Leon Zuercher
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46239
aceoyx@r.postjobfree.com
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
PROJECT MANAGER BUSINESS ANAYLST PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Accomplished and integrity-driven professional offering over 20 years of
project management experience with impressive success in continuous
improvement initiatives.
Strengths include:
. Risk Management
. Quantitative Analysis.
. Re-Engineering Business Processes
. Defining Continuous Process Improvements
. Building Consensus and Building Strong Teams
. Software Project Management.
. Six Sigma Specialist
. Subcontractor Management
TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE
. VAST EXPERIENCE IN ALL PHASES OF THE IT LIFECYCLE INCLUDING PLANNING,
DESIGNING, IMPLEMENTING, MONITORING, EVALUATING, MANAGING, AND
IMPROVING COMPLEX OPERATIONS RELATED TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL
SYSTEMS AND AVIONICS SYSTEMS.
. Directing, developing and implementing short and long-range program
and/or project plans, objectives and goals for DOD projects ranging
from 1M to 75M+.
. Top Secret Clearance for more than 10 years, although not current or
active.
. Six Sigma Specialist
. Advanced User of Microsoft Project, Excel & PowerPoint, Think or Swim,
Investools, Proficient user of Microsoft Word, Access, Outlook,
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER/RAYTHEON OCT 1986 - FEB 2007
Software Project Manger
Responsible for entire software projects from project estimation and
proposal, through planning and execution, to closeout activities. These
government and private contracts of various sizes ranged from large,
integrated, multi-discipline projects to small-scale projects. These
projects have included multi-year Level-of-Support as well as engineering
Build-To-Print project engagements
. I assembled the team that identified, acquired and implemented new
technologies to completely re-host a legacy government (Navy) Cost
Accounting System. The original system, for which there was no existing
requirements documentation, consisted of 3 flat indexed files and legacy
patchwork COBOL code. The final converted system was based on a
normalized relational database model that consisted of in excess of 50
entities and 4GL code language, 94% of the final system was automatically
generated from design spec level in order to minimize the future
maintenance costs of the entire application lifecycle costs. Financial
Cost Accounting for this effort was critical to the timely transfer of
program cog from an organization that was not yet operating at an
organizationally mature process level.
. I have managed multiple Integrated Project Teams, such as my work in
Special Projects and V-22, which required cooperation with contractors
within the integrated project team who did not have similar strategic
corporate policy objectives. Obtaining their "buy in" was essential
because they were critical to the success of the program mission and
overall prime contract mission.
. I put together the team to support the Competition Advocate General of
the Navy, which was headed by a three star Admiral and SEC Executive.
Capturing and preserving key organizational knowledge was critical to
delivering the right solution to the right problem in their rapidly
changing cultural environment.
. For the better part of 20+ years in project management, I specialized in
taking over projects that were well beyond start milestones and in both
cost and schedule trouble. This included both developmental projects and
sustainment activities. A critical success factor in these types of
environments is to identify individuals who can affect change within the
existing team culture and work with and through them to affect critical
cultural change to right-size the project or program.
. While at NAWC, the privatization experience and cross-organizational
assignments while going through the privatization process afforded me the
opportunities to work with a wide range of organizational cultures across
the entire country, from organizations that were being closed, others
being privatized while others were added as sustainment activities. Re-
alignment of core project and organizational competencies, while
completing the mission became a key unique experience during these
efforts.
. I have experience working within an organization and individual projects
that have no defined processes. I had to use my technical and
interpersonal skills to define individual project processes while
simultaneously integrating those project processes with corporate
directives and policy initiatives as the organization moved from CMM
Level 0, to Certified CMMI Level 4 processes. My Process experience
ranges from these formalized corporate initiatives to more flexible Agile
PMP methodologies for management and development of software efforts.
. In the early part of my career, project management was not quantified,
but I saw the benefits that could be derived from doing so. Therefore I
led efforts to quantify cost and schedule performance and align project
metrics with corporately adopted generally accepted PMP Best Practices
for measuring and performing to Cost and Schedule (CPI/SPI) disciplines.
. I have a wide range of experience collecting core user-level requirements
and working with program managers to secure necessary funding to
implement user-driven requirements and balancing those desires with
corporate and other standards for corporate Best Practices.
. I've lead projects and had to work with multiple organizational
stakeholders from Supply Chain disciplines to Quality Metrics
Organizations, balancing their stakeholder interests with end user
(squadrons) and Corporate Program Managers. Being able to do this
successfully required building coalitions internally between teammates,
and departments and externally with other agencies.
. Mentoring newer project managers allowed me to share "what I wished
someone would have told me" with others, to be an encouragement to
them, so they could be successful and confident as they started
managing their first projects and growing the project management
capacity of the organization facilitating future growth.
Brevard enterprises March 2007 - Present
Trading Coach/Consultant
. I am currently the Chief Trader in several private equity arrangements
where the individuals have chosen not to pursue learning high-probability
strategies themselves, but yet want to participate in implementing these
strategies as part of their own wealth management strategy. Core to
this success is agreement of Risk and Cash Management Plans that
accompany each of the strategies for the specific account goals. I have
managed five accounts at once, with the highest return being the doubling
of account within a year.
. I co-founded a mastermind group that currently has 125 members and has
met weekly since its inception in December 2008. The core of this
mastermind meeting is original presentations on techniques and sharing of
ideas; outside guest presenters are by invitation only. The group has
coordinated trips to the CBOE and other financial centers and attended
courses and conventions as a group.
. I have coached and mentored individuals, both in person and on-line, who
are interested in learning to take personal ownership of, and more
actively manage, their own personal and retirement funds. I have
developed my own training materials and the core of what I teach people
is how to take an analytical and quantitative approach to creating high
probability equity structures that over-time increase the probabilities
of both gains and lower cost-basis, as well as a very important aspect of
"trade repair."
> A key component to this coaching includes leading these individuals
in a process of discovering their own risk tolerance and reflecting
that in an appropriate Risk and Cash Management Plans that fit
their own risk tolerance and personally trading psychology makeup.
> Another key component to this coaching is showing them how to build
their own win ratios and mentoring them when best to take profits
and almost always taking losses quickly to preserve win-loss ratios
that over time will is a superior strategy to deliver cost basis
reduction and growth that is appropriate for market conditions.
> Results include one individual exceeding 40% return on their
portfolio in their 1st year and being able to close out trades in
which the profit was 4 times greater than the bi-weekly salary they
lost when laid off.
EDUCATION
1994 INDIANA UNIVERSITY: M.P.A. SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
(EARLIEST AND YOUNGEST PARTICIPANT
FROM NAWC)
1985 Taylor University: B.S. Business Administration AND a B.S. Computer
Science