20000, ITIL, MOF and CobiT governance frameworks, and best practices. Project scopes included software selection/implementation, assessments, leadership augmentation, training, and strategic planning for clients. Mark augmented senior IT leadership at multiple companies in healthcare, high tech, and manufacturing in the areas of IT operations, program management, service desk, change/release management, and other applicable key processes.
Job Titles:
- Senior Project Advisor and Chief Business Analyst
Patrick is a senior project advisor and chief business analyst at RG Freeman Group LLC and shares consulting expertise on Enterprise service strategies for various public and private sector clients across the USA, Canada, and Europe.
Rick has been providing marketing, training and technology solutions for over 30 years.
Rick launched RG Freeman Group, LLC in 2006.
His vision has been to help organizations improve their profitability and overall organizational effectiveness, through professional development that bridges the gap between "Just-in time skill needs and life-long learning".
Prior to starting RGF Group, he had joined Boston University in 1992.
In 2001, he was one of the creators and Chief Business Development Officer at Boston University's Education Affiliate Network; originally known as "Training Track" As the Chief Business Development Officer of the Boston University enterprise, he developed a network of Affiliates in over 40 Metro regions.
Before starting Boston University's Partner Channel, he was the Director of the Training Consultant Group at the Boston University Corporate Education Center (BUCEC).
Russell is a licensed Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer. He has extensive history in leadership, product development, product ownership, coaching, analysis, and solution design.
Shika is a diversified consulting and training professional with in-depth expertise in delivering products and services using Agile and Lean approaches. She possesses a proven track record of meeting and exceeding goals focused on strategy execution, value delivery, and process improvement. In addition to her Agile expertise, Shika has managed complex technology projects in the financial services, telecommunications, and transportation industries.
Her expertise includes the areas of project portfolio management, business analysis, strategic planning and execution, building key metrics, and establishing IT governance processes to achieve successful business outcomes. As a seasoned professional with more than 20 years of experience, Shika focuses on the implementation of project and program management best practices, PMO setup, business analysis, requirements engineering, and stakeholder management.
Job Titles:
- Senior Agile and Business Analysis Instructor and Mentor
Vince has over 25 years of experience in the systems/business analysis field. His knowledge, compelling teaching style, and use of creative mentoring techniques are his trademark. Vince has presented at numerous conferences, seminars, webcasts, and trade shows, and has developed and rolled out corporate-wide programs for Agile/Scrum development for many companies. He was awarded the prestigious Pinnacle Award for Customer Satisfaction, an honor reserved for the top 2 percent of an elite group of consultants.
Vince has managed dozens of Agile projects as a ScrumMaster and helped numerous companies transition, adopt, and apply the principles and processes. He is an active member of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). He has enabled over 300 companies to apply state-of-the-art Requirements Management techniques to their projects.