Vote Online for Your APMP-NCA 2009 Board of Directors

Who May Vote—Who May Run for Office

Only APMP members in good standing may vote for the Slate of Officers and Directors at Large. Write-in nominations are accepted. Nominations for one of the four Officer positions must be for someone who has served at least a year as an elected person on a previous board. All other write-in nominations must be for persons who are current members in good standing with APMP.

When: Vote anytime between now and 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, January 9, 2009.
Vote Now at http://www.mediausa.net/apmp-nca/vote_today/ballot.html

APMP-NCA Slate of Directors for 2009

To streamline and expedite the elections process, the board of directors selects a slate of officers and directors and presents them to the APMP-NCA membership for election. According to our by-laws, the new board serves from the February board meeting for a period of one year. The following directors have been nominated for positions on the NCA Board.

>>> Click on each name below to see a brief biography.

Slated Officers

Beth Wingate — President
Brenda Crist — Vice President
Jan Cook Butorac — Secretary
Eric Schwarz — Treasurer

Slated Directors at Large

John Bender — Networking Chair
Olessia Smotrova-Taylor — Newsletter Chair
Rick Patterson — Chapter Ombudsman
Bob Lohfeld — Program Chair
Chris Simmons — Membership Chair
Jay Schiavo — Marketing & Web Site Chair
Marcia Horting — Corporate Partner Chair
Bob Miller — Event Logistics Chair
Lou Robinson — Director at Large

Vote Now at http://www.mediausa.net/apmp-nca/vote_today/ballot.html

Officers and Directors at Large

Officers fulfill the specific responsibilities defined in the charter of our organization, and are nominated and elected each year. Directors at Large belong to the Board of Directors, and may provide support and assistance to the organization through volunteer activities. The activities include responsibilities like producing the Newsletter, managing the Web site, managing membership tasks and coordinating meetings and special events such as our bi-monthly Roundtables.

Officers

President: Beth Wingate, AM.APMP served as the NCA Chapter’s President in 2008 and as Newsletter Chair and editor/publisher of NCA’s newsletter, the Executive Summary in 2006 and 2007. She has over 21 years’ experience managing, writing, illustrating, and producing hundreds of winning proposals to U.S. Government, Fortune 500 companies, and multinational corporations. Beth is Managing Director, Proposal Development and Corporate Communications for Lohfeld Consulting Group, Inc. and formerly Proposal Center Director for Management Systems Designers, Inc. (MSD, Inc.)/Lockheed Martin. Beth presented at APMP’s International Conference in 2007 and at APMP-NCA’s Proposal Basics Boot Camp in 2008. She is a contributing author to the APMP Journal. Beth has taught a number of proposal development classes for Lohfeld Consulting Group and MSD, Inc. and currently helps companies develop their own proposal development methodologies using industry best practices. She earned her BA from The College of William and Mary. Contact Beth at beth@apmpnca.org.

Vice President: Brenda Crist has more than 28 years of experience in the Federal IT market, serving the Lohfeld Consulting Group, Harris Corporation, and OAO (now Lockheed Martin). She spent the first 20 years of her career as group manager and project manager. She led her teams to win recompetes of existing business while capturing new business at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and Interior. As a capture and proposal manager at the Lohfeld Consulting Group, she conducts research, helps clients develop technical and management solutions, and manages and coordinates proposal efforts. Brenda has a BA and MPA from American University, is ITIL-certified, and is a former IAC Partner – Class of 2000. She has been an active member of APMP-NCA since 2003, serving as Professional Day Chair of Publicity, Speakers Program, and Chairperson for the 2006, 2007, and 2008 events, respectively. Contact Brenda at brenda@apmpnca.org.
Secretary: Jan Cook Butorac has 25+ years’ experience in the proposal field. This will be Jan’s fourth year serving on the Board. Jan is an independent proposal consultant and president of Proposal Management, LLC, providing proposal writing and management consulting from her Haymarket office. She previously worked for Northrop Grumman IT and other federal contractors around the Beltway. Jan received a Master’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland. Contact Jan at jan@apmpnca.org.

Treasurer: Eric Schwarz has more than 16 years’ experience as an analyst, program manager, and business developer, with exposure to all aspects of proposal development and management. Since 2004, he has been working as the capture/proposal manager for Information Builders’ Federal Systems Group. Prior to his business development career, he served for over 13 years in the U.S. Army. Eric currently serves as the finance committee chair of the Northern Virginia chapter of AFCEA with over 7,000 members. Mr. Schwarz holds BA and MBA degrees. He has been an active member of APMP since September 2007 and currently serves as a Director at Large of the NCA Board of Directors. Contact Eric at eric@apmpnca.org.

Directors At Large

John Bender is Chair of the Chapter’s Networking Committee. He has 16 years of proposal development experience, and has served on the Board for the past eight years. He currently leads the networking activities at all Chapter functions. He is Vice President of Advantage Consulting, a business development and management-consulting firm in Annandale, where he provides proposal training and business consulting. John was formerly with Life Cycle Technology. He completed his master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and his bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy. Contact John at john@apmpnca.org.

Robert Lohfeld is Chair of the Chapter’s Program Committee. With more than 32 years’ in the proposal field, Bob manages Lohfeld Consulting Group, a proposal management and development firm based in Edgewater, Maryland. He formerly served as President of Lockheed Martin’s Enterprise Solutions Division. He earned his master’s degree from the University of Maryland and his bachelor’s degree from Catholic University. He has completed Ph.D. coursework from George Washington University. Contact Bob at robert@apmpnca.org.

Richard Patterson is the Chapter’s Ombudsman, a position he created in 2005. He has 20 years of experience in the proposal field. As Ombudsman, Rick answers questions and conducts activities that are not directed to other Board members. He also created and oversees operation of the Chapter’s Job Board web page. Rick owns and operates RJP Consultants, Limited, a proposal and IT management firm in Fairfax that he started in 1991. He previously served in the U.S. Air Force as a pilot, engineer, and communications squadron commander. He received his bachelor’s degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy and his master’s from the University of New Mexico—both in electrical engineering. Contact Rick at richard@apmpnca.org.

Jay L. Schiavo, CAE, is Chair of the Chapter’s Marketing & Web Site Committee and has served on the NCA Board since 2005. After a career in association management, specializing in membership, marketing, and customer service, Jay set up his own consulting business in 2002—All Media Creative Integrated Marketing Communications located in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Since 2003, Jay has served as Marketing Communications Specialist for Falls Church-based 24 Hour Company, a firm specializing in proposal graphics. He completed his bachelor’s degree from Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio. Contact Jay at jay@apmpnca.org.

Marcia Horting is Chair of the Chapter’s Corporate Partner Program. She is founder and president of Sutton Resources LLC, a woman-owned small business providing marketing and proposal consulting services to private-sector businesses and government contractors. Marcia has more than 20 years’ experience in marketing, business development, and account management with Fortune 100 and industry-leading companies. For the past 10 years as an independent consultant, Marcia has been applying her experience with commercial best practices in multi-dimensional opportunities and national account management to all aspects of the Federal, state, and local proposal management process. Marcia also served as chair of NCA’s 2008 Boot Camp Program Subcommittee and 2007 Professional Day Exhibitors and Sponsors Subcommittee. Contact Marcia at marcia@apmpnca.org.

Chris Simmons is Chair of the Chapter’s Membership Committee. Chris has been on the board since 2007 and is a regular contributor to the NCA Executive Summary newsletter, and a contributing author to the APMP Journal. Chris also recently presented at the NCA Proposal Basics Boot Camp. He has 23 years’ experience as a consultant and business development executive for CGI (formerly American Management Systems), Deloitte Consulting, and most recently as the principal member of Rainmakerz Consulting LLC. Chris founded Rainmakerz in 2002 as a business development services company specializing in all aspects of proposal development. He earned his MBA in Information Technology from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and was elected MBA Program President. He earned his BA from Boston College in Psychology. Contact Chris at chris@apmpnca.org or 202-255-2355.

Olessia Smotrova-Taylor is Chair of the Chapter’s Newsletter, the Executive Summary, and she edits and produces the newsletter. Olessia has 14 years of professional experience in a variety of industries, focused on proposal and capture management, marketing, and communications. Her company, OST Global Solutions, Inc., specializes in capture and proposal management and training. Olessia is also a member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). Prior to founding her company, Olessia worked as a business developer for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and wrote for the Financial Times of London. She has a BA in International Affairs from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Contact Olessia at olessia@apmpnca.org.

Bob Miller is sole proprietor and consultant of Miller Consulting, providing capture and proposal management support for clients pursuing opportunities across the Federal Government sector. He has over nine years’ as a business process engineer, line manager, and business area manager with TRW and Northrop Grumman and has extensive experience in all phases of business development. Bob is a retired Army officer with 21 years of active duty.

Lou Robinson has served as the Chapter’s Treasurer for eight years, Secretary for six years, and President for two years. He was awarded the National APMP Leadership award in 2003. He first became a board member in 1999. He has more than 32 years of experience in the proposal industry. Lou is Chief Operating Officer of Winning Proposal, Inc., a proposal development and production company in Falls Church. He previously worked for Lektron, Inc. Lou earned a BSEE from Virginia Tech. Contact Lou at lou@apmpnca.org.

Vote Now at http://www.mediausa.net/apmp-nca/vote_today/ballot.html