Darrin Dronen, PMP

**** ******* ****

Austin, TX 78717-2963

512-***-**** http://www.linkedin.com/in/dronendar *********@***.***

Summary of Qualifications

Certified, goal oriented leader with a track record of accomplishments in people and program management.

Strengths include program management, leadership, vendor management, managing multiple priorities across functional organizations, ability to turn around project in jeopardy, finance, adaptability to learn new industries, inventory controls, call center operations, demonstrated communications and interpersonal skills at all levels of organizations. Areas of expertise:

• Product/project life cycle

• Project initiating/planning/execution

• Leading global/virtual teams

• Strong interpersonal skills

• Risk management

• Effectively deals with ambiguity

• Negotiating

• Cross-functional organizations

• Process improvement (Six Sigma) (Kaizen) (CMMI)

• Hardware and Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

• Matrix management

• Establish systems & process

• Conflict management

• Coaching and mentoring

• Implementing goals under critical deadlines

• Business controls (ISO 9001) (CSA)

Certification

Certified Project Manager (PMP) - Project Management Institute

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Education Finance Partners – Austin TX 2007 to 2008

Vendor Program Manager

Responsible for vendor selection, driving vendors to meet program expectations and working to establish vendor management best practices across the company. Established vendor management process for the project management office. Mentored junior project managers. The PMO Director often sought my advice on process changes and hiring. Guided senior executives with program initiation and kick off activities.

• Realigned the core team and vendors on a behind schedule program for a $700k loan certification system. Ensured that loan certification system tied seamlessly into the company’s $2m loan origination by driving multiple vendors to seamlessly align and integrate deliverables The project launch on time and on budget.

• Took ownership of a program that was four months behind; reorganized the program team and drove them to successfully recover in only 45 days.

• Aligned a senior team and credit collections vendor to deliver their project 30 days ahead of schedule. Projected annual savings of $4 million in the first year. Within four months the vendor recovered $1.7m.

• Identified shortcomings by comparing our vendor selection and management process to CMMI. Created a vendor selection & management set of best practices for the company. Estimated annual savings of $10m.

Dell Incorporated – Round Rock TX 2000 to 2007

Manager - Customer Support Center

Managed the day to day operations and results for an 11 manager, 180 agent customer support call center. Key initiatives were to improve customer satisfaction by empowering agents to solve the customers’ issues the first time; reduce customer time to agent; encourage a positive work environment where agents can grow and have fun.

• Improved customer satisfaction with technical support from 75% to 88% Y/Y.

• Improved team software tools by engaging the call agents with software developers early in development.

• Improved agent proficiency and first call resolution by empowering agents and using targeted training.

• Developed managers by providing specific goals and objectives focused on their areas of opportunity.

Manager – Hardware / Materials

Managed 40 team members across four unique materials teams with diverse global internal and external customers. Responsible for maintaining, controlling, and final disposition of over $20m in parts and systems.

• Program manager for global software project; materials tracking tool that saved $2.5m annually. Received BPI Green Belt for leading the cross functional, global team.

• Established a shipping department resulting in reduced errors and decreased shipment times to global locations and partners. Improved shipping to China by 30% Y/Y, Taiwan by 15% Y/Y and to India by 27% Y/Y.

• Led teams through significant downsizing operations as the teams’ roles were repositioned to the regions, ensuring customers’ needs were met. Also focused on bringing up global operations.

Program Manager - Notebook Computers

Developed and managed the platform's schedule, $1m budget and bill of materials. Drove the extended / cross functional / global teams, software and hardware project managers to complete all required deliverables on time. Coordinated / negotiated deliverables and schedules with OEMs, core and extended teams, multiple commodity vendors, and various other groups inside and outside of Dell ensuring new platforms shipped on time.

• Received an on the spot award for successfully driving extended teams to complete tasks early to enable two notebook computers to ship 30 days ahead of schedule.

• Coached and mentored junior project managers.

Project Manager – Software and Hardware

Developed plans, schedules, business contracts, software / hardware statements of work, risk assessments, and bill of materials. Coordinated with core and extended teams, vendors, and various other groups inside and outside of Dell for multiple sound cards, speakers and modem projects. Negotiated deliverables and schedules with core team members, extended team members, and vendors ensuring products shipped on time.

• Drove extended teams and vendors to deploy 21 new and 33 updates to software & hardware projects; participated on 19 process improvements teams and led 7 process improvements cross functional teams.

• Passed the external ISO 9001 Compliance Audit – Received an “On The Spot Award.”

• Went above and beyond to ensure the early shipment of the new color peripherals early – Received the Product Development Group “Excellence Award” for the Quarter.

United States Army 1990 to 2000

Team Lead and Technology Acquisition Officer– (Captain)

Fort Hood’s program team led for update of the Army’s Mobile Automated Instrumentation software suite. Project managed software project developed to processes and report data from the Army's $200m new weapons assessment system. Project managed the development of software used to automate data reduction, resulting in time savings and standardization; additionally, served as one of the programmers (visual basic) for the project.

Senior Staff Chemical Officer - (Captain) Supervised organization’s Chemical teams; supervised and mentored six junior officers. Supervisor for the Army’s first digitized combat aviation operations center. Developed and implemented the Chemical warfare survivability training for 1,500 personnel. National Training Center evaluators praised the proficiency of the entire organization.

Chief of Training Analysis Chemical Corps - (Captain) Led two team members; restructured 2,600 tasks/skills.

Commander and Logistics Officer - (Lieutenant) Managed 30 team members and $4m in equipment.

Decontamination Team Leader - (Lieutenant) Managed 22 team members and $2.5m in equipment.

Staff Chemical Officer- (Lieutenant) Supervised chemical personnel embedded throughout the organization and implemented the Chemical warfare survivability training plan for 400 personnel.

Education / Professional Development / Experience

Bachelors of Arts, North Dakota State University, Fargo ND

Green Belt Business Improvement Process (Six Sigma)

Over 300 hours of continuing education for Project Management and business leadership.

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