Dennis Frendhal, R. Scott Herren, Richard Lackey, Margaret Pate, and Yvette Smith joined Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) Advisory Board in the spring of 2018. These five alumni, along with 15 other distinguished professional and community leaders, serve as a sounding board for the School Chair in an advisory capacity, as well assisting with the School’s development goals. Each member will serve a four-year term (2018-2022).

Moe Trebuchon, Edenfield Executive in Residence and part-time lecturer for ISyE, was inducted as the Advisory Board’s new chair. He will lead the board for a one-year term.

Moe Trebuchon

Moe Trebuchon (BIE 86) possesses more than 25 years of supply chain, strategy, and operational consulting experience having served as a partner in the IBM Global Business Services and PwC Consulting practices.  During his time with these firms, he has served in multiple North America leadership roles including retail industry leader, business analytics & optimization service line leader, and supply chain service line leader.

Throughout his career, Trebuchon’s primary focus has been on assisting clients to achieve impactful business transformation via development of strategies, operational designs, leverage of information technology, and organizational change adoption. In particular, he is considered a subject matter leader in the application of demand forecasting, replenishment, WMS, TMS, order management and omni-channel technology to the order fulfillment and delivery process, having led a broad base of clients through complex technology-enabled change programs. Trebuchon has delivered numerous presentations at conferences and educational forums addressing a broad array of topics spanning supply chain, enterprise transformation, business analytics, benefits realization, and change adoption.

Some of Trebuchon’s specific clients include Walmart, the Home Depot, Macy’s, Belk, L.L. Bean, Kroger, Lowe’s, Costco, JC Penney’s, Kohl’s Department Stores, the Children’s Place, Stage Stores, AT&T Mobility, the Limited, and American Eagle Outfitters.

Dennis Frendahl

Dennis Frendahl (BIE 83) is procurement director, glass and PET packaging, for Diageo’s Asia Pacific region and leads the procurement group’s quantitative analytical activities.  Prior to joining Diageo, he spent 25 years with The Coca-Cola Company working with bottlers around the world to successfully source glass bottles, crowns, and aseptic fiber packaging. He also used his analytical expertise to develop a forensic understanding of the supply base and to develop tools and models to help bottlers understand their procurement spend and to forecast commodity prices.  He was known throughout the organization as the thought leader for procurement e-sourcing.

In his six years with Paragon Consulting Group and Cleveland Consulting, Dennis provided operations and general management consulting services to the food and beverage industry. During his five-year tenure with Frito-Lay, Frendahl rapidly advanced within manufacturing and sales operations.

In addition to his degree from ISyE, Frendahl graduated (highest honors) with an MBA from the University of Chicago specializing in finance.  He currently serves as treasurer for the Coca-Cola Georgia Tech Network and has 34 years of consecutive giving to Roll Call.  He hosts an annual golf tournament that has raised over $150,000 for Georgia Tech freshman scholarships.

Frendahl and his wife, Lisa, live in Peachtree Corners, Georgia.

R. Scott Herren

R. Scott Herren (BIE 84) is the chief financial officer and senior vice president at Autodesk, the company that makes software for people who make things. Herren is responsible for Autodesk’s global financial strategy including operations, corporate development, financial systems, tax, and treasury, as well as the company’s procurement organizations. While at Autodesk, Herren has orchestrated Autodesk’s business-model transformation – shifting from selling perpetual licenses to selling subscriptions.

Prior to joining Autodesk in 2014, Herren was senior vice president of finance at Citrix Systems, where he led the company’s finance, accounting, tax, treasury, investor relations, real estate, and facilities teams and held a variety of leadership roles during his 14-year tenure. Before joining Citrix, Herren spent 15-plus years in senior strategy and financial positions at FedEx and IBM.

Herren currently serves on the board of directors of Proofpoint, Inc., and also serves as a member of Proofpoint’s audit committee. In addition to his degree from ISyE, he holds an MBA in finance from Columbia University.

Richard Lackey

Since 1988, Richard Lackey (BIE 69) has served as president and CEO of Del-Tec Packaging, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of returnable/reusable and protective packaging solutions for consumer and industrial customers. Prior to this role, he worked as vice president of operations for Swiss-tex/Foam Partners, a new joint venture between U.S. and Swiss firms that produced consumer and industrial OEM polyurethane foam products for Fortune 500 companies. He also has experience in electrical circuit board assembly, working on various NSA contracts, where he achieved Top Secret and Cryptographic Clearance levels.

In addition to his degree from ISyE, Lackey holds an M.S. in systems management from Florida Institute of Technology. He has been a Roll Call contributor since he graduated, an A-T Fund/Tech Fund contributor for 29 years, and has funded the Richard and Judith Lackey ISyE Co-op Scholarship.

He and his wife, Judith, have five children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Margaret Pate

Margaret Pate (BIE 81) has over 17 years of analytical experience in the electric utility sector. She also has over 17 years of experience in business planning, program and project management, and process improvement in customer service, reverse logistics, and IT software projects in a high-tech environment. She is a Georgia Tech ISyE graduate and part of a three-generation Georgia Tech family.

Pate currently works at North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and previously at Hewlett-Packard. She is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and treasurer for the IEEE Power and Engineering Society Atlanta chapter. Pate is a registered professional engineer in Texas and holds certifications as a project management professional (PMP) and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (CLSSBB).

Yvette Smith

Yvette Smith (BSIE 90) is the worldwide support engineering leader of the Customer Service & Support Cloud + Enterprise division at Microsoft. Leading a team of over 3,500 support engineers globally, Smith has end-to-end accountability for both the customer support experience and worldwide technical support delivery across Microsoft Azure, dynamics, data, enterprise cloud, and developer technologies.

Prior to this role, Smith was the senior vice president of delivery and professional services for Xerox Corporation’s large enterprise operations in the U.S. In this role, she led a team of over 4,500 professionals responsible for delivering Xerox services to global document outsourcing clients. Prior to Xerox, Smith spent over 17 years at IBM leading a variety of sales and IT services businesses and specialized in selling complex international enterprise solutions and developing the delivery infrastructure to support those solutions.

Smith is a certified systems management consultant and holds an MBA degree from Emory University with an emphasis in international business. She’s passionate about women’s and children’s health and gives back to the community as a board member for the Georgia Tech Women’s Alumni Network and as an ambassador for the Grady Health Foundation.