Professional Experience

Ms. Gorman has done extensive work for local non-profits and early-stage companies.  She advised the CEO and acted as interim Director of the Automotive Business for Coherix, Inc.  Work with Entrepreneur Support Organizations has included coaching for start-ups through Ann Arbor Spark, New Enterprise Forum (NEF), Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest (GLEQ), and Techtown.  She has also served as a judge for a Business Plan Competition with TIE. 

Ms. Gorman has facilitated the strategic planning and implementation process at U-M’s Erb Institute, and is presently consulting with the Center for Education of Women (CEW) on their strategic plan.  She has written and helped to implement several strategic plans for a secondary school, consulted on the strategic plan for a hospice, and directed the strategy for creation and growth of a new charitable initiative.

Prior to establishing Barton Consulting Services, LLC, Ms. Gorman’s employment included being Chief Engineer, Town Car and Product Planning Director, Sport Utility Vehicles at Ford Motor Company; Manager, Strategic Planning at Allied Signal Automotive; and Consultant with The Carroll Group.  She has also held various positions in finance, marketing, engineering, and program management.   

Ms. Gorman’s career has challenged her to utilize skills in problem solving, customer and competitive analysis, and process facilitation, and has provided opportunities to successfully apply Decision Analysis, Six Sigma and Lean concepts.  Most important, her implementation experience has provided a solid understanding of why and how strategic plans fail, so she can work with clients to develop realistic and implementable plans.

Education

Ms. Gorman holds both an MBA and a BBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a BSME from Lawrence Technological University.  Professional education included Ford’s Strategic Marketing Program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Profile

Mark Ritz is an insightful, creative, results-oriented executive. He has demonstrated capability in mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, product planning and new product development in an international environment.  Mark is a team-oriented leader, skilled at integrating market, financial and technical resources in pursuit of organic and external growth opportunities.

In addition to his extensive work experience, Mark is a private investor in several start-up companies.  He has a keen interest in clean technology, especially renewable energy.  He participates on the External Advisory Board of the Erb Institute for Sustainable Enterprise.

Professional Experience

Mark has a variety of experience in both staff and operating positions.  After starting his career at Ford Motor Company in product development and product planning, Mark transitioned to the supply base, focused on electronics products.  As Director of Product Planning for Bendix Electronics, he implemented the first product planning process. After Bendix’s acquisition by Siemens, Mark was Director, Business Planning for two newly formed divisions during their start-up.  Subsequently, he was responsible for strategic planning for the global automotive business.  He then became Director of Sales, Marketing and Planning for the automotive electronics division of United Technologies Automotive. During this period he had direct responsibility for sales to GM and Chrysler as well as marketing and strategic planning for the entire division.  After UTA was acquired by Lear Corporation, he was promoted to vice president Marketing and Business Development for the electrical/electronics division.  In this position he developed marketing materials and strategic plans as well as evaluated and executed strategic partnerships with outside companies.  This work led him to transfer into Lear’s mergers and acquisitions group as Vice President, Business Development.  He acquired extensive experience in all aspects of corporate transactions, including acquisition target identification and screening, valuation, due diligence, contract negotiation, closing, and post-acquisition integration.   He was also responsible for corporate oversight of more than 30 international joint ventures, including managing the creation and start-up of several joint venture businesses.  He sat on the board of directors of seven different JV’s, including with Japanese and Korean partners.  Other JV’s were certified Minority Business Enterprises.  He concluded his career at Lear by developing product strategies for the electrical/electronics product portfolio including new products for electric and hybrid vehicles.   Mark retired from Lear at the end of 2008.

Education

Mark received a BS in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University and an MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.  He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.  Mark is Green Belt certified.