PRESIDENT ELECT
He has over 17 years of experience with extensive expertise in global Project Management and SDLC in the fields of Healthcare, Manufacturing, Telecom, and Mobile Computing. In addition to the PMP, Vish's professional credentials include a Master in Computer Applications and an MBA in Management from John E. Simon Business School, Saint Louis. He has been certified in ITIL V3 Foundation, Cloud Computing Foundation and CoBIT.
Vish has been a PMI member since 2004 and was certified as a Project Management Professional in 2005. Since then he has been actively involved with the local chapter starting as a part of the Check-In team to the position of Director of IT and Vice President of IT. In this position, IT team has re-designed the website and implemented a new payment system which will save $17K in four years. Currently, he is serving as Vice President of Professional Development. In this role, his team was able to start PMI-ACP prep classes and conducted first ever 2-Day conference on Agile, Project Management, and Leadership topics in recent years.
In 2011, he has graduated from PMI's Leadership Institute Master Class (LIMC). It is a year-long multi-faceted program of intensive development to prepare the future leaders of the project management profession and the Institute. This yearly program is only offered to 25 professionals selected from all over the world and is defined by PMI as “a journey of self-discovery and leadership development.”
Vish’s vision is to take chapter to the PMI National level. As a graduate of PMI’s LIMC program and his association with the chapter for the last 9+ years, he feels that St. Louis PMI chapter does offer great programs and benefits to its members. By forming a separate committee, board will ensure that it gets deserved recognition at the PMI National level. He will work with different board and committee members to provide more PDUs opportunity at the affordable cost. Another goal that he would be aggressively working will be to increase member participation during the events and member satisfaction & retention to the best ever.
VICE PRESIDENT OUTREACH
He earned a PMP and became PMI member in 2009. Upon joining, he immediately started volunteering for the chapter and has never looked back! Venus initially started helping out Programs team and organized a joint meeting with another professional organization. He then volunteered for Outreach team publishing chapter newsletters for about a year, before getting elected as Vice-President of Outreach. In his current term, he has recruited a great volunteer team who helps him with variety of Outreach activities like improving corporate and academic relations, sponsorships, branding, publicity and Social Media. He is very passionate about volunteering and believes in promoting project management to the local community. Venus Patel, PMP. Venus Patel is a Project Manager and Business Analyst, currently doing projects at Citibank. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, and has Project Management experience managing complex projects for more than 7 years. He loves the challenge of managing difficult personalities on his projects. He earned a PMP and became PMI member in 2009. Upon joining, he immediately started volunteering for the chapter and has never looked back! Venus initially started helping out Programs team and organized a joint meeting with another professional organization. He then volunteered for Outreach team publishing chapter newsletters for about a year, before getting elected as Vice-President of Outreach. In his current term, he has recruited a great volunteer team who helps him with variety of Outreach activities like improving corporate and academic relations, sponsorships, branding, publicity and Social Media. He is very passionate about volunteering and believes in promoting project management to the local community.
Venus is running for his second term as Vice President – Outreach. Venus’s vision is to setup multiple Student Venues at local universities, increase number of Registered Company Coordinators, and improve the publicity/promotion of PMI brand and Chapter events. To help him achieve these goals, he has support from his Directors and their volunteer teams. With the help of other board members, he is also working to realign and solidify the communications activities for the chapter under one area.
VICE PRESIDENT ADMINISTRATION
This is Dirk's second term on the board in this position, previously during 2009-2010. Dirk received his PMP Certification on 9/11/2001, and has a Masters Degree in Project Management from Keller Graduate School of Management. Dirk has taught project management at the Graduate level for Keller Graduate School, for various local companies, PMP Preparation classes for the St. Louis PMI Chapter, New Horizons, and St. Louis Community College. Dirk has also presented multiple times to the St. Louis PMI Chapter on various topics.
VICE PRESIDENT MEMBERSHIP
Realizing an opportunity to serve chapter members, Rob volunteered to help build the chapter's first project manager mentoring program and was appointed on the Board of Directors as the first Director of Mentoring. The mentoring program launched in early 2011 and now serves over 50 chapter members with PMP exam preparation, project manager development, and guidance for those looking to become project managers. Rob has built a highly dedicated team of 5 senior project/program managers that have been instrumental in guiding the mentoring program to where it is today.
Rob is passionate about project management and is equally passionate in helping others grow their project management careers. Realizing the dilemma between experience and the PMP credential, Rob created projects to improve the program and structured his team to include volunteer project managers to gain experience managing a project in a risk-free environment.
He currently serves as interim Vice President of Membership until the end of year and looks forward to continued service in this role.
Rob's priorities for the membership team over the next 2 years are to:
- Grow chapter membership by 10% in 2 years
- Champion member services projects to enhance maximize value to chapter members
- Improve the chapter volunteer process to more efficiently align volunteer talents with opportunities
- Continue to work with the mentoring team to offer THE best project management mentoring program across all of PMI
Rob holds current PMP, ITIL v3, and Certified Scrum Master credentials. He earned his Bachelor in Business Administration in Computer Information Systems and a Masters degree in Information Technology Management.
presented multiple times to the St. Louis PMI Chapter on various topics.
Kevin Martin currently works for C5T Corporation, on contract, as Program Manager for the Air Mobility Command Headquarters at Scott AFB, IL. He initially trained as a project manager while on active duty with the Air Force and has worked on numerous projects ranging from developing a financial management program to establishing an interactive simulation facility in the Pentagon, Washington DC. After retiring from active duty, he utilized his project management skills in the food manufacturing industry where he also developed additional skills in Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. Eventually, He moved into the consulting and contracting world, employing process improvement and project management for small to medium size companies in the St. Louis area.
He joined PMI and the St. Louis Chapter in Jan 2012, and earned a PMP in May. The events and dinners hosted by the St. Louis Chapter have provided many opportunities for me and he has found the organization to be valuable. Therefore, in Nov 2012, he volunteered for the Member Communications Committee and worked with the director Brenda Murphy developing plans to increase chapter membership of local PMI members.
The opportunity to act as VP of Membership would allow him to continue that work and give back to the project management community in St. Louis. As a trained and certified coach, facilitator, and mentor, he believes his experience can have wide-ranging impacts on the St. Louis chapter membership efforts, especially working with the Directors of Mentoring and Volunteers, in addition to continuing his efforts with Brenda in Member Communications. At this time in his career, he has the time and desire to make an impact using my skills and experience. The leadership he would provide as VP would be focused in accomplishing the vision and objectives of the Chapter. In addition, his insights gained over his career would be invaluable in working with the other Board members to develop objectives that would continue to move the St. Louis chapter toward becoming one of the best PMI Chapters.
