Meet the Team

Meet the Team

 

Steve Medland

Steve Medland has spent over 25 years leading, advising, teaching, and learning operations, lean, and supply chain and operations related practices. As a professional, Steve was a director, manager, and analyst of production, warehouse and distribution, and inventory management in industries including grocery retail, metal fabrication and machining, and office supplies and furniture.

As a business coach, Steve has worked with organizations in aerospace, automotive, banking services, distribution, healthcare, medical devices, pharmaceutical, and software. Steve has also taught public and private seminars globally on lean systems, inventory management, and Toyota Kata. A common theme in Steve’s consulting work has been lean culture and learning, from the shop floor to the executive level.

In addition to his work in manufacturing, Steve enjoys applying lean principles and other best practices to non-manufacturing processes in the supply chain such as the customer interface, supply management, inventory management, and distribution. In addition to his industry and management experience, Steve spent ten years teaching Operations and Supply Chain courses to graduates, undergraduates, and executives in business and engineering colleges at the University of Oregon, the University of Colorado-Boulder, Colorado State University, and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Steve received an MBA in Supply Chain and Operations Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

 

 

Paul Hamacher

Paul’s 29 years of managerial experience includes positions ranging from Supervisor to President and Board of Directors with full profit and loss responsibility. He has overseen all aspects of company operations including Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Manufacturing. Paul’s responsibilities have included multi-site and international experience including customers and suppliers in Asia, Europe and North America. As a member of executive teams, he has been responsible for the development of corporate strategy and global investments.  He has spearheaded company-wide initiatives to improve product development, process efficiency and productivity.

Paul has over two decades of continuous improvement expertise in Lean and Six Sigma. As Director of Lean Six Sigma at Honeywell he managed a portfolio of over 140 Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma projects across global manufacturing and research facilities. His client base spans multiple industries including aerospace, commercial and consumer goods, electronics, engineering, financial, food processing, government, healthcare, marketing, marine, mining, and warehousing and distribution.

Paul gained most of his practical business experience at Rockwell International, Boeing and Honeywell. He is a Master in Lean Manufacturing, experienced managerial and Toyota Kata coach, and holds a Retail Supply Chain certification.  In addition to his consulting activities, Paul has been an adjunct professor at Gonzaga University and has served on the Board of Directors of the International Trade Alliance.

 

C. BRANDON BROWN, P.E.

Brandon Brown is Owner and Master Kata Coach at Continuous Coaching Commitment, LLC, delivering tangible and sustainable continuous improvement results as a Toyota Kata Master Coach, Certified Kata-Dojo Facilitator, Certified TWI-JI Train the Trainer, Kata JumpStart Trainer, and Lean Instructor/Facilitator.

In 2016-2017, he has dedicated the majority of his time to daily coaching and teaching healthcare professionals how to reach Challenges at Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis TN, NEA Baptist in Jonesboro AR, Baptist Memorial-DeSoto, Baptist Memorial Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and at Bryan Health in Lincoln, NE. He recently returned from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July of 2019 teaching a 3-day hands on practical Toyota Kata course. He taught his same 3-day Toyota Kata course to over 20 manufacturers at Nike’s Footwear and Apparel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 2018. He has taught Toyota Kata workshops both “in company” while in Stockholm and at University of Gent, Belgium, publicly in The Netherlands, as well as at Ansbach University for Applied Science in Germany.

In November of 2017, he was the keynote speaker at the first annual Kata Summit in Prague, Czech Republic to help usher in and celebrate the translation of Toyota Kata to the Czech language. From 2006-2016, Brandon was a Visiting Professor of Operations Management at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville teaching courses and instructional designing online courses in the Indus trial Engineering department such as Lean Production and Leadership Principles and Practices for the Master of Science in Operations Management degree program.

Brandon was a Regional Director and board member for the Southeast Region of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence from 2014-2018. He is also a Certified John Maxwell Coach, Teacher, and Speaker. Prior to his work with W3 Group, he advanced through management leadership at Central States Mfg., as Regional Operations Manager for three facilities in the Eastern Region, which served 17 states. He has a Master of Science in Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, as well as a Professional Engineers license in Arkansas. He holds a certificate as a LeanSigma Kaizen Instructor from Time Based Management Consulting Group, to teach Value Stream Mapping and Kaizen instruction, and has led many continuous improvement events.

Brandon has 25 years of continuous improvement experience in various leadership roles for Arkansas Manufacturing Solutions, Central States Manufacturing, Waterloo Industries, and Lincoln Automotive. He has focused the past four years practicing and deploying Toyota Kata with various companies.