Dennis Virag, President
Dennis has provided
consulting assistance to global automotive suppliers, OEMs, and service
companies for over 20 years. Earlier, he was Vice President and General
Manager of Ward’s Automotive Research. He held positions as Manager of
Manufacturing Engineering with NL Industries, Fabricated Products Div.,
and as Chief Industrial Engineer for a plant of FMC Corp. His industry
credentials include three operational turn-arounds and four successful new
product launches.
He holds a BSIE from the University of
Dayton and attended Golden Gate University, Graduate School of Business.
He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Society of
Manufacturing Engineers, served as Chairman of EnV93 and Midwest Region
Vice President of the Society of Automotive Analysts (SAA), and is an
Honored Member of Who's Who in U.S. Executives. He has published numerous
industry related articles and is frequently a guest speaker before
government, professional and corporate groups. He has been widely quoted
in various publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg,
Fortune, Business Week, Automotive News, Automotive Engineering.
William (Bill) Clapp
Bill
was previously Executive Vice President of Chatham Technologies, a
global roll-up company in the contract electronic assembly industry. As
President of Mayville Metal Products, a multi-plant manufacturer of
electronic enclosures for the telecom and computer industries, he led a
financial turnaround and tripled sales. Prior experience includes VP at
Kipp Lubrication Systems, and Director of New Ventures at Allen-Bradley
where he led joint venture manufacturing activities in Japan. Earlier, he
held technical positions with Cutler-Hammer and RCA. Bill received BSEE
and MSEE degrees from the University of Michigan
Mike Brose
Mike was division General Manager at CTS
Automotive and was also CEO of Kipp Lubrication Systems. At both firms, he
led development of new strategies that accelerated revenue growth. He was
also a division General Manager with Walbro Automotive (now TI Group). At
Texas Instruments, he held marketing, field sales, and new venture
management positions. Earlier, at Electric Boat Div., General Dynamics, he
worked on the Polaris missile submarine program. Recently, he served as
Interim COO of an industrial equipment company. He is a member of the
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Mike received a BS from MIT and an MBA from
the MIT Sloan School.
Hiro Mori
Hiro has
25 years experience in automotive parts design, manufacturing, and
management. At Denso Corp (fmr. Nippondenso) in Japan, he was Assistant
Chief Research Engineer where he worked on advanced materials applications
and led joint research projects. His consulting projects include major
global automotive OEMs and Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers. He was project
leader on an analysis of business performance of auto OEMs and Suppliers
and product development best-practices. He received BSCE and MSCE degrees
from Kyoto University and a MBA from the American Graduate School of
International Management (Thunderbird).
