Our Instructors
Our business skills instructors bring real world experience to help them deliver business skills education in an effective and clear manner that you can implement in the workplace the very next day.
Jon Buck is a Business Skills and Applications Instructor at New Horizons of Minnesota. His education philosophy is centered on using multiple learning styles to make material familiar and relevant to each student. Jon uses his training background in the government and private sectors to deliver effective training in management, human resources, communication, time management, customer service, team building and employee development. Jon is also an Adobe Certified Expert and teaches Captivate, Acrobat, FrameMaker, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and HTML/XHTML/CSS. Jon's past employers include the United States Air Force, where he trained more than 350 officers and enlisted members in established processes and procedures, and U.S. Bank, where he trained managers and trainers in presentation skills and Adobe technologies. He also specializes in video editing, sound editing and curriculum development. Jon spends his free time as the Program Director for Rosemount Youth Wrestling.
JoAnn Becker is a consultant/manager with IT leadership who speaks business and technology and has over 25 years of helping organizations achieve bottom line results and increasing their effectiveness through organizational transformations and strategically deploying technology. She is experienced in project and program management, and in leading shared services implementation and the restructuring of operations. JoAnn excels at problem solving within complex organizational situations that are immersed in organizational issues by strategically building collaborative agreement with key stakeholders. She also delivers business and financial results by managing expectations, key success indicators and business risks. JoAnn has worked in: healthcare, financial services, government, non-profit membership based organizations.
Dr. Hansen is an active Business Analyst with twenty years experience working on the design/redesign requirements for a wide range of products, processes, services and organizational structures. He has worked with enterprise analysis and elicitation of requirements on projects related to human services, strategic planning, inter-organizational collaboration, education, training, international development, socioeconomic planning, program development, funding, IT systems, IT security, corporate mergers and professional development. Dr. Hansen has a profound background in Needs Assessment theory and practice and has contributed research, leadership and presentations to the field. He has developed unique requirement elicitation and analysis methods that have been used world-wide to create consensus in challenging and devisive requirements settings. His doctorate is in the field of education. In addition to his CBAP certification, he is also certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI) asProject Management Professional (PMP).
Dave Wirick was the Executive Director of Organizational Growth and Manager of Professional Services at Babbage Simmel. He has over twenty years of experience in managing projects at Babbage Simmel, the Ohio State University, State of Ohio agencies, and public utility regulatory commissions. As a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Dave is currently focused on expanding the application of project management and business analysis and bringing related operational improvements to public and private sector organizations. He is the leader of Babbage Simmel’s organizational growth program which designs curriculum and provides training and mentoring in project management, organizational development, and business analysis. He is the author of The Project Management Imperative: Mastering the Key Survival Skill for the 21st Century Organization and a frequent speaker on project management and related topics. Dave has worked with Fortune 500 companies, universities, government agencies, and a variety of other organizations.
With over 20 years experience in corporate training and consulting, Ernie has provided services to his clients, from developing new systems or programs to regional and national roll-outs of new technology. Ernie was instrumental in the development, implementation and coordination, and instruction of a multi-year project management training project at Bristol-Meyers Squibb. He has worked on a variety of IT development and infrastructure projects as well as a number of training and development projects for a variety of Fortune 1000 companies. Over the past 15 years, he has worked on projects for clients such as Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Disney, MetLife, Mercedes Benz USA, IBM, Hoffman-LaRoche, Johnson & Johnson, PSE&G, Exxon, as well as a number of internal development projects. Ernie is also a Boston University Certified Trainer. Ernie is a certified Technical Trainer (CTT+ 1998) and is a certified Information Technology Project Manager (IT Project + 2000). He was awarded certification by the Project Management Institute (PMI®) (2001) as a “Project Manager Professional” (2002). Ernie has a M.A. from New Jersey City University (1973) and a B.S. from St. Peter’s College (1971).
In the course of his career he has traveled widely and worked in industries from banking to manufacturing, and teaching to management in culturally diverse settings. Lou has worked in both the for-profit and the non-profit sectors and brings his broad experience to his clients. He is a member of many groups including; Project Management Institute (PMI), Microsoft Registered Partner, Canadian Bahá’í Business Forum, Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce and Small Business Networking Association. Lou is very experienced in many areas including Business Analysis, Problem solving, Project management, Project management training, Financial management and Financial reporting
Shawn always strives to achieve and give her personal best in all endeavors and look at every challenge as a learning opportunity. She specializes in Organizational Assessment, Problem Definition, Problem Resolutions, Risk Management, and Change Management. She is experienced in system and network administration, project management methodology, business analysis, system analysis, application development / implementation, and end-user training. She is very knowldegable and provides basic (system or application review and analysis), intermediate (system or application upgrades), and advanced (new system or application rollouts) IT project support. Shawn is also an expert level instructor of Business Analysis, Project Management, and PC based training on DOS/Windows/NT or Macintosh platforms for: word-processing, spreadsheets, data base management, graphics, desktop publishing, electronic mail and application software.