Don Lebell, Ph.D., PE:
engineering and management
consultant, expert witness, adjunct professor of engineering,
board member
- Management Consultant:
business strategy and contingency planning, organizational development,
product-market-technology program evaluations.
- Expert Witness: industrial
accidents, patents and trade secrets, products liability and business
interruption losses.
- Academic and Professional
Activities::
Adjunct Professor of Engineering, University of Maryland; previously,
Adjunct Professor of Engineering and Management at University
of Southern California (USC) and UCLA; also University Research
Coordinator of USC;
- Special Interests and Concerns: weapons proliferation
and human rights, education and employment, issues of drug decriminalization,
environment, ethnicity; voter and consumer enlightenment, health
care, science & technology.
- Frivolities: board member of small industrial
corporations and non-profit organizations; advisor to volunteer
organizations supportive of human rights, alleviation of poverty,
socially-progressive advocacy, teen-age entrepreneurship, etc.
-- also certified in scuba diving (PADI), amateur radio (Advanced)
and Spanish (working knowledge).
- Affiliations: Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, Business Executives for National Security, American
Society for Engineering Education, Operations Research Society
of America, Sigma Xi, Cosmos Club
- Access: dlebell@ibm.net, (202) 362-3994, 4200
Massachusetts Ave. NW #908, Washington, DC20016.
- Engineering Consulting Examples:
- National Research Council Panel re airport security systems
equipment, (Panel Chairman)
- Development of strategy and business plan for a special purpose
satellite communication system
- Study of bio-sensors' prospective applications and implications
for a major food processing company
- Evaluation of proprietary research for realignment with business
goals of an instrumentation manufacturer
- Government (of Chile) policy development re technology transfer
and small-scale industry promotion
- Critique of design, proposals and program plan for an unmanned
airborne vehicle system
- Appraisal of energy-shortage impacts on business strategies
for a high-tech subsidiary of a public utility
- Evaluation of the product-market and technology approach for
a proposed entry into industrial robotics
- Critique of a fingerprint matching product for industrial
and commercial security markets
- Scenario development and forecasting of future military systems,
for an equipment supplier's planning
- Evaluation of product-market diversification plans for a biomedical
instrumentation business
- Management Consulting Examples:
- Evaluation of progress, benefits and pitfalls in implementing
a "Total Quality Management" program and pursuit of
the associated Baldrige Award, on behalf of a major aerospace
organization
- Development of preliminary policy guidelines for The World
Bank re technology transfer and small-scale industry
- Critique of professional service firm's competitive position,
corporate strategies and organizational design vs. its offered
services
- Design and start-up of a Mexican-USA industrial and agribusiness
development and trade program, on behalf of a technology-intensive,
philanthropic organization
- Analysis of, and contingency planning in preparation for major
political and economic events impacting foreign affiliates of
a U.S.-based multinational industrial corporation
- Analysis of the planning process and contract negotiations
between a major corporation and a coalition of its labor unions
- Audit and evaluation of corporate mission, policies and internal
communication methods for an electronics instrumentation manufacturer
- Assessment of available methods and data for economic and
sociopolitical risk analysis specific to an industrial multinational's
international operations
- Needs assessment and design of workshops to improve effectiveness
of industrial relations managers in a multiplant company
- Review of long-range plans and strategies, for development
of an aerospace firm's market position, technologies and competitive
strengths
- Critique of a small firm's reorganization choices in competing
for emerging opportunities in medical electronics
- Review and critique of a business ethics research program
on behalf of a university's school of religion
- Development of guidelines for a company's collaboration with
university departments and programs
- Expert Witness Examples
- A factory fire delays marketing of a photographic product,
resulting in business losses
- A dispute erupts over "due diligence" between a
VCR distributor and its foreign supplier
- Trade secrets are misappropriated from a computer disk drive
manufacturer
- An automotive headlight dimmer fails to comply with its design
and contractual specifications
- A fire during diesel fuel transfer causes a fatality and extensive
property damage
- A construction site fatality results from contact of equipment
with high-voltage lines
- The operator of a plastics molding machine is injured during
machine maintenance
- Patent infringements are claimed pertaining to an electronic
circuit device
- Academic and Professional Activities
- University of Maryland - Adjunct Professor of Reliability
Engineering, teaching engineering management
- University of California -- Adjunct Professor of Engineering,
teaching entrepreneurship, management of high-tech organizations;
systems analysis and planning
- University of Southern California -- Adjunct Professor of
Management; also University Research Coordinator, e.g. for research
in business ethics, criminal justice, forecasting, entrepreneurship,
computer-based curriculum development and high-tech management
- Research projects: computer-control applications, automatic
food processing, economics, control studies for electric power
distribution, refineries, heat exchange and desiccation process
control, forest fire propagation models, particle physics models,
auto traffic studies, electron ballistics for design of klystrons
and a cyclotron, missile and space trajectories, aircraft stability
and fire control studies. Two patents granted in optical pattern
recognition, leading to government sponsored development of a
speech-processing technique,
- BS, MS, Ph.D. in Electronics and Systems Engineering, University
of California
- Registered Professional Engineer (EE), State of California
- Employment in Industry
- TRW -- Technical Staff Member in information systems development
- Servomechanisms, Inc. -- Technical Staff Member in avionics
instrumentation development
- General Electric Company -- Manager of Information Systems
in automation, water and energy resources
- Don Lebell Associates -- Founder and Managing Director of
consulting firm serving industrial clients
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