David O'Connor is a respected manufacturing executive, having worked in the Aerospace sector for over 30 years. In 2019 he retired as the Division Manager for Space, Rockets, and Helicopter Wire Strike Protection Systems at Magellan Aerospace Corporation in Winnipeg. During his time with the company, he also served as the Directors of Operations, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, and Quality.
Upon his retirement he was hired by the University of Manitoba to develop and teach a course in advanced manufacturing, focusing on artificial intelligence. He has also taught a course in Aerospace Life Cycle Management.
Dave holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration, both from the University of Manitoba. In addition, he has served on the boards of the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, Winnipeg, the Green Aviation Research and Development Network (GARDN), Montreal, the Composites Innovation Center (CIC), Winnipeg, the Assiniboine Park Hockey Association, Winnipeg. He has also served as the President of the River Heights Community Center, Winnipeg.
George Trachilis started his Lean journey in 1994 as a manager. After 10 years of leading implementation efforts, he decided to start his own consulting firm. It grew to become one of Canada’s Fastest Growth Companies by 2006. The government of Canada asked George to create an online course to teach his methods to the entire country. The course became the book OEM Principles of Lean Thinking. By 2011, the course was offered globally and educated 100,000 students from 60 different countries. With twenty years of Lean experience George embarked on a search for more knowledge on the topic.
In 2012 he forged relationships with Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker, best-selling author of the Toyota Way and Norman Bodek, the Godfather of Lean. Encouraged by both, he adopted a much deeper understanding of Lean which stretches back to Japan, the origins of Toyota, and with a greater emphasis on the people side of Lean and the Process of thinking scientifically about change. Jeff Liker asked George to be his partner and co-founder of the Lean Leadership Institute (now the Global Leadership Institute). His coaching is based on the book and online course, "Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels", which received the Shingo Research Award in 2016.
