About Us

IMSE Advisory Board

Jose Calderin | 1 800 Background.com

Jose Calderin is a Line of Business Applications / Software Architect and Systems Engineer consultant who specializes in workflow automation and data analytics.  With over 25 years in the Information Technology industry, he has been exposed to many technologies during the expansion of the internet. Most recently, a hybrid workforce has become an essential aspect of business.  Application design has evolved to accommodate all new business requirements of today’s business environment. 

Over the years, Jose has enjoyed mentoring engineering students from the University of South Florida. Mentoring, along with higher education involvement, has allowed him to stay integrated with current, and future engineers.

Community involvement is essential for personal growth.  Since 2018, Jose obtained the title of co-founder/vice president of Somos Puerto Rico Tampa; a non-profit organization that provides guidance and resources for people moving to Florida that have been displaced from other countries due to natural disasters or political turmoil.  Over 10,000 families have been assisted with food, shelter and guidance. Additionally, he participates on the committee for the Pasco Sheriffs Office Advisory Board. Being part of the committee allows him to be integrated and share his voice on behalf of the community. He received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of South Florida in 1993 and became a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in 1998.

Outside of volunteering, Jose enjoys cycling, spending time with his family and traveling. 

 

Ian M. Elius | IQVIA

Ian is currently a Trusted Advisor to the largest clients globally for IQVIA Quality and Technology Solutions, focusing on Customer Success Strategy. Ian is also recognized as a Continuous Improvement expert within IQVIA.
Ian has been in Life Sciences industry for over 15 years, advising clients and leading complex engagements for business harmonization, process design, and system deployments for quality and technology solutions. Prior to this, Ian served in the energy industry as a business and technical analyst focused on power generation and electrical distribution and control. 
In 2002, Ian earned the BSIE degree from the USF College of Engineering and was recognized with the Outstanding Award for Industrial Engineering. In 2005, Ian earned the MSIE degree with a Graduate Certificate in Technology Management and was admitted to the Kauffman Entrepreneur Internship Program during his academic studies.
Ian enjoys spending time with family and close friends in Tampa, Florida; reading on quality, technology, and continuous improvement topics; all balanced with a healthy dose of Japanese Anime (which he attributes to a lot of required reading on the Toyota Production System and W. Edwards Deming).

 

Brandon Faulkner | Holland & Knight LLP

Brandon Faulkner is a litigation partner with the law firm of Holland & Knight LLP. Mr. Faulkner practices in the areas of business and appellate litigation. His experience includes disputes in various subject areas such as mergers and acquisitions, officer and director fiduciary duties, corporate governance, commercial transactions, contracts, fraud, intellectual property, products liability, and federal and state taxation.

In the community, Mr. Faulkner has served as Chair of the Trial and Litigation Section of the Hillsborough County Bar Association, Chair of the Florida Bar Grievance Committee for Division 13B, a Board member of the University Club of Tampa, a Board member of Synapse Florida, and a committee member of the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council.  Mr. Faulkner has been recognized in Florida Super Lawyers magazine, Florida Trend magazine, and the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Before his legal career, Mr. Faulkner worked as an advanced manufacturing engineer for Honeywell International, focusing on the production of integrated electronic guidance and navigation systems for the defense sector. Mr. Faulkner obtained a bachelor of science, summa cum laude, from the department of Industrial and Management Science Engineering and the Honors College at the University of South Florida. As an undergraduate, he served as President of Alpha Pi Mu (the Industrial Engineering Honor Society), worked to improve the public school science curriculum as a National Science Foundation Fellow, completed an honors thesis that explored facilities planning for entrepreneurial biotechnology companies, and received an Outstanding Graduate Award. He is a registered engineer-in-training. He currently serves as the chair of IMSE advisory board. 

 

Jana Iezzi | Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, Inc.

Jana attended the University of South Florida (USF) for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees. She completed a BSIE in 2004 and an MSEM in 2006. While pursuing her master's degree, Jana did a thesis in healthcare, working extensively with H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and the James A. Haley VA Hospital. Just prior to completion of her MSEM, Jana joined VHA Southeast, Inc., a regional office of a national not-for-profit healthcare alliance, where she spent nearly 10 years in Performance Improvement. In 2016, Jana joined Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, FL as their first Director of Performance Improvement. She was responsible for driving change across the multi-hospital, community health system through the application of Performance Improvement methodologies and tools. Her responsibilities included reducing hospital-acquired infections, improving throughput, improving the patient experience and overseeing nursing education.

In 2019, Jana and her husband Greg moved to Tallahassee, FL where they both joined Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, Inc., Jana as their VP and Chief Improvement Officer.  In this role, Jana has responsibility for the Organizational Improvement Division. The departments within the Division include: Quality and Safety, Regulatory, Infection Prevention, Clinical Documentation Integrity, Patient Experience, Decision Support and Lean Services.  Additionally, Jana helps to lead both the Quality and Culture pillars of the strategic plan as well as consistency and alignment of the medical staff.  

 

Karen King | Publix Super Markets, Inc.

Karen has over 31 years of industrial operations and information technology systems and process experience at Publix Super Markets, Inc. and has held various positions within the Manufacturing and Industrial Operations business areas. She is currently the Director of Industrial Operations Business Development & Information Technology. She is responsible for providing strategic leadership for business development initiatives, as well as providing Information Technology systems and process change management leadership to the Industrial Operations business areas.

Karen earned a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering for the University of South Florida (USF) in 1994 and began her career with Publix as an IE intern at the Publix Bakery Plant while attending USF.

 

Raymond LaCour | Raymond James

Mr. LaCour is senior vice president of Office Services at Raymond James, a diversified financial services company engaged primarily in financial planning, wealth management, investment banking, and asset management. He is responsible for the management of real estate, facilities, construction, procurement, corporate travel and meeting planning, production printing, and security. Previously, Raymond was vice president Corporate Real Estate, at Capital One Financial Corporation where over an 11-year period he held executive responsibilities for real estate transactions; development and construction; facilities management; workplace design; security; and client relationship management. Prior to joining Capital One in 1999, he held a number of different managerial and engineering positions at AT&T Paradyne, Gould Computer Systems and Northern Telecom, Inc. Raymond has a B.S. in industrial engineering from the University of South Florida and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

 

Amruth Sivalenka | Spherexx

Amruth Sivalenka is the SVP of Revenue Management and Data Science at Spherexx, an advertising agency, software developer and business intelligence provider that has predominantly served real estate clients across the US & Canada since 2000. In this role, Amruth is responsible for guiding Spherexx in the algorithm refinement, product/services offering, and business development of Optimize (Rent Push).

Amruth is also the Managing Partner at Arya Global Services, a global consulting firm that assists real estate owners, developers, investors, and managers worldwide with the implementation and support services for Yardi products and business process outsourcing. He additionally operates D7 Ventures, a real estate company with multi-million dollars in assets under ownership and management, that focuses on aggressively delivering investor returns from long-term residential real estate. He serves on the advisory board of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at University of South Florida, Tampa.

Amruth started his career in Revenue Management and Data Science at The Walt Disney Company. Over time he grew through the ranks and eventually led teams in the areas of Revenue Management, Data Science, Finance, Marketing, Technology, Call Centers, Sales, Procurement, and Operations at multifamily, sports, hospitality, and technology brands, including Fairstead, NBCUniversal, Norwegian Cruise Line, The Rainmaker Group (now RealPage), and Aimco. Throughout his career, Amruth’s forward-thinking approach driven by data and analytics combined with building high-performance teams has been recognized for delivering industry-leading results. His experience ranges from startup high growth to Fortune 50, up to nearly 5000 team members, up to $2B revenue goals, up to $20M operating budgets.

Amruth holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a PhD in Operations Research from the University at Buffalo. His work on the optimization models for renewal pricing and expiration management is widely applied across millions of market rent apartments around the nation. He also takes pride in pioneering scientific revenue management solutions in the cruise and golf industries. But he’s the first to admit that given the choice he’d much rather be gardening with his toddler daughter. Amruth lives in Orlando, FL. 

 

Michael Washington | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Michael (Wash) Washington, PhD, joined the CDC/South Africa team as the Human Resources for Health (HRH) Team Lead in the Health Systems Strengthening Branch in September 2021.  He is currently working on using HRH data bases to make decisions and working with the South African Department of Health on using quantitative skills to improve the process and efficiency of HIV related public health activities.  Before this position, he co-supervised the NCEZID Health Economics and Modeling Unit, where they helped leadership evaluate potential intervention during public health emergencies, such as the multiple Ebola and the 2019 coronavirus outbreaks.  He led the CDC/Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health/Data to Policy activities and Policy Forum, where he trained Ministry of Health staff in 10 low- and middle-income countries on how to use data from multiple sources and simple models to make informed policy decisions and write policy briefs.  Almost half of the 100+ briefs have helped make informed decisions and created change.

Wash earned his PhD and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering from the University of South Florida, and his BS degree in Industrial/Systems Engineering from the University of Florida. Wash began his CDC career in 1998 as a Prevention Effectiveness Fellow in the National Immunization Program where he helped improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the domestic and international immunization systems.  He was the first engineer accepted in the fellowship program.