Editorial Board and Authors of Focused Management Programs

George M. Hill

Creator of the Focused Management Leadership Strategy
Designer of the Focused Management Model

Entrepreneur

Founder of five companies, George Hill is a true entrepreneur. He has created George M. Hill & Associates, a management-consulting firm specializing in strategic planning and organizational survey and training programs for all management levels. Serving more than 100 mid-to-large sized companies, it is the heart of George’s career and is the foundation for his consulting work. Hill & Associates was a pioneer of productivity improvement programs utilizing sophisticated personnel selection and training techniques. The core of this firm continues as The Hill Group under the leadership of owner and CEO Chris W. Brussalis.

Career Guidance, an I/O psychology firm, was the first consulting company to use computer based job analysis and the first to conduct a multi-company test validation project in the United States. Renamed Applied Assessments, Inc. this organization continues under the leadership of Dan Averbeck, PhD, who is owner and President.

IPT, Inc., a sub-contract packaging and assembly company, was started as a laboratory to test George’s concepts of employee selection, training and motivation. He discovered his clients would not let him run their plants exactly the way George thought they should, so he started his own. IPT was twice Huffy Corporation’s vendor of the year. Before any one had heard of six sigma, IPT was assembling products at unheard of levels of accuracy. They produced one million labeling guns, each containing 26 parts, without a single labeler ever being retuned with a defect. More amazing, this was accomplished with part time labor, mostly college students! IPT was sold by George to pursue his true passion – the development of Focused Management, Inc.

Highland Farms was a real estate investment firm that purchased land in the Oxford Ohio area. The major holding was sold and is now a beautiful retirement community on the west side of Oxford.

Focused Management, Inc. is a direct result of George’s passion to use his knowledge and experience and share is with others. Focused Management has produced a training curriculum to implement and communicate the Focused Management Leadership Strategy to executives, managers, supervisors and hourly associates.

Management Consultant

George has assisted executives in improving their businesses for more than 50 years. He was afforded the unique opportunity of “getting inside” the minds of executives, managers and supervisors. What George found was that many senior management teams did not agree on how to manage their business. To many senior managers, the meaning of the term “management” was ambiguous. In fact, not one was able to visually depict on a whiteboard how the management team would manage their business.

It became clear to George throughout these interactions that a need existed for an improved management model. He created Focused Management to specifically fill this gap. With the help of many seasoned professionals, George succeeded in completing this daunting task by developing the present Focused Management Leadership Strategy.

Educator

George M. Hill has been authoring, training, communication and facilitating “Better management” for over five decades. As an adjunct professor at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, George taught an undergraduate course in industrial psychology for 10 years and a graduate level course in the Theory and Practice of Psychological Testing for 13 years. In the corporate arena, George has written and taught courses, including Human Relations, Challenge of Supervision, and Management Functions, to name a few.

As the originator of The Management Model, and the Focused Management Leadership Strategy, George has the unique ability to translate his experience and expertise into fundamental principles that can be applied in a variety of organizational settings. It is this ability that has propelled George to his most significant achievement to date – the development of the Focused Management Leadership Strategy workshops and supporting programs.

Point of View

“There is a better was to manage organizations. You don’t have to be a ‘born leader’ to successfully manage an organization or unit. There is a management model that defines how management elements fit together. There are practical methods that provide managers with workable leadership skills. These methods and skills can be taught and learned. Focused management, Inc was created to achieve this purpose.”

Ted C. Hill

Executive Director of Focused Management Inc.

Curriculum adviser and instructional designer for all Focused Management workshops and programs

Success

Ted has worked with senior business executives to build more responsive organizations by utilizing the Focused Management Model. He often works with business owners to develop exit strategies.

Ted is a specialist in designing instructional systems to transfer new technology to supervisory and hourly associates and a project team leader in promoting programs that maximize organizational responsiveness.

Having personally conducted seven test validations, he is considered an expert in the design of testing and selection systems that are applicable at all organization levels. His selection systems for manufacturing and technical personnel have been unusually effective. As a trainer of test administrators, he is also knowledgeable on the legal aspects of testing, selection and hiring.

He holds an MA degree in Organizational Communications from Miami University of Ohio and has 40 years of broad, diverse management, organization and manufacturing experience.

Experience

Worked with over 70 different organizations.

Designed over eighty technical training programs covering a wide range of manufacturing activities, including machine operation, assembly, and inspection. He is familiar with almost every manufacturing or fabrication process that uses metal, plastic, paper, wood, or ceramics.

Completed projects in over one hundred and twenty six manufacturing plants.

Over twenty years experience as consultant dealing with productivity issues.

Former Corporate Manager, Associate Technical Development, Rubbermaid, Inc during period when sales went from $600 million to $2 billion, ten straight years of record profits, stock moved from $4 to $45, and FORTUNE Magazine poll of corporate executives selected Rubbermaid as the most admired corporation in the United States.

Former President of George M. Hill & Associates, Inc, Fourteen years of experience designing training systems, conducting attitude surveys, teaching supervisory skills and implementing manufacturing productivity programs.

Former Squadron Commander – Basic Training, USAF in command of 60 Instructors, 1,600 troops, and 18 buildings operating 24/7.
Instructor of Communication Skills, Air University, USAF. Taught instructional skills to members of all U.S. Military services, fifteen allied nations and numerous Federal and State government agencies. Trained Intelligence briefing team for President of U.S. and Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Ted is the recipient of a Chairman’s Award for outstanding achievement at Rubbermaid, Inc. and a recipient of Military awards for outstanding performance while in the U.S.A.F.

Point of View

“All managers of organizations will be challenged to rapidly transfer advancing technologies and technological skills to members of their organizations. In this competitive world economy, only the most efficient organizations will survive and prosper.”

John M. Griffin

Success

To be able to “Dream the impossible dream” and then have it become reality is a rare event. John’s dream was to build an airplane. But, it proved not to be just another airplane or advancement in existing design. John was given the task as Director of Engineering for the B-2 Advanced Technology Bomber. It is popularly referred to in the press as the “Stealth Bomber.”

The B-2 is the most advanced aircraft in the world today, with performance capabilities previously thought to be impossible. Beyond its aeronautical capabilities and strategic military capabilities, it proved to make significant political contributions to ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The “impossible dream” turned into a “dream come true” – surrender of our enemy, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the removal of the threat of all out nuclear conflict.

John Griffin is a rare individual. His career is marked with transition of advanced technology into practical military systems. He has vision; he can direct aerospace industry teams, integrated products teams and organizational efforts on a massive scale; he is an architect of ideas and a builder of teams. He understands how to integrate many diverse and complex entities into a system and how to integrate diverse people, functions and industries.

Experience

John enjoyed 35 years as a civilian engineer on the Air Force team. As a member of the research and development community, he participated with industry and operational military commands in the design, development, production and operations of the F-16 and F-15 fighter aircraft and the B-2 Stealth Bomber. He was the chief engineer for all Air Force aircraft for three years. As the lead aeronautical planner of the US Air Force for the last five years, he produced and implemented a new innovative Air Force/industry-wide planning process to integrate the operator’s needs with technology to assure continuing technological superiority of our Armed Forces.

Besides numerous awards garnered for his efforts, he founded the Western Ohio Chapter of the Senior Executives Association in 1994 and served as president for three years. He is also the co-founder of the Defense Planning and Analysis Society, a national society for DOD planners. He served one year as the Dayton Chapter president and is on the National Board.

John is currently president of Griffin Consulting specializing in the aerospace industry.

John greatly enjoys tennis and trout fishing.

Point of View

“Technology is advancing in quantum leaps and represents the dominant mega-trend affecting American business today. If a business and its management expect to grow and succeed, they must accept the premise that technology will be the engine that drives change throughout the 21ast century. Wisely using technology and harnessing its potential will require an enlightened senior executive leader, a dedicated management group and an integrated enterprise team. Only a leader can forge the necessary partnership between the management and the organization that will be required to effectively integrate the new technologies into enterprise.”

Donald T. Fairburn

Success

Dr. Fairburn is the co-designer with George M. Hill of the Focused Management Construct and Focused Management Curriculum providing strategic reasoning, critical analysis and system logic. He is a specialist in making “connections” between the entities that make up a total system.

Dr. Fairburn holds a BS and MS degrees from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from Syracuse University.

Don has a rich career balanced between eleven years of military and civilian engineering assignments. He taught System Analysis for twenty-five years at Miami University of Ohio. In addition, he consulted with large and diverse corporations and organizations. He has several publications to his credit and was the Scholar in Residence at Miami University European Center, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

His talents range from the development of mathematical optimization models to the writing of poetry and playing the Great Highland Bagpipe.

Point of View

“Ability and integrity, the same two factors that move an individual from the ordinary to the special, can propel an organization into the top rank of performance. But to do this, we must have the stamina to perfect our talents and the will to protect our values. Ability and integrity; one without the other produces an unscrupulous expert or an ineffectual moralist. But when capability is restrained by ethics, we have progress that is worth the effort.

Thomas D. Finley

Success

Tom has been a leader of change. He understands how to lead the organizational change process and how to sponsor and manage teams. He can apply the concepts and facilitate the building of the managerial/organizational partnership.

Experience

He has extensive experience as an educational leader as a teacher and school principal. He spent twenty years in public education.

Tom was a Vice-President of Human Resources and Corporate Vice-President of Human Resource Development for Rubbermaid Corporation during the 1980’s and ‘90s when the management team was recognized as among the best in the country. He retired from Rubbermaid after 20 years of service.

Tom has practical leadership experience having served as CEO of a retail pharmacy chain of nine stores, $25 million in sales and 130 employees, during a time when retail pharmacies were under great pressure from national organizations such as Wal-Mart and CVS. The local chain successfully responded to changing market conditions and repositioned them in the market place.

As a Management Consultant he helps senior management implement their visions by better utilizing human intellect and as co-owner of Great Lakes Resource Center, Tom designs, performance management surveys, measurements, testing, job analysis, and Employee Retention Systems. Clients include Rubbermaid, Inc., Washington Steel, HADCO, GATX Logistics, Wooster City Schools, International Learning, and The University of Pittsburgh

Point of View

“Today’s executives senior management must learn how to define and communicate their business visions and missions in more advanced ways. They must provide the leadership and employ the competencies that respond to advancing technologies and workplace complexities. By defining an organizational change process that integrates a participative approach to management and an efficient utilization of teams, they can produce a continuous learning organization responsive to employee, customer, and organizational needs.”

Great Lakes Resource Center

Provides measurement based performance improvement programs such as 360-degree feedback surveys, performance appraisal systems, and custom opinion surveys.

www.greatlakesresourcecenter.com

Tel: 330-336-5451

Barbara Bradley Stonewater

Success

As Executive Director of a consortium of fourteen colleges and universities in Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky, Dr. Stonewater had the challenge of managing relationships among diverse and competitive institutions of higher learning. The nature and scope of these multiple relationships is substantial, complex, and challenging.

She holds a BA and MS from Purdue University and PhD in Higher Education Administration from Michigan State University. She has served in various capacities within the administrative ranks of higher education, as well as serving as a faulty member at two different institutions. In addition to her background in higher education, she has been in private practice as a consultant in Career and College Planning.

Dr. Stonewater has been the recipient of several awards covering teaching, research, and scholarship. Her broad range of abilities and skills interacting with large, diverse populations combined with her academic training and scholastic aptitudes has served as an excellent “proving ground” for co-authoring an executive workshop on the importance of managing relationships.

Point of View

“Both higher education and business organization leadership have a common challenge – managing relationships within and outside of their organization. Managing relationships successfully to achieve desired results involves a certain level of competencies in dealing with people, coupled with excellent communication abilities and caring on the part of all parties. The need for training in managing relationships between partners, people and functions remains great.”

Edmond L. Talbott
(1937 to 2004)
Success

Ed was a “working leader” who could “do it all.” He mastered structuring that work with consideration for those doing the work. He was a leader guided by the work ethic of “right is right” in making decisions.

If a business owner was looking for someone to change a loss operation into a profitable one, they would seek an Ed Talbott. He had a long history of successful accomplishment in “turn around” and “start-up” situations. He got the job done.

Ed understood the manager/supervisor relationship better that anyone we know. He had served in both capacities and had been a plant manager, general manager, division manager, vice president of operations and CEO over the past 40 years. He understood the manager and supervisor as leader in terms of responsibilities and accountabilities to the business and to the customer.

He traveled and worked extensively from coast to coast in the United States and northward into Canada. The scope of his work experience covered magnesium, aluminum, chemicals, construction project management, aircraft pallets and baggage containers, consulting, office furniture, umbrellas, gloves and rubber footwear manufacture and distribution.

Point of View

“Results are a function of the people who do the work, and if one wants to be successful one must provide the best managerial/supervisory leadership one can. Management and Supervision have a fiduciary responsibility to the ownership to provide the quality, cost, time use and productivity necessary for the business to grow and succeed. Tandem Training of Managers and their respective Supervisors simultaneously is the key to providing organizational leadership and teamwork.”