Client Letters
Client Letters
Academic Technology and Instructional Services
Kalamazoo, MI
Dear Mr. Wangen,
Thank you for developing and delivering a one-day training session for my unit regarding the development of a strategic plan. I was extremely pleased with the knowledge that we gained from this customized program that your organization developed in response to our needs, and the flexibility of the program, which allowed for exploration of topics of interest and discussion concerning application of the strategies to our specific situation.
I highly recommend this particular training session on how to develop a strategic plan to anyone who is about to begin developing a strategic plan. The no nonsense, straight forward approach that was presented to our group has already been productive in the creation of a succinct, comprehensive, and representative mission statement. Our training has helped us to develop a roadmap to sequentially develop the necessary components of a strategic plan representative of all of our team members. As we discussed in the consultation from which this training was developed, our ultimate goal in this process is to empower all of our team members to make daily decisions about their work that are in alignment with our unit, division, and organizational goals. I firmly believe that this training has shown us how to accomplish this. In summary, Implement Improvement developed a custom one-day program in response to our group’s specific request on how to develop a strategic plan. Anyone about to engage in strategic plan development should first go through this training process. The responsiveness, program flexibility, and attention to local environmental influences made this training valuable to our unit. As a result fo this training, we were able to work efficiently as a team to develop our unit mission statement, and develop a roadmap for accomplishing the development of our strategic plan.Sincerely,
Craig Kaml, Ed.D.
Director
Flight Systems Electronics Group
Lewisberry, PA 17339
Hello Bob,
I wanted to be sure that you knew I found your presentation of the Project Management Seminar to be very informative. The class information and the scenarios you shared with us enabled me to recognize many methods that I could apply to improve our projects. As a matter of fact, we had a project meeting scheduled for the morning after the seminar and I was immediately able to implement some of what I learned about meeting management, collaboration and empowerment. We even had a material delay issue that we applied problem-solving methods to and reached a solution that did not jeopardize the project cost or timing. The overall results and atmosphere of the meeting were much improved compared to past project meetings.
Thank you,
Denny Hornberger
Program Manager
McKesson Automation, Inc.
Pittsburgh, PA
Bob,
I want to thank you again for the FANTASTIC seminar you hosted here in Pittsburgh this week. It scares me to think about what I might have done with my new, current project had I not attended your training. [This will be the first project I have ever managed. It is huge, and it is critical. Your training is the first PM training or exposure I've ever had.] The past 6 months would have gone much better here at work had I come to this training first. I truly believe this 2-day seminar was a career-changing event in my life.
THANK YOU, and please accept my sincerest wishes for continued success.
Jim Leasure
Manager, Procedural Development
Department of State Police
Motor Carrier Division
Lansing, MI
Dear Mr. Wangen,
Please accept my sincere appreciation for your presentation, Managing Work Expectations, which you provided at the Motor Carrier Division Command Conference. By all accounts, the training was very informative and timely. I especially appreciate your effort to make the presentation specific to law enforcement and to our division. That made the training much more effective.
Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to assist us with our training needs.
Sincerely,
Robert R. Powers, Jr. Captain
Commanding Officer
Motor Carrier Division
Spectrum Health
Property and Construction Services
Grand Rapids, MI
Dear Bob,
Spectrum Health, Property & Construction Services appreciated the Project Management Seminar that you led on September 30, 2003. The team was engaged in the discussions as well as the exercises. Our director, Bill VanPortFleet had the following comments:
“I thought the seminar went very well and gave our department the opportunity to hear a topic that reflected my thoughts on procedure and process: to communicate with the customer, document and follow though. Bob kept the group’s interest and provided some very realistic examples of how project management works.”
Thank you again for a well conducted, well received seminar.
Respectfully,
Cheryl J. House
U. S. Department of Agriculture
Rural Development Agency
East Lansing, MI
Dear Bob,
It was a real pleasure to work with you on the Customer Service training. You made it so easy to establish a new course for us on customer service. Our employees really enjoy working with you to help them improve and analyze our loan application processes. Your training improves their creativity and team decision-making processes. The techniques they learned can be used over and over to improve the way we do business with our customers. Your ability to adjust the pace to their development and needs made this program a success.
I will get back to you later with which offices will be next. I look forward to working with you again this year. Bob, feel free to use me as a reference.
Sincerely,
Timothy A. Bradley
Director of Administrative Programs
Capital Quality Initiative
Lansing, MI
Dear Bob,
Thank you for providing the Capital Quality Initiative membership the opportunity to take your seminar, Unleashing the Power of Teams. Teamwork is so very important in today’s workplace; I appreciate being able to include your seminar as part of CQI’s education for Quality Management principles and practices.
From your class evaluations, it looked like a very successful seminar. The participants especially liked your exercises and activities that got them involved in actively learning. I found one of the comments best captured the unique value of your seminar to those attending:
“I have been working in teams for 3 years, my current team has been studying facilitation and team development. This approaches teamwork from a different angle and will be helpful in pulling the information we have gleaned so far, together.”
I look forward to working with you on projects and seminars in the future.
Sincerely,
Adrian Bass
Director, Capital Quality Initiative
Herman Miller
Spring Lake Campus
Spring Lake, MI
Dear Mr. Wangen,
The team building training you provided in July and August of this year has proven invaluable in our journey towards implementation of lean manufacturing concepts. As you know, the success of lean implementation is due in great part to the participation and cooperation of the manufacturing staff. Embracing change is a difficult process. Enabling individuals to understand themselves and others through the DiSC and C.A.R.E. profiles has made the change process much easier to deal with. The individual staff person uses the DiSC lessons learned to work with peers, subordinates, and superiors at a much greater comfort level, while I utilize my database of C.A.R.E. profiles to organize teams for specific implementation projects. Prior to your training, I was responsible for all projects in the areas I support. As a result of your training much more work is being accomplished and the finished product is more apt to succeed since it was developed by the staff rather than thrust upon them.
I look forward to the opportunity to expand the team training to other areas in our organization in the near future.
Best regards,
James K. Lewis
Lead Manufacturing Engineer
Automation Group
Manpower, Inc
Lansing, MI
To Whom It May Concern,
“It is with great pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation for Bob Wangen and Implement Improvement. Bob assisted us with training our entire staff on two topics, Dimensions of Behavior and Employee Counseling and Performance Improvement. Both sessions were well received by our staff because Bob had taken the time to visit with some of our team to learn what they do so he could customize the session to our company. As a staffing service, our team found both sessions very relevant to the work we do each day with our employees and customers. The team even enjoyed the role-playing exercises! As one attendee put it: Bob is a great presenter. The whole class was very educational. I came to this meeting timid and left less fearful about talking to others, individuals and groups.”
I would definitely recommend Implement Improvement to you as a training partner!
Sincerely,
Cynthia A. Spence
Director of Service Delivery Systems
Manpower of Lansing, Michigan
Michigan Air National Guard
127th Wing
Selfridge Air National Guard Base, MI
To Whom It May Concern:
It is with great pleasure that I write this letter of recommendation for Bob Wangen and Implement Improvement. Bob assisted us with training our key leadership on a wide variety of topics as a part of our supervisor’s refresher training. His program on Unleashing the Power of Teams was very insightful and presented us with a new perspective on team development. His background and military experience allowed him to relate his examples to our environment and, as a result, the training was well received by our leadership. Bob took the time to tailor the program to meet our needs, not just deliver an “off the shelf” product.
The comments from the participants reflected their satisfaction. As one participant put it, “Thanks for presenting this course in a positive, helpful, and sincere manner. You have given me easy application processes to make them work for me, I’m motivated!” We intend to use the services of Implement Improvement in the future and would definitely recommend them as a training partner.
Sincerely,
Thomas G. Cutler
Brig Gen, MI ANG
Commander
DeWitt Public Schools
DeWitt, MI
The purpose of this letter is to describe the services provided by Implement Improvement for DeWitt Public Schools — and to recommend this organization, and Bob Wangen, to others in need of similar leadership development programs. Bob Wangen, of Implement Improvement, met with DeWitt Public Schools’ lead custodial and maintenance staff members throughout the 1994-1995 year. He promoted a sense of teamwork, developed leadership potential, and facilitated the development of specific job skills and task descriptions. Moreover, he presented the plan developed with the lead custodians to the entire custodial staff of the district — and, at that session, addressed questions and concerns.Bob Wangen completed all of these tasks in a very competent and professional manner. His rapport with the staff was excellent. I am pleased with both the quality of the leadership development services provided by Implement Improvement and with the results of this program.
I am pleased to recommend this program to anyone interested in a similar leadership training and development program.
Sincerely,
John L. Cook
Superintendent of Schools
State of Michigan
Department of State
I would recommend Robert Wangen of Implement Improvement as a training vendor. Mr. Wangen presented a two-day seminar in “Problem Solving and Leadership” to department supervisors. His presentation was very well received by our employees. I found Robert to be conscientious in developing this seminar topic for us. He was willing to change his basic seminar to meet our specific needs. He also worked very well with my assistant Ms. Lucas, in seeing that our training participants had a productive training experience. We hope to use him again in other training events.Sincerely,
Enrique Perez
Personnel Manager
Department of State
Legislative Council
State of Michigan
On behalf of the Legislative Council, please accept my sincere thanks for your role in making our training seminar a success. The two workshops on project management that you taught for us on Oct 23 and 27, 2000, in Lansing were positively received by our council managers. We look forward to putting our newly learned skills into practice.Some comments from the evaluations include the following:
- A different approach to planning
- Will help me carry our some goals
- Good to have interactions in such a long training session instead of just a lecture Bob gave good illustrations to highlights his talking points
We also appreciate your extensive effort in tailoring to meet our needs and using the council open house as the example for the training programs. I know that you put a lot of time into preparing the flowchart and work breakdown structure, and we plan to use these tools when we execute this event in the future.
Thanks again for your contribution to making this training program a success.
Sincerely,
Diane M. Odrobina
Legislative Council Administrator
State of Michigan, Department of Civil Service
Division of Human Resource Development
Lansing, MI
I just wanted to drop you a note thanking you once again for offering yourself for two days. The facilitation training was, in my opinion, very dynamic.For your information, I have already used parts of my training yesterday when I was asked to facilitate a staff meeting and in particular, a problem solving area we needed resolutions to. The feedback from others in the class was great and I felt as if the training enabled me to make a significant contribution to our goals.
Sincerely,
Linda Colagross
Training Consultant
Seven Continents Enterprises
Toronto, Canada
Bob Wangen of Implement Improvement has been an invaluable asset to Seven Continents as we endeavor to moves towards self-directed work teams. Bob has been working with us on a regular basis since October, 1997. The original project involved training selected shop floor personnel in team skills, then he went on the train our shop supervisory staff in managing teams and finally working with our original teams to help improve their skills and launch them on the road of self direction.Seven Continents is a Visual Merchandise manufacturing operation with a variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds represented on our staff. Some of our personnel do not possess good English language skills so training has been a difficult task. Others have in-grained cultural taboos that have made it difficult for us to develop cross functional groups in the past. Much of what Bob has accomplished has been done with a great deal of innovation, patience, and perseverance. He has taken a dysfunctional group of diverse people and assembled a skilled, motivated, cross functional team. We intend to have Bob continue to work with us as we make self directed teams a reality.
Our diverse work force does not warm up to new ideas or new work methods very quickly and they are easily intimidated by strangers. Bob’s manner of delivery is one that makes the audience very comfortable and eager to learn. I highly recommend Bob and Implement Improvement to anyone wanting to take advantage of the work place improvements that are achievable through cross-functional work teams.
Please feel free to contact me for any further assistance.
Regards,
James K. Lewis
Director of Manufacturing
Capital Quality Initiative
Lansing, MI
Thank you very much for providing the “Dimensions of Leadership” seminar for Capital Quality Initiative (CQI). It was very well attended and is evident that leadership is a very popular topic with our CQI audience. Your presentation was well organized and effectively delivered. The participants enjoyed the day and particularly liked the Leadership Profile model that you used as well as some of your in-class exercises. The participants also thought you were “very interesting, enthusiastic, well-organized, and very knowledgeable on the subject matter.”I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to offer this seminar with you as the instructor, and look forward to a similar opportunity in the future. Thank you for your hard work and effort.
My best,
Jane Lucas
Director
Michigan Air National Guard
127th Wing
Selfridge Air National Guard Base, MI
Dear Mr. Wangen,
I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to you for the training we received in Project Management and Managing Multiple Projects. Our staff was “extremely enthusiastic” about being able to apply the new tools they learned in class to their work sections and organizations. As always, your materials were targeted and totally applicable to our situation. Our staff values training that is “short on theory and long on action.” A comment from one of the participants said it best, “The instructor was familiar with the military organization and was able to teach accordingly to make me feel comfortable with the material. He was very knowledgeable and interested in what was being taught.”
Your ability to connect with our military culture is a key ingredient to the success of your training.
Thanks again for your assistance and we look forward to working with you in the future.
Sincerely,
Thomas G. Cutler
Brig Gen, MI ANG
Commander
TFM Remanufactured Office Furniture
Lansing, MI
TFM would like to thank you for the outstanding management training of our production team leaders. The program proved to be very effective, and our team leaders have grown more efficient and productive. The team leaders found your training sessions enjoyable, informative, and easy to follow. Each team leader seems to have learned something different, yet beneficial from your training.Thanks again for the wonderful job!
Sincerely,
Paul Covert
TFM President
Institute for Management Accountants
Jackson, MI
Dear Mr. Wangen,
Our Jackson/Lansing IMA Accounting chapter would like to thank you for the excellent Time Management presentation on May 18th. As professionals, this is an issue we all struggle with. You presented us with some timely and beneficial tips to help us to not only better manage our time, but to MASTER our time. Your presentation style kept our interest and your stories and examples were applicable.
Thanks you again for your presentation.
Sincerely,
Linda Grimm, IMA Director of Meetings
Executive Office of the President of the United States
Office of National Drug Control Policy
I wish to commend you in the skillful manner in which you facilitated, moderated and directed the first Detroit HIDTA working group. Your professional skill and expertise were evident in obtaining a consensus from such a diverse assembly.Many of the participants, who represent the Law Enforcement Community in Southest Michigan, made it a point to compliment Detroit Director Azzm and Major David Holmden, on your excellent handling of such a diverse group who were dealing with very sensitive issues.
Please accept my thanks and appreciation for your efforts to help this important program.
Sincerely,
Rich Yamamoto
Director
High Intensity Drug Traffic Area Program
Central United Methodist Church
Lansing, MI
This letter is to thank you for your excellent leadership in assisting the staff of Central United Methodist Church in a recent training seminar and a workshop called for the purpose of increasing teamwork and professionalism.The day long seminar was very important to all of us. We covered many areas of motivational and behavioral theory and practice. We learned skills to assist us in understanding other people’s behavioral patterns, and we gained many insights into what motivates others. Using the Personal Profile System (DiSC) was especially beneficial as we learned about the personality types of our colleagues in a non-judgmental, positive and fun fashion.
As a result of this training session the members of the staff have had a better understanding of what “makes us tick.” This has been helpful in building a team spirit and an attitude of professionalism. Your leadership abilities and guidance throughout the day were excellent, and the expectations of the seminar were met in grand style.
Thank you again!
Sincerely,
John W. Boley
Pastor
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