Mary is an IMEC Technical Specialist who helps manufacturers improve their business and leadership strategies. She has been with the organization for 14 years and has over 22 years of experience in the chemical and food ingredient industries. Since her time with IMEC, Mary has helped Illinois manufacturers grow and maintain over 300 jobs and generate an aggregate impact of over $27M. 

"There is no purpose, to which public money can be more beneficially applied, than to the acquisition of a new and useful branch of industry; no consideration more valuable than a permanent addition to the general stock of productive labour."
-- Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, December 5, 1791

IMEC exists to help manufacturing companies drive growth through enterprise excellence that leads to long-term competitiveness, economic and workforce development, and growth within Illinois. Consisting of a team of improvement specialists, they provide relevant tools and techniques that help organizations excel in 6 key areas: Leadership, Strategy, Customer Engagement, Operations, Workforce and Results.

A couple of weeks ago, over 500 MEP center staff, partners, stakeholders, industry thought leaders, and NIST MEP staff gathered in Atlanta for the 2019 MEP National Summit. With the theme The United State of Manufacturing, this year’s summit intended to “lay the foundation for service and solutions that will grow the Network, improve the ways we serve small and medium-sized manufacturers, and strengthen and empower U.S. Manufacturers as we advance U.S. Manufacturing.” 

After serving as a regional manager at IMEC for almost 20 years, Mark is retiring from the workforce! Over the years, and currently, he has been successfully assisting manufacturers in the Peoria area to improve their processes, efficiencies, and cut costs. Mark believes in assessing, suggesting, delivering, and servicing projects quickly and accurately. As a result, he is able to foster meaningful relationships with his clients and set them up for sustainable competitiveness.  

Dean is a passionate and enthusiastic industry expert with over 30 years of experience and demonstrated success under his belt. He is driven by his desire to help people and believes in doing business with people, not companies. For the last year at IMEC, Dean has demonstrated his passion by working with and helping a wide range of organizations to create competitive futures in Northern Illinois.

With 32 years in the industry and 5 years at IMEC as a Technical Specialist, Scott Czysz (pronounced: chish) is utilizing his expertise in leading Lean Transformations to assist organizations in Illinois create competitive futures.

Mike has a diverse manufacturing background which allows him to connect with different areas of an organization and offer valuable insight at a strategic level. As a Regional Manager at IMEC, he uses his deep understanding of process efficiencies to help businesses in Central Illinois create their competitive futures.

With 8 years of expertise in the manufacturing industry, 10 successful years in sales and nearly 30 years of leadership proficiency, Rob is responsible for leading IMEC’s field staff. He joined IMEC 5 years ago as a Regional Manager and within the last few months, transitioned to serving as IMEC’s Client Engagement Manager. His wealth of experience and his passion for building relationships - with teammates, clients, community leaders and partners - makes him a valuable asset to the IMEC team.

Lisa is a certified leadership development expert with 30 years of experience in the industry. At IMEC, she assists organizations across Illinois with developing effective leadership training to ensure they have a pipeline of quality leaders to maintain competitiveness.

2018 was quite a year! We are dedicated to living out our mission to drive growth through enterprise excellence. That is demonstrated by the impact of our work on the organizations we work with and more broadly on the Illinois economy. We are proud to announce the IMEC 2018 Client Reported Impact numbers. These numbers demonstrate an increase in all categories, some of which nearly double the results we saw in 2017. Throughout the year, we survey our clients to understand how our work has helped them. When our clients succeed, so do we.