Our Team

The best-laid plans can fail without the support of the people on a team — ISM understands this. We know that our people are one of our key differentiators. While all consulting companies strive to bring good resources to the table, our model forces us to accept nothing but the best. That is the only way to ensure the consistent successes that our clients have come to expect.

While ISM has developed the right process and methodology to support our clients in a practical method, we understand that our people are key to our success. While our project delivery executives are PMP-certified, we find that only addresses the science aspect of managing an initiative. Project and program management is not a commodity skill. It is a true blend of art and science.

Most initiatives falter due to issues related to communication. Working with executive-level sponsors, motivating teams and directing the tasks at hand requires a special skill. ISM project delivery executives work well in stressful environments by knowing how to redirect that stress toward a more effective outcome. ISM goes beyond managing initiatives. We help drive the initiatives to completion.

Learn more about ISM's key resource people:

Laura Dribin Werner, President
Alisa Speese, Practice Director
Steve Egan, Practice Director
Richard Lee, Chief Financial Officer
John Strasky, Vice President, Business Development
Alexander "Sandy" Biggam, Senior Project Manager
Donald B. Cooley, Senior Project Manager
Patrick Guest, Senior Project Manager
Kimberlee Meyers, Senior Project Manager
Ricardo Viti, Senior Project Manager

Laura Dribin Werner, PMP
President

Laura is president and founder of Integrated Systems Management, Inc., a premier boutique consulting firm specializing exclusively in portfolio, program and project management services. ISM serves Fortune 1000 clients and government clients.

Since its founding in 1989, ISM has gained a reputation for providing high-end project delivery services to our clients. They have come to expect ISM's success when delivering critical, complex objectives to the business when failure is not an option.

Prior to founding ISM, Laura worked as a Big Five management consultant and for Microsoft Corporation. With more than 20 years of information technology experience, she has successfully provided the hands-on leadership necessary to guide project teams through the life cycle of complex initiatives and to help organizations develop and improve their project management competency.

Laura has shown that delivery can be successful for even the most chaotic, challenging initiatives. Laura is known for her practical approach to problem solving and ability to think outside the box that has helped deliver multimillion dollar, global initiatives within budget, on time and within scope and in many cases, below budget or ahead of schedule. Laura is a firm believer that any project can be successfully delivered with the right mix of mechanics and soft skills.

She has been a featured speaker about project, program, and portfolio management for many international, national and local organizations, including Comdex, PMI, Camp and Omicron.

Alisa Speese, PMP
Practice Director

Alisa has more than 20 years of program and project management experience. Prior to joining ISM, she was employed by Ernst & Young, McDonald's Corporation and Deloitte & Touche.

Alisa has a reputation in the industry for delivering results and is recognized for proactive leadership, value mind-set, and solid technology and business acumen. She is a strategic and visionary leader who provides informed and objective advice to top management on technology-enabled business concerns. Alisa also has experience in ERP integration, business and IT alignment, business and technology strategy, portfolio management, quality and risk management, business development and client relationship management.

Alisa has spoken on various project management topics at venues such as Lawson Software's CUE Conference & User Exchange and Hackett Benchmarking Solutions (AnswerThink) Best Practices Conference. She is a member and certified professional of the Project Management Institute.

Steve Egan
Practice Director

Early in his career, Steve gained significant IT experience in some of the largest mainframe data centers in the Chicago area. Utilizing his analytical, results-oriented perspective toward his IT profession and business in general, Steve moved into the consulting arena in the early 1990s.

Throughout his years in consulting, Steve continued to refine his expertise at providing value to his customers by resolving business challenges through the integration of IT systems software with business unit requirements. As a business and customer-focused IT services executive, Steve demonstrated his experience at optimizing business processes and driving strategic initiatives.

Steve's industry experience includes financial, manufacturing, IT services and product distribution. Throughout his career, Steve has understood the importance of his team and is highly proficient at professional development of a multi-level team.

Richard Lee
Chief Financial Officer

Richard is a seasoned finance, operations and strategy professional with more than 15 years of experience. Before joining ISM, Richard managed mergers and acquisitions and partnership activities for Orbitz, where he executed more than a dozen acquisition and partnership deals ranging from $3 million to $60 million in size. He also served as a division controller of Orbitz for Business. Under his watch, Orbitz for Business grew from $30 million to over $200 million in volume in less than two years and achieved profitability.

Prior to Orbitz, Richard served as a principal consultant with Diamond Technology Partners and Deloitte Consulting. At Diamond, he advised clients in Fortune 500, FTSE 50 and KOSDAQ firms across a range of industries to develop new venture initiatives, increase top-line revenue and improve operational efficiencies. He was also one of the original five-member team that started Diamond's London practice, as well as sourcing and serving its first client in Seoul, Korea.

Before entering the professional services arena, Richard served for six years as a commissioned officer in the U. S. Army with deployments to Europe, Asia and Central America.

Richard holds an MBA with concentrations in finance and strategy from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied the European Monetary Union with WHU in Germany. He also earned an MA Economics and an MPA from the University of Oklahoma during his time in the service. He completed his undergraduate studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point, receiving a BS in Civil Engineering.

John Strasky
Vice President, Business Development

John recently joined Integrated Systems Management with more than 25 years of sales and sales management experience in the technology and business services industries. John was most recently an account executive with Pepperweed Consulting LLC, providing business process improvement solutions for Fortune 500 IT operations.

Prior to Pepperweed Consulting, John served as a services sales executive for BMC Software, a publicly held $2 billion enterprise software company. He focused on software and services addressing Business Service Management (BSM) and worked exclusively with Fortune 1000 CIOs. Prior to BMC Software, John held executive positions in business development, serving mid-market and Fortune 500 organizations. John has developed a core competency in developing new markets for companies in the services and IT solutions industries.

John holds a bachelor's degree in marketing from Northern Illinois University and is an ITIL Foundation certified practitioner.

Alexander "Sandy" Biggam
Senior Project Manager

Sandy has more than 20 years of success directing operations and technology functions for companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 organizations. Sandy has grown businesses from $0 to over $200 million. He has led critical projects in areas including software development, computer technology, telecommunications, utilities, financial services and government. He has reengineered and streamlined operations at various organizations with very significant ROIs achieved. He has established and run project management offices, quality departments, agile/lean functions, and business/technology consulting groups throughout his career.

Sandy has been an executive in successful start-up business in the areas of e-commerce, advance acoustic recognition systems, and call center telecommunications. At large firms he has served as VP/Director of Technology, Development, Professional Services and Business Alliances overseeing global operations.

Sandy has performed in-depth merger and acquisition (M&A) analyses on the front end while also providing successful M&A integrations on the back-end. These M&A activities include business strategy setting, product/market strategies, channel analysis, workflow analysis, performance benchmarking, technology assessment, and financial planning.

Sandy has master's and bachelor's degrees in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and completed studies and a thesis for an Engineering PhD. He also minored in Computer Science, Operations Research, and Digital Electronics. He has taught at Purdue and the University of Phoenix in their graduate studies programs on subjects including Operations Management, Computer Science, Advance Statistics, and Production Automation.

Donald B. Cooley, PMP
Senior Project Manager

Don has experience as a design/test engineer, as a line manager of engineers/software developers, and as a business process engineer. He brings a unique blend of experience and know-how to your organization.

Don has managed projects in software development, systems integration, and process engineering, and has served as overall program manager for several large-scale multinational endeavors. A few examples of his projects include: the build-out of the software validation facility for the space station Freedom; the networking of manufacturing plants globally for a multinational heavy equipment manufacturer; and the computing infrastructure upgrade in more than 30 countries for a recreational products manufacturer.

Don has also led successful process engineering consulting engagements in such diverse areas as mortgage loan processing, a product-defect corrective action management process, and supplier billing for a multinational fast food company.

Don has a knack for understanding quickly how your business works and what your issues are, helping you to define a program to meet your needs, and then driving that program to completion.

Patrick Guest
Senior Project Manager

Patrick has more than 12 years of consulting experience for Fortune 500 corporations. His strengths include IT strategy, enterprise IT portfolio management, capital planning, custom software development, and organizational change management. Patrick is an excellent communicator and team builder with extensive experience collaborating with CIOs, senior VPs, system integrators, offshore developers, and IT architects. He is adept at crisis management, troubleshooting, and negotiating. Patrick has experience across a wide range of industries including finance, banking, insurance, print media, manufacturing and telecommunications.

Patrick is a dynamic and versatile business/IT professional with management and hands-on experience in optimizing multi-million dollar enterprise IT organizations. He has a proven ability to leverage the benefits of IT to solve business issues while managing cost and mitigating risk. Patrick has spearheaded the development and deployment of custom applications driving business efficiency resulting in significant cost savings. He is a leader in applying Project Governance and Enterprise Project Portfolio Management techniques and tools to effectively align projects with business strategy.

Patrick holds a bachelor's degree in History from Southern Illinois University and a master's in international relations from the Catholic University of America.

Kimberlee Meyers
Senior Project Manager

Kim has more than 20 years of experience with information technology and business process alignment incorporating project and program management. She has diverse experience in domestic and international environments with experience at both Fortune 100 companies and professional services organizations. Prior to joining ISM, she was employed by Ernst & Young, Ameritech (now AT&T) and Qwest Communications.

Kim’s primary focus is on project leadership and alignment of corporate business operations, including IT, finance, HR, engineering, product management and marketing. She has experience in strategic alignment of the business unit strategy to drive innovation through the use of technology, managing demand and increasing business value from portfolio investments. Kim’s experience includes program and project management, team facilitation, strategy development, organization design, and methodology development and training.

Ricardo Viti, PMP
Senior Project Manager

Ricardo is a senior IT executive with expertise in managing large international software development organizations that are focusing on continuous improvement and cost savings. During his 20 years of experience working for a Big Five firm, Ricardo managed multilingual projects in the United States, Europe and Latin America as well as large PMO organizations.

Ricardo is an expert in the Capability Maturity Model, with a successful track record of implementing quality improvements. He also has extensive experience in outsourcing, particularly in vendor selection, service management, and applications management areas.

Ricardo holds an Executive MBA from the Instituto de Empresa (Madrid, Spain) and a private pilot license.