Advisory Board | NC State ISE

Tony J. Blevins oversees Apple Inc’s global supply chain as Vice-President of Procurement. Since 2000, he has supervised a large international and multi-disciplined staff that has enabled innovative Apple products that include the original and all later versions of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. Before joining Apple, Blevins held positions at IBM in engineering, finance, production control, and procurement while doing many international assignments which culminated in a role as Program Director at IBM’s development lab in Greenock, Scotland. Blevins, a native of Ashe Country, NC was an undergrad engineering co-op at Burlington Industries and earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from NC State University in 1989.

Damon Butler has been the President of Triangle Blvd – one of the leading digital creative services organization in the South East – for the past 10 years. He’s been known to be an articulate and effective communicator leading hundreds of video production, web development, mobile applications, and major live events.

Prior to launching Triangle Blvd, Damon worked at Lenovo as a Business Transformation Lead focused on planning, forecasting and collaboration. Prior to that he was at IBM as a Business and Marketing Analyst.

Tracy Doaks joined DIT as Chief Deputy State CIO and Chief Services Officer in November of 2015. In this role, Tracy leads the Service Delivery Division (SDD) and focuses her efforts on the delivery of hosting services, network and voice connectivity and other related services to state agencies. Prior to joining DIT, Tracy worked for Duke Medicine where she served as the Senior Director of Service Delivery. Her primary responsibilities included providing leadership and oversight in the execution and delivery of application and infrastructure for Duke Medicine. Tracy previously worked for the state of North Carolina as Assistant Secretary of IT and CIO for the North Carolina Department of Revenue, where she led all aspects of strategic IT planning, implementation, support, and risk. In addition, her past work experience also includes managing clinical informatics at Blue Cross and developing applications at Accenture.

Tracy earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering in 1990 and then went on to earn her CIO certification from the UNC School of Government. She is also certified as a Project Management Professional.

Cheryl Doninger joined SAS in 1986 and is currently Senior Director of Enterprise Computing Management in the SAS Research and Development division. As director of a large product-development group, she plays a key role in setting the company’s technical direction in providing scalable compute capabilities, including grid and cloud, as well as ensuring that SAS products meet the enterprise-class requirements of IT.

Under Cheryl’s leadership, SAS works with strategic partners to incorporate technological advances with SAS software to improve the performance and scalability of all SAS products and solutions. As a leading advocate for distributed technologies, Cheryl is a frequent speaker on grid and cloud computing, has served on several conference program committees, and has authored several technical papers on this technology area. She holds two patents related to grid computing.

Cheryl earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Bowling Green State University and a master’s degree in Computer Studies from North Carolina State University.

Candance Gingles is the Director of Quality Engineering at Pfizer. She leads a team of managers and engineers overseeing quality aspects in validation and change management activities throughout one of Pfizer’s largest manufacturing and distribution facilities.

Before joining the Quality organization, Candance experienced many disciplines often being the first or one of few women to lead each area. Her other notable roles include Plant Manager for a small molding operation of approximately $35 million of annual production and Operational Excellence Manager.

Candance is passionate about her work and always eager to mentor others, dedicating multiple hours weekly to share experiences and provide career insight to mentees at internship through manager levels.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering in 1987 from NC State University.

Carlos J. Gonzalez-Miranda is the Dean of the College of Engineering at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico. He received his M.E. in Integrated Manufacturing Systems Engineering in 1990 from NC State University. In 1995, Dr. Gonzalez also received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from NC State University.

From 1994-99, Dr. Gonzalez was a tenure track faculty member of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez. In 1999, he served as Dean of the College of Business at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico. A year later in 2000, Dr. Gonzalez became the Dean of the College of Engineering.

His research and teaching interest are in the areas of facilities design, logistics, material handling automation, and computer simulation.

Jiao Gu is the President, CEO, and founder of FEi Systems. He founded FEi in 1999, with a focus on building behavioral health IT systems and supporting various clinical research initiatives. Prior to establishing FEi Systems, Dr. Gu served as a Senior System Specialist at Mcfadden & Associates. He was also the key system architect and designer of the FAA NASDAC project, a project focused on aviation safety. Dr. Gu also facilitated several NASDAC international collaborations concerning aviation safety. He later built a similar system for the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).Dr. Gu achieved an M.S. in Manufacturing Engineering from the Northwestern Polytechnic University in Xian, China, in 1981. He was an Exchange Scholar at UMUC from 1983-1984 and earned an M.S. in Industrial and Management Engineering from Montana State University in 1989. Finally, Dr. Gu earned a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at NC State in 1992.

Jeff Johnson is the owner of JWJ Energy, providing exclusive strategic and executive consultancy to EDF Trading Ltd and EDF Inc. He recently served as Interim President, EDF Trading North America in Houston and serves the EDF Group as a board member in its CENG nuclear generation joint venture with Exelon. Johnson was one of the founding members of EDF Trading Ltd in 1999 and has been involved in a number of business development activities for the EDF Group over the years in London, Paris, and Houston.

Prior to working with the EDF Group, Johnson worked in various engineering, finance and corporate capacities at Duke Energy and business development capacities at Louis Dreyfus Corp. Independent of EDF related activities, he served on the Board of Visitors of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and he was active in developing the Energy and Environment program within the Nicholas School. Johnson earned his BS in Industrial Engineering in 1978 from NC State University.

Gayle S. Lanier received her B.S. in industrial engineering from NC State in 1982. Lanier has over 30 years of experience as a transformational business executive at Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries. She retired in 2018 as senior vice president and chief customer officer for Duke Energy. She assumed her current position following the merger between Duke Energy and Progress Energy in July 2012, having served as vice president of corporate services at Progress Energy. Prior to that, she held leadership roles at both Nortel and EMC (previously Data General Corp.). At Nortel, Lanier served as vice president and general manager of Nortel Knowledge Services, among other roles. Lanier was also responsible for the development and deployment of Nortel’s first Voice Over Internet Protocol product line. Lanier’s time at Data General included various engineering roles and culminated in management roles in new-product introduction and materials planning. Lanier is a former member of the NC State Board of Trustees and received the university’s Watauga Medal in 2017.

Dr. Leon McGinnis is Professor Emeritus in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his MSIE and Ph.D. degrees from NC State in 1973 and 1975, respectively. Dr. McGinnis is the author or editor of eight books and more than 110 technical publications. Before retiring from Georgia Tech, he held leadership positions in the Material Handling Research Center, the Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems Program, the Manufacturing Research Center, and the Model-Based Systems Engineering Center, as well as the Eugene C. Gwaltney Professor of Manufacturing Systems. He remains active as a teacher and research investigator and is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers.

F. Scott Moody is the co-founder and CEO of K4Connect, a technology integration company focused on the emerging IoT market across several end markets. Tim received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering in 1980 and an executive MBA from the University of Florida. In addition to K4Connect, Moody is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the Blackstone Network, an advisor to the National Science Foundation’s ASSIST program at North Carolina State University, and a regional board member for Hope International. Previously, Moody was the co-founder, chairman and CEO of AuthenTec, the company that developed the technologies now at the foundation of the Touch ID in the Apple iOS products. Moody began his career at Harris Semiconductor, now Intersil, in 1980 where he eventually became Division VP of a $200M division before co-founding AuthenTec.

Patrick Murray earned his BSIE from NC State in 1988. Including his time as a co-op, he spent 30 years at Intel Corporation working as an applications engineer, managing several strategy and product planning teams, creating and managing Intel’s Global ISV Alliances Team, and closed his career managing Intel’s WW Retail Sales Development Team.

As a retiree, Patrick started volunteering for the ISE Department as an alumni-student mentor and working on special projects for the department head and the Advisory Board. In the Spring of 2020, he began serving as an Industry/Executive coach supporting ISE undergraduate students in their senior design engineering class.  In addition to volunteering with the ISE Department, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Raleigh Charter High School, is the Vice-Chair for the Town of Cary’s Information Services Advisory Board, and is a Coach for a Miracle League of the Triangle baseball team.

Stuart Nisbet is a Chief Data Scientist at Cadient Talent. Prior to this position, Stuart was the Senior Vice President, Head of R&D, at SAS. As the head of R&D, he oversaw all aspects of product research and development, monitored and assessed new technologies, and determined how best to incorporate new technologies into our products and solutions. He led a global team dedicated to delivering the highest-quality products and fostered a culture of customer-driven innovation and excellence.

Stuart believes innovation can come from anywhere. Throughout his career, he has been inspired by the innovation around him -technology, people, culture, and business partners.

David Parker is the Co-founder and CEO of Dexios, contract development and manufacturing partner with a deep expertise in product development, manufacturing and supply chain services across a breadth of product technologies, manufacturing processes, and regulatory environments. 

David is also the president and CEO of Servemore, a charitable service organization dedicated to engaging individuals to serve more often and enabling organizations to serve more people. At the same time he is a principle of Dedicated Partners, a company that capitalizes on decades of world-class operational experience to drive sustainable value creation within their Clients’ organizations.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1993 and in 1996 earned his masters in management, both from NC State University.

Brad Sullivan is the co-founder and former president of Thomas-Bain Leather, Inc., which specializes in the manufacturing of custom upholstered and leather furniture. Sullivan received his BSIE degree with a Furniture Manufacturing and Management concentration from NC State in 1982 after having received a BS in Economics & Political Science from Western Carolina University in 1979. He is a member of the W.C. Riddick Lifetime Giving Society and the NC State Alumni Association.

In 2016, he and his wife established the Brad and Anna Sullivan Family Scholarship Endowment which provides need-based scholarships to students from counties in western NC pursuing a degree in the College of Engineering, Textiles, Management, or Agriculture & Life Sciences. He is a longtime member of the Wolfpack Club and an avid supporter of all NC State athletics. His wife, Anna, and their three children are all NC State alumni.

Juli Trexler is the Vice President for IBM Support as a Global Business Partner Channel Sales in IBM’s Global Technology Services Division. Trexler has been with IBM for 20 years and has worked in executive and leadership roles for over 15 of those years. Her experience spans across many areas from Global Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Logistics Operations to Engineering Management, Process Innovation, and Business Transformation. Most recently she has moved to client-facing business development and business line management. At the core, Trexler is a dynamic leader who prides herself in leading with integrity and results-driven innovation.

Trexler has a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University, is a Certified Project Management Professional, and a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.