• Communication
• Cooperation
• Confidence
1.   MBA (full-time)
+    2  Engineering
          Degrees
+  Key Experience
 = Insight for
YOU!
    
Bring harmony to your teams and Success to your bottom line with Jim!
Available for consulting engagements & recruiter inquiries.
Contact:  Jim@Kavalaris.com
What keeps you awake about your company?

When is your deadline?

Contact
Jim today!

Jim@
Kavalaris.com


A division of: Select-Me Media, LLC
A Division of:
Remember, speed to insight & knowledge can improve speed to profits.
Jim's lifelong ability to fuse information can help you to better adapt, survive, & thrive!

Effective Key Experience:

Founder / President, Select-Me Media, LLC
Lansing, MI —
Specialists in web content management systems, premium outsourced email, and marketing and e-commerce consulting to businesses and not-for-profit corporations.
  • Extensive experience in all aspects of discovering/identifying & researching/evaluating physical products, open-source software technologies, and various types of service providers for multiple client-related projects. Jim's experience is extremely valuable in systematically getting past vendors' "marketing-speak" and down to the "meat" of any particular situation. He knows the right questions to ask, and how to ask them.
  • Led product development & pre-release activities supporting a then-new subscription- based direct-to-consumer product line for Select-Me Media, LLC's retail division.
  • Led the roll-out and software integration necessary that enabled two not-for-profit organizations to offer online selling via credit card and instant-downloadable barcode-based tickets that increased sales & improved operations for their special-event fundraisers. For one client, this replaced "self-addressed-stamped-envelopes" to send tickets. Jim was also especailly successful in helping their predominately senior-citizen-based membership/leadership be comfortable with a new way of doing things.
  • Organized and integrated a digital supply chain, including 11 vendors in 4 nations, to support product development / future ongoing operations via automated web services.
  • Noted for creating virtual organizations and researching teaming opportunities to control capital outlays by leveraging process automation, open source projects, and “software as a service” (SaaS) opportunities to help the company more quickly produce results while still maintaining strategic / value-added skills in-house.
  • Provided traditional website and web application development services to community-based organizations and their local affiliates in Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, and within the state of Michigan.
  • Fluent in e-commerce web architecture and open-source software development via tools and languages such as PHP, jQuery/Javascript, HTML, CSS, and MySQL. Expert at "reverse engineering" open source project code implemented by others on clients' legacy systems so as to find available "hooks" to efficiently add new custom features.
Product Development Manager, Regal Advisory Services, Inc.
Chicago (Glenview), IL —
Privately-held Registered Investment Advisor firm affiliated by ownership with Chicago-based Regal Securities, Inc. and their Investrade Discount Securities division – providers since 1976 of specialty brokerage services to seasoned traders, and an industry pioneer in online options investing.
  • Led the establishment and launch of Regal's first Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) line-of-business, whose most recent incarnation went live in December 2006.
  • Started with limited records from prior groups who had tried to start this new fee-based (vs. commissions) RIA practice. Worked with attorneys, wrote regulatory applications (including Form ADV for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission), obtained all government approvals for operations, and assimilated multiple investment advisors & their beta customers at launch, just before the parent firm's reorganization.
  • Analyzed competition, spoke with competitors' customers to understand pain points; built business cases and budgets; articulated client needs to firm's Vice Presidents; collaborated with 4 functional managers to create marketing materials & tradeshow booth, researched vendors & procured 3rd-party products (e.g., portfolio performance tracking and reporting software / customer relationship management tools), organized compliance training, and integrated operations into parent company's workflow.
  • Authored training materials and spoke at “B2B” partner conventions on behalf of both the RIA & parent firm's correspondent services (secondary clearing) lines-of-business.
Systems Engineer III Leader / Project Manager / Consultant, TRW Inc.
Dayton (Kettering), OH —
Specialty group within TRW, Inc. (a Fortune 100 company) that developed multi-agency Intelligent Transportation Systems-related operations control centers, emergency call-centers, and consolidated public-safety dispatch facilities. Services included concept of operations and strategy consulting, hardware & software systems planning, design & procurement, software engineering & systems integration, and facility management. In 2002, this line-of-business, along with TRW's Public Sector Solutions division and other assets, was acquired by Northrop-Grumman Corp. for $5.9 billion.
  • Led teams of in-house persons and up to 24 representatives from client + stakeholder agencies in each of the 8 major Midwest and East Coast metropolitan areas where Jim was tasked to facilitate inter-jurisdictional consensus-building; to identify and validate expressed agency needs, capabilities & constraints; to develop regional Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) system architectures; to write technology assessments; to educate community leaders; to perform data modeling to estimate benefits & costs; and to author & present documents such as multi-agency Concepts of Operations, Deployment Plans, and briefings detailing ITS best practices.
  • Led $1 million public safety/parking management demo of wireless video, sensors, & artificial intelligence for a 12,500 seat arena. Achieved buy-in among 9 included agencies for operational decision-structure & deployment plan. Coordinated 2 sub- consultant firms and 5 vendor groups; evaluated new suppliers; negotiated client change-orders; managed budget & scope creep; and delivered all required plans, specifications & estimate packages on-time. Attained profit and schedule targets.
  • Contributed to regional Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) projects in places such as Austin, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; Grand Rapids, MI; Toledo, Dayton, Cleveland, OH; San Diego, CA; Louisville, KY; Lexington, KY; Westchester County/White Plains, NY; Indianapolis, IN; northern VA; and for a team that developed a novel build-operate-transfer (lease-to-own) plan so a freeway traffic management system could be built sooner than traditionally possible via a then-unique private-sector debt/equity financing package that better aligned the timing of public agency payments and their long-term anticipated funding sources.
  • Developed a roadway transportation network “sketch-planning” macro-simulation model to estimate per-segment level-of-service and environmental benefits for various intelligent transportation system project alternatives. This enabled us to generate a phased list of deployment projects, of various intensities, that maximized system continuity while minimizing technology installations along low cost/benefit segments in the years prior to when projected benefit estimates warranted more intense solutions.
  • Developed written and “live” training materials for public agency officials and their staffs regarding related technologies and operational improvement opportunities.
    • Financial Impacts
  • Helped team grow post-inception (Jim was employee #8) to $37 million annual sales in 5-years.
  • Effected positive change in 14 cities encompassing 21 million people, yielding local fuel savings, enhanced commercial transport productivity, cleaner air, and reduced incident congestion / driver frustration due to faster incident response via regional integrated traffic management, E-911 call centers & emergency dispatch center coordination.
  • Contributed to 9 major RFP response/proposal writing teams; including primary responsibility for editing the team's text into a final cohesive document for one particular multi-year win valued at over $24.7 million.
    • Shared Recognition
  • Hudson Valley Transportation Mgmt. Center — Westchester Co., NY (north suburban NYC) Awarded 2005 “PROJECT OF THE YEAR” from the Intelligent Transportation Society of New York. Jim wrote project's Operations Concept, ITS Functional Architecture, and traffic signal integration plan.
  • TRIMARC Freeway Management System — Metro. Louisville, KY / Southern Indiana Awarded a 2003 “Top Traffic Information Site” from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) & 2002 “BEST of ITS” from ITS America. Jim wrote project's Strategic Deployment Plan, including much modeling of estimated benefits.
Chairman, Statewide Roadsoft Asset Management Software Advisory Committee
Lansing, MI —
Was elected to this Michigan County Road Association position while employed as a special projects engineer with the Macomb County (Michigan) Road Commission. CRAM is a professional advocacy cooperative of Michigan's 83 county road agencies. It promotes research, education & operational efficiencies among member counties.
  • Led 22-person statewide advisory team and technical focus groups guiding 3rd-party creators of this innovative road pavement condition- and safety-management system, Geographic Information System (GIS), and analytical resource allocation decision tool.
  • Beta rollout in Macomb County (Michigan's fastest fastest growing area at the time) showed huge benefits — time decreases from days to minutes — when measuring how quickly staff could use this tool to find data, compile statistics, and generate map-based reports needed to answer routine inquires from lawyers & others as compared to prior manual methods; thus, enabling improved customer service at much less cost.
  • Product use increased 77% within 9-months of committee creation & the start of Jim's outreach activities to decision-makers. Software is now used by 453 local agencies.
Graduate Research Associate, Purdue Joint Transportation Research Program
West Lafayette, IN —
This partnership of Purdue Univ. and the Indiana Department of Transportation is one of the oldest such transportation research programs in the United States. Established in 1937, it has since grown to become a national model for the successful partnership of government, academia and the private sector. Jim's research (see below) was also conducted in coordination with a founding member of the Purdue Center for Customer-Driven Quality — internationally recognized as the premier research & educational organization for behavior in customer access and access channel management issues.
  • Examined legal and policy issues regarding commercial vehicle taxation, permitting, electronic credentialing & toll collection, pre-clearance of vehicles & drivers past weigh stations, and interstate regulatory coordination. Worked with leaders at 5 government agencies to evaluate solutions. Identified $267 million in potential operational savings.
  • Designed & adminstered a stratified market survey to 3,000 Indiana trucking firms that yielded an unusually high 16% response rate and was cited by Apogee Research as “The most full discussion of [ITS/CVO] direct agency benefits...and penetration rates”.
  • Note: Jim was awarded this work based on his significant public policy experience. As a full-time graduate student, he did all primary investigations that other states, who later performed similar industry research, outsourced to professional consulting firms. His pioneering work is referenced in senior executive best-practices publications such as “A Governor's Guide to Intelligent Transportation Systems”, among others.
The Select-Me Media logo, the Regal Securities logo, the Investrade logo, the TRW logo, the Northrop-Grumman logo, the Roadsoft logo, the County Road Association of Michigan logo, and the JTRP logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Select-Me Media, LLC, Regal Securities, Inc., Investrade Discount Securities, Inc., TRW, Inc., Northrop-Grumman Corp., Michigan Technological University, the County Road Association of Michigan, and Purdue University, respectively, in the United States and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.

Comprehensive Supporting Experience:

Research Analyst (contract), Indiana Proteomics Consortium / InProteo, LLC
Indianapolis, IN —
A life-sciences consortium established in 2002 among Eli Lilly & Co., Indiana University, and Purdue University to better harness the state's analytical instrumentation expertise. Several start-up companies arose from these efforts.
  • Co-investigated proprietary issues regarding new innovative mass spectrometer and micro-array technology.
Product Analyst (MBA Intern), Regal Securities, Inc.
Chicago (Glenview), IL —
Founded in 1976, this privately-held diversified financial services firm has 25 branches in 15 states. Jim regularly worked directly with both their CEO, a founding member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, & the V.P. of their Information Technology group, among others at headquarters.
  • Improved the effectiveness of client acquisition/retention campaigns using data mining techniques & various customer mapping, demographic, & psycographic analysis tools.
  • Performed technical analysis of equity market activity and wrote software to back-test, statistically-refine, and generate real-time buy/sell alert signals for proprietary trading.
Graduate Leader, Purdue Univ. Technology Transfer / Innovation Realization Lab
West Lafayette, IN —
A technology transfer initiative, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, which pairs select MBA & Ph.D. students to better learn & conduct early stage market research into promising innovations being developed in Purdue labs.
  • Led 2 teams of science and engineering doctorate students through the new product commercialization and venture feasibility aspects of their research. Included was market potential & patent analysis for emerging Purdue research in both the computer security and green building energy/environmental control-related (“LEED”) industries, and in-depth debate as to how to best leverage perceived advantages of open source software. Jim explored impacts, gauged revenue models, & examined licensing issues.
  • Helped 2 teams of undergraduate engineering students in the “Purdue Engineering Projects in Community Service” (EPICS) program to better understand their “target market” so that they might better achieve their stated goals of helping local community service agencies find ways to use technology to solve problems and improve services.
Highway Programs Intern, Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT)
Lansing, MI —
Worked for Division Administrators in MDOT Traffic & Safety and Operations divisions
  • Helped to develop and promote MDOT's pioneering Intelligent Vehicle-Highway (IVHS) initiatives and related work of the American Assoc. of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which together became models for the later renamed Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) program that is now supported at the Federal level.
  • Researched policy positions, wrote speeches and briefings for MDOT's Director, and co-edited the first-ever “Guidelines for Advanced Traffic Managment Systems (ATMS)” by the IVHS (ITS) America trade association and AASHTO's “Mobility 2000” group.
Public Policy Intern, Washington Internships for Students of Engineering / ASCE
Washington, D.C. —
Ranked by Princeton Review as one of the top Internship opportunities in United States. Jim was selected by the American Society of Civil Engineers as their 1 representative to this program, & worked with ASCE's Government Affairs office. WISE “...grooms future leaders of the engineering profession who are aware of and can contribute to the important intersections of technology & public policy.”
  • Authored an in-depth policy report, “The Federal role in developing a high-speed rail/ MAGLEV (Magnetic Levitation) Transportation System in the United States,” which Jim presented at a seminar at the Brookings Institute. Jim worked with international experts, including those at the French Embassy (home nation of the TGV bullet train).
  • Meetings, in conjunction with participants from each of the 9 engineering societies who sponsor WISE students, provided behind-the-scenes access to both staff & leadership of many Congressional committees, Executive office departments, industry regulatory agencies, and corporate government affairs offices, among others, as daily activities.
The Inproteo logo, the Regal Securities logo, the Discovery Park logo, the MDOT logo, the WISE logo, and the ASCE logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Inproteo, LLC, Regal Securities, Inc., Purdue University, the State of Michigan, Washington Internships for Students of Engineering, and the American Society of Civil Engineers, respectively, in the United States and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.
Education, Experience, and Attitude form the foundation of Jim's Excellence...
After reading this page, it's clear that you'll want to discuss your latest challenges with Jim:
Contact Jim, today! Copyright © 2014-2019 Select-Me Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Select-Me Media, LLC and its principal(s) do NOT provide “Professional Engineering” services (as defined by Article 20 of Public Act 299 of 1980 in the State of Michigan, or any similar laws, elsewhere) and do NOT in any way hold themselves out to the public in any such manner.  Select-Me Media, LLC and its principal(s) provide management consulting services in the fields of Business, Management, Marketing, and Computer Consulting; including, writing and preparing associated Computer Software.  The term “engineer” when found, herein, is used only generically and only to indicate, factually, that a particular Select-Me Media, LLC principal is a trained graduate engineer, having earned both B.Sc.Engr. and M.Sc.Engr. degrees, in addition to an MBA degree with concentrations in Finance, Strategy, and e-commerce / innovation.  Factually, that principal happens to also be EIT certified (Indiana); however, he does NOT claim to be and is NOT a licensed design “Professional Engineer (P.E.)”; similarly, he does NOT design or seal construction plans, specifications, drawings or reports, or engage in any such construction activity.  All product activities are as per the MCL 339.2012 industrial exemptions. Use of mathematics, the sciences, or data-driven problem-solving processes are NOT to provide engineering services; any such is only incidental to the work of Management Consulting & Computer Services.