Operations

Bert Eades

Business Service Director – Operations Support

A former manufacturing executive, Eades has led numerous large plant transformations, including performance turnarounds, rapid volume growth and product line changes.

He has extensive experience as a supervisor, engineer, production manager and operations manager. For over 15 years, he served as a plant manager for companies such as Blue Ridge Fireboard, IKEA Industry, Elkay Manufacturing, Mohawk Industries, and Armstrong Flooring.

Eades earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech. A resident of Danville, Va., he is an officer of the Pittsylvania County Public Library Foundation and served on the board of the Danville-Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce for several years.

Joseph J. Stark III

Joseph J. Stark III is GENEDGE’s Business Services Director – Operations. In this role, his primary responsibilities are to craft and execute a solutions path to support manufacturers specific needs by consulting alongside GENEDGE Regional Growth Managers (RGMs) concerning value-added solutions to best address a prospective client’s situations, challenges, and needs.

Joe also has a supporting role as an expert for manufacturers and manufacturing. He strives to understand emerging trends, technologies, and challenges facing the client base/market in the GENEDGE service regions, leveraging Third-Party resources where applicable, and propose changes to GENEDGE’s strategy as appropriate.

He is a major influence in building GENEDGE’s Alliance Partner Network through staying knowledgeable of currently approved Third-Party resources of their service areas, expertise, capabilities, and previous project performance, while identifying resource gaps and provide this information to the appropriate manager to address. He provides support in the technical vetting of interested Third-Party resources and onboarding new Third Parties on how to deliver to GENEDGE technical standards/requirements.

Joe brings over 35 years of industrial experience in the operations and manufacturing environment. He has experience developing and leading teams in all functional areas of operations and production with a continuous improvement focus initiating and implementing a culture of change while building high performance teams. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University with a focus in Operations Management.

Jeff Shook

Jeff Shook joined GENEDGE in 2017 as a Project Manager with primary responsibility serving clients and partners in the Shenandoah Valley. Today he is currently an Automation and Advanced Manufacturing Manager.

Jeff has over 30 years of experience in a variety of industries. His experience includes lean and six sigma, design for manufacturing, and new equipment and production startup. His specialty is manufacturing process development, incorporating new manufacturing methods and lean processes into manufacturing. Jeff has been responsible for over $7 million dollars in capital equipment sourcing in his manufacturing roles. Often designing entire manufacturing lines as diverse as high-volume consumer electronics, to large chiller HVAC manufacturing facilities, incorporating the latest manufacturing technologies. His background and training as a practitioner and master trainer in kaizen methodologies led his team to a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 1st place award for Workforce Excellence in 1997. Jeff learned lean Toyota Production System firsthand in Kawagoe Japan working and training on Pioneer’s Lexus (Toyota) production lines.

Jeff earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. He has certifications including Six Sigma Black Belt, DFM, OSHA 10-hour, Kaizen master trainer, and CSCP (certified supply chain professional). His office is located at Blue Ridge Community College’s Weyers Cave campus.

Michael G. Levy

Mike Levy is GENEDGE’s Business Services Director – Growth. Since joining GENEDGE, he has achieved Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification; Innovation Engineering Black Belt certification; TDMI certification; Tech Scouting certification; Core Consulting Skills Certification; and PMP certification. Mike’s specialty is market planning.

Mike’s key delivery focus involves helping businesses develop strategic clarity and action-oriented growth roadmaps to meet their business objectives, then managing the creation and development of new ideas for business models, processes, products or services to help those businesses reach their strategic objectives. This includes access to capital, succession planning and business valuation services. Once strategic goals are identified, Mike and his team provide further growth assistance by identifying and resourcing the supply chain or subject matter expertise required to reach those goals.

To date, Mike has managed or co-managed strategic growth projects with over 70 industrial, scientific or manufacturing firms, facilitating the creation of hundreds of new growth ideas or projects. He has managed over 100 innovation concept sessions in varying degrees of complexity and size.

Mike uses his research background to integrate Voice of the Customer, market research or content analysis findings into a manageable “sandbox” of internal and external opportunities, from which businesses can begin, or continue, their process of strategic growth and change.

In 2010, he was an instrumental part of the team that helped launch an innovation grant program that generated nearly $750,000 in innovation investments across Virginia, and in 2011 he was part of a five-member MEP team that studied U.S. supply chain competitiveness and co-authored a key white paper explaining the competitive gaps.

In 2014, he was part of the core GENEDGE delivery team in the Virginia Domestic Markets Expansion Program (VA DMEP), a high impact program that assisted DoD supply chain companies in Virginia as they attempted to replace declining defense revenue streams through diversification of their products and services. In 2019, his DoD supplier work continued in GENEDGE’s Rural DoD Supplier program.

Mike continues his lead role in helping GENEDGE launch and manage statewide programs, such as Re-Tooling Virginia Manufacturers for Strategic Industries, which is focused on rapid commercialization planning for industrial firms who seek to re-shore critical industry services back to the U.S. and the Commonwealth.

Mike has an M.S. in Business and B.A. in English, both from VCU. He resides in Hanover County with his wife, two daughters, two dogs and one cat.

Steve Holcomb

Steve Holcomb is a GENEDGE Project Manager for projects with the USN, Huntington Ingalls Industries – Newport News Shipbuilding and other manufacturing, industrial and technology companies in Virginia. He joined GENEDGE in 2018 as the Regional Growth Manager for Hampton Roads, where he supported development and success of these types of organizations in Hampton Roads.

Steve Holcomb has decades of experience as a Performance Excellence practitioner, consultant, facilitator, and coach. He holds a BS degree in Ocean Engineering for deep ocean systems from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and retired from the Coast Guard after 20 years of service. Steve is a PMP, a Jonah master facilitator, Theory of Constraints expert, TRIZ (innovation) engineer, and a former Baldrige Award examiner. He has helped many organizations meet their most challenging goals. His qualifications include expert level training and experience in project portfolio management, advanced process improvement, variation reduction, pattern recognition and prediction, measurement and data analysis for decision support, supply chain performance, organizational assessment, cash velocity improvement, critical thinking, and strategic plan development and deployment. Steve has helped clients reduce process variation, increase throughput, shorten cycle times, decrease costs, and increase capacity and profitability, all while honoring existing resource, policy, and regulatory constraints. These efforts have translated into tens of millions of dollars of bottom-line benefit. In the past, Steve has served as a performance excellence professional and consultant at Reed Integration, Inc. (Federal government consulting), the Old Dominion University Business Gateway (mid-size business consulting), Huntington Ingalls Industries (naval ship design, construction, and repair), Case New Holland (con/ag equipment design and manufacture), the American Supplier Institute (Taguchi and six-sigma consulting and training) and the U.S. Coast Guard. However, if you talk to Steve, he might tell you that he only knows how to do five things:

  • Identify the “wicked problems” limiting an organization’s performance,
  • Then helping them get control and make better decisions,
  • Enabling them to execute better, free up hidden capacity,
  • And “Do More Good, Without More Resources”,
  • To accomplish their most challenging goals and enjoy greater success.

Steve resides in Suffolk, Virginia where he enjoys spending time with family, including his five grandchildren and great grandson.

Dave Bartlow

As Engagement Manager – Defense Sector, Dave Bartlow will work with leaders in manufacturing, engineering and technology companies to analyze, plan, execute and evaluate client projects with GENEDGE. He will be responsible for delivering multiple resources, services and partnerships for large-scale program and projects, as well as financial management of the contracts that are executed. His service area includes the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park, and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William.

Before joining the GENEDGE team, David founded Pendul Project Management where he worked as President, Consultant, and Program Manager. Previously, he was the Vice President of Programs & Operations for Temeku Technologies (TTi), a Program Manager at L-3 Maritime Systems, as well as an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton. In addition to these roles, David also served as an Action Officer/Briefer for the Navy Crisis Action Team and a Training Officer/Combat Information Center Officer/Assistant Operations Officer in the USS DOYLE (FFG 39) and USS MCINERNEY (FFG 8) in the U.S. Navy.

David is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds Bachelor of Science in Political Science. He also holds a Master of Arts in Homeland Security from American Military University and a Master of Science in Project Management from the George Washington University. David is trained and/or certified in; CMMI Training; PMI – Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP); LEED Green Associate; Project Management Professional (PMP); and Strategic Architecture/Business Process Modeling.