The Wakefield Company, LLC
Terry Wakefield
Chief Executive Officer
Office - 262.375.8000, ext. 6640
Cell - 414.313.2803
Fax - 262.375.2835
900 Cheyenne Avenue
Suite 100
PO Box 210
Grafton, WI 53024
Terry Wakefield – Chief Executive Officer
Gordon Blunck – Managing Director
Gordon has more than 25 years of diverse industry experience and accomplishments. A veteran of General Electric and a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program, Gordon migrated to the residential finance industry in 1989 as Vice President of Finance and Administration at Residential Services Corporation of America (RSCA). RSCA was a wholly-owned holding company subsidiary of Prudential Insurance Company of America. RSCA consisted of Prudential Home Mortgage Company, Lender’s Services, Inc., Prudential Home Insurance Services, PruAdvance, and Private Label Mortgage Services Corporation. When Prudential divested RSCA in 1994, Gordon held executive positions in the medical device industry until 1998 when he joined Customers Forever, LLC as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Gordon joined The Wakefield Company, LLC in 2002 as a Managing Director. Gordon holds a BS degree from Stanford University.
Michael P. Merrick, Ph.D. – Managing Director & Chief Technology Officer
Mike has extensive experience in helping companies understand and apply technologies for Complex Event Processing, Workflow and Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture and Event Driven Architecture in relation to the integration of disparate systems and applications such as enterprise resource planning, point-of-sale, procurement, and existing legacy data stores. Most recently, Mike served as a Staff Solutions Consultant at TIBCO Software where he focused on creating composite applications from existing assets that optimized process efficiency, empowered knowledge workers, and created powerful relationship management platforms. Prior to TIBCO, Mike served as a Systems Analyst and Architect at Cable and Wireless USA. Mike has also held research positions at Pacific Sierra Research and the National Institute of Health. Mike graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Biology from Temple University. He earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Theoretical Chemistry and a minor in Biochemistry from the University of Cincinnati in 1996. Mike served in the US Navy from 1990 – 1996. He attended the Navy Nuclear Power School and received the Navy Achievement Medal. Mike has published numerous articles ranging in topics from electrostatic computations to density functional theory to computer simulation.
Sheila Bernhardt – Senior Analyst
Sheila has more than 25 years of experience as a leader of process improvement deployment and project leadership. She is a certified Six Sigma Blackbelt and certified Lean Master. Sheila has held a variety of management positions for companies such as Rockwell International, Honeywell, Textron, and Pacific Scientific. During her career, she has demonstrated her outstanding contributions to company growth and profitability in the areas of Supply Chain Management, Operations, Customer Service, and Inventory Planning and Control. In addition to leading organizational change and process improvement initiatives, Sheila has trained and mentored Greenbelts, Lean Leaders, and Business Leaders in various process improvement methodologies. Sheila graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Organization and Leadership. While attending Marquette, Sheila received the highest honor awarded by Jesuit universities, Alpha Sigma Nu, awarded for Scholarship, Loyalty and Service. Sheila has also received formalized training from such institutions as Six Sigma Academy, John Costanza Institute of Technology, University of Minnesota, Flow Vision, etc. Sheila is currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in Leaderhip. Sheila joined The Wakefield Company in March 2004.
Ann Cimino-Braier – Senior Analyst
Ann has over 19 years of progressive experience in the financial services industry and has developed, over the past 15 years, a diverse background in mortgage banking. Her experience in originations, fulfilllment, and servicing provides a holistic perspective to the life of a mortgage loan. During her career, Ann has managed staffs ranging in size from 3 to 25 associates of varying responsibility and has developed a reputation for improving production and reducing costs. Since 1999, her attention has focused on business analysis, the creation of workflow processes, and the development of new business functions. She has led numerous small and medium-sized projects, starting with the development of business requirements and solution design through implementation and training. Ann earned her BA in Finance and Real Estate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She joined The Wakefield Company in October 2005.
Todd Schneider – Senior Analyst
Todd has 14 years of manufacturing experience and most recently served as Vice President, Six Sigma at OmniQuip–Textron. He became a certified Black Belt in 2003 and was the business leader in establishing the Six Sigma program at OmniQuip–Textron. During the first two years of the OmniQuip Six Sigma initiative, Todd’s team initiated 24 Black Belt projects and an additional 23 Green Belt projects with estimated cost savings in excess of $10 million. In addition to his role as Six Sigma champion at OmniQuip, Todd was also responsible for strategic project selection and ensuring all Six Sigma projects were aligned with the overall business objectives (e.g., return on invested capital and customer satisfaction). Todd has led Six Sigma leadership training for numerous senior management teams in addition to organizing and leading many Green Belt training sessions. Todd also has 11 years of financial experience having served in numerous financial and accounting roles including Vice President, Controller for OmniQuip-Textron and Chief Financial Officer for Peterson Industries, LLC in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BS in Accounting; he earned an MBA from Marquette University in 2001, and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Wisconsin.