Dr. Bill Kessler is the Director of Executive Programs in the Tennenbaum Institute and a Professor-of-Practice in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. His focus is on large scale enterprise transformation and specifically on aligning multi-disciplinary research with real world transformation needs such as capabilities for network centric manufacturing and logistics.

Previously, he was Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Vice President for Enterprise Initiatives. Among his accomplishments was leadership roles in deploying six sigma quality and lean principles across the company and, beginning in early 2000, being the executive architect for the leadership team that accomplished the successful restructure and transformation of Lockheed Martin’s three aeronautics companies into one company, LM Aeronautics.

Kessler has served as a senior executive with the United States Air Force. In the position of Director of Manufacturing Technology and Industrial Base Analysis, he led many pioneering initiatives, including the creation of the Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) – a partnership among government, industry, academia, labor – to address the affordability of military aerospace systems.

Dr. Kessler holds a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautical and Engineering Sciences from Purdue University and a Doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. He spent a year studying fluid mechanics at the von Karman Institute in Brussels, Belgium and has attended the Harvard School of Government, the Federal Executive Institute and the Lockheed Martin Executive Learning Institute.