Joseph C. Mello (B1E 1980), Maria Rey (MS 2002), David Riviere (B IE 1987), R. Jamie Spriggs (B IE 1990), and Timothy L. Waldee (B ME 1989) recently joined the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering Advisory Board for the 2009 - 2013 term.

The Board, comprised of distinguished professionals and community leaders, serves as a sounding board for the School Chair in an advisory capacity as well as assists with the School's development goals. Each member brings extensive industry knowledge and unique expertise to this role and will serve a five year term.

Joseph C. Mello and R. Jamie Spriggs each bring over a decade of experience in the healthcare industry to the Board. The manufacturing background of Timothy L. Waldee as a General Manager for GE Energy proves timely in today's market. Maria Rey is a 2002 graduate and adjunct faculty member of the EMIL Program. David rounds out the new Advisory Board members with over 20 years of consulting experience.

"We are delighted to welcome our newest members to the ISyE Advisory Board. Their commitment and dedication to the Stewart School is extremely valuable to ISyE's continued success," said Chelsea C. White, III, ISyE School Chair.

More about the new Advisory Board Members:

Joseph C. Mello, B 1E 1980, is Chief Operating Officer of DaVita since June, 2000. Mello will retire from the company on Dec. 31, 2009. He joined DaVita in the very early stages of a significant financial and operational turnaround. Mello will retire from the company on Dec. 31, 2009. DaVita Inc., a FORTUNE 500(R) company, is a leading provider of kidney care in the United States, providing dialysis services and education for patients with chronic kidney failure and end stage renal disease. DaVita manages more than 1,400 outpatient facilities and acute units in more than 700 hospitals located in 43 states and the District of Columbia, serving approximately 110,000 patients.

As COO, Joe had responsibility for all Operating Units, IT, Nursing Services & Recruitment, Clinical Operations, Acutes & PD Services, Compliance Operations, Reengineering/Self Care Programs, Reimbursement Operations, Insurance Management & Patient Assistance. He currently is responsible for the Company***s Billing and Collections Operations, DaVita University (our in-house management and leadership development programs), and executive coaching.

Prior to DaVita, Joe was President and CEO of Vivra Asthma & Allergy, the nation's largest single specialty PPM focused on chronic respiratory disease. In addition, Joe held various management positions with MedPartners (through its acquisition of Caremark) including senior vice president/chief operating officer - southeastern region. Prior thereto, he was a partner in the healthcare consulting practice of KPMG for ten years.

Joe currently is on the board of Kool Smiles LLC, a provider of Medicaid dental services.
Joe holds an MBA in Finance from Golden Gate University and a Bachelor of Science in Health Systems from Georgia Tech. He resides in La Quinta, California.

Maria Rey, MS 2002, a recognized expert in the fields of corporate performance management and the design of global and emerging supply chain strategies, is an educator and consultant on supply chain management and logistics strategies for emerging economies. She is founder and Executive Director of the Atlanta-based Center for Emerging Logistics and Supply Chains, which conducts over 100 logistics courses in 16 countries in the Americas and other emerging economies such as Turkey, Russia and Poland. She is also an adjunct faculty at Georgia Tech in the Executive Masters in International Logistics (EMIL) and Cranfield University where she teaches International Operations, Latin American logistics and design of performance management systems.

As supply chain management advisor, Rey has a strong practice focused on advising senior executives in the areas of supply systems strategy and high performing organizations. Her clients span many industries including government, manufacturers, distributors, financial service companies, and logistics service providers.

Rey is a regular speaker at The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute, WERC, and ExpoLogistica Panama, Peru and Mexico. She has also keynoted numerous corporate conferences including, The Logistics Congress of the Americas, the Humanitarian Logistics Conference, the Hewlett Packard Summer Executive Series, the Coca-Cola Annual Supply-Chain Conference, and the Brazilian Association of Material and Logistics Managers (ABML). She is fluent, and lectures in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

She is an Economist from Universidad del Rosario in Colombia, with a MSc in International Logistics and Operations from the Georgia Institute of Technology and currently conducting her doctoral research at Cranfield University in England.

David Riviere, B IE 1987, is the Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting, leading the firm's Southeast Region consulting practice from Atlanta. With more than 20 years of experience, Riviere has a proven track record for developing and leading high-performance teams to define and implement change. He has advised numerous Global 1000 companies across a variety of industries, including aviation, manufacturing, industrial and consumer products, and retail. His consistent focus has been on helping clients to streamline and optimize their supply chain processes and enabling them with technology. He has served companies such as Kroger, LL Bean, Ace Hardware, Cabelas, The Home Depot, Federated, Hallmark, and many of their suppliers.

Riviere has a wide range of functional and technical implementation experience, including operational strategy, business process engineering, supply chain management, lean manufacturing, activity-based cost management, and information technology strategy. He has worked on assignments in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific, giving him a broad perspective in driving complex global solutions.

Prior to joining A&M, Riviere led the Technology Enablement practice of Kurt Salmon Associates. Previously, he was a Managing Director with Perot Systems. Earlier, he was a Partner with Andersen Business Consulting, where he led the Southeast Supply Chain practice and served on the cross discipline leadership team for the Global Products Industry.

R. Jamie Spriggs, B IE 1990, is the Founder, President, and COO of ConnectYourCare, a pioneering venture in the Consumer-Directed Healthcare (CDH) industry that provides businesses and individuals a platform to enjoy greater consumer choice and tax-advantaged accounts. His vision for health care has turned the primary decision-making power over to the consumer and has provided the first carrier-independent portal for the delivery of CDH.
Formerly, Spriggs founded RewardsPlus and served as its Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President for eight years.

While at RewardsPlus, Spriggs drew on his four years of experience as IT Manager for the Zurich Insurance Group to orchestrate the world's first Web-based benefits platform capable of communicating, managing, and billing an employers' entire benefits package. His strong business model and his eagerness to tap into the frontier market of online benefits have generated a multimillion dollar entrepreneurial endeavor and recognition as one of PC Computing's "Most Wired Companies" of 1999. He has partnered with The Purdential Insurance Company of America and customized Web sites for corporations such as AT&T Corp. and Lucent Technologies Inc.

Timothy L. Waldee, B ME 1989, is a General Manager for GE Energy's Energy Services & Controls Manufacturing Group, comprising 27 factories located in 8 countries with annual production output of $3.5B. He has spoken on the theory of Long Tail marketing and its potential impact on manufacturing. His talks have focused on the changing dynamics of consumerism and the margin between Lean Enterprise and the Long Tail, suggesting that corporations could respond to individual demand with a mass-customization rather than mass-market approach.

He lives in Guilderland, NY with his wife, Candace and three children: Carolyn (12), Ben (10), and Grace (7).