ProductCamp Austin Board of Directors
Since the first ProductCamp Austin in 2008, PCA has been an ad-hoc organization focused on delivering the highest quality ProductCamps to the Central Texas product management and marketing community. During that time, the community has asked for ProductCamp to become more and provide more – and ProductCamp has delivered, adding new events like ProductPotluck and ProductParty. Now, ProductCamp Austin has made the next step in its maturation, forming a corporate entity chartered in Texas, moving from an informal planning team to a Board elected by its participants – in a style congruent with the origins of ProductCamp Austin events, and working toward becoming an official 501c(6) non-profit organization.
The following Members, and specific roles, on the ProductCamp Austin Board of Directors were elected at the organization’s second General Meeting, held on August 6, 2011 during the ProductCamp Austin Summer 2011 event.
President
Responsible for leadership and overall direction of PCA. Presides over board meetings and PCA planning team functions. Moderates planning committee, builds consensus and breaks ties where required. Serves as the public face of PCA. Responsible for understanding what makes ProductCamp a special group and event and preserving that spirit.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 5 hours a week between events to 10+ hours/week during heaving planning.
Qualifications: Must have served as a PCA planning team lead/board member at least once.
Mike Boudreaux (email) (LinkedIn) (Twitter) (Facebook)
Mike Boudreaux (email) (LinkedIn) (Twitter) (Facebook) Mike is a product manager at Emerson Process Management and he is the marketing director for ProductCamp Austin. He has a passion for all things marketing and he delivers a focused approach to marketing strategy and leadership. Mike has global experience marketing products for the refining, chemicals, oil & gas, solar power, and defense industries. He has filled various engineering, sales, and product marketing roles at Emerson, Alcoa, and AkzoNobel. He holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University Houston and a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Mike has been an active ProductCamp Austin participant and is presently involved in ProductCamp Marketing activities, including management of the @PCAustin Twitter account.
Treasurer
Responsible for managing PCA’s budget and accounts payable and receivable. Provides quarterly updates to the board about PCA’s budget status. Signatory for PCA checks. Responsible for non-profit filings with IRS and State of Texas.
Time Commitment: Varies.
Kristin Dorsett (email)
Kristin Dorsett is a product manager at HomeAway.com currently focused on marketing and distribution products for vacation rental managers. She’s held a number of roles at HomeAway over the past six years with responsibilities ranging from product marketing to sales operations to event planning (including budget management, account payable coordination, and accounts receivable). Prior to working at HomeAway, Kristin served as Marketing Manager at the Austin Game Conference. While attending The University of Texas studying Public Relations and English, Kristin served as President/Chair of two organizations (Texas Sweethearts and Student Event Center Tournaments and Games Committee) where she oversaw a budgets of $20K and $16K, respectively. Kristin is new to ProductCamp (the June ProductParty was her first event), but is excited to have found the organization and looks forward to getting more involved.
Sponsors Chair
Responsible for the recruitment of new and existing PCA sponsors. Drives funding for PCA as an organization and for PCA events. Main point of contact for sponsors and is responsible for establishing, building, and maintaining sponsor relationships. Defines value proposition for sponsorship and sponsorship tiers. Manages sponsors team.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 1-2 hours/week between events to 10+ hours/week during the 2 months before PCA.
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Melissa Muckenthaler (email) (LinkedIn) (Twitter) (Facebook) Melissa Muckenthaler is a multi-lingual marketing professional with expertise in strategic business planning and global marketing. Melissa returned to the US after working in Europe and Asia the last 16 years. Her marketing background, primarily for a global health care company based in Germany, includes building up and mobilizing marketing and sales teams as Marketing VP in Bangkok, Thailand. Parallel, she oversaw Bayer Asia’s New Product Launch Team (Hong Kong, Australia and SE Asia). Prior to this, Melissa held various product manager and sales roles in Germany. Melissa holds a BA in Economics from UT Austin and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. On the weekends, you can find Melissa training at the motocross track on her Yamaha or wakeboarding on Lake Austin. Melissa is an active member of the ProductCamp organizing committee and is eager to help launch the group into its next boom phase. |
Marketing Chair
Responsible for driving messaging execution for PCA events via a variety of channels: social and traditional. Manages the marketing team, and the PCA event website, facebook, and twitter accounts. Coordinates with the Sustainability Chair between events for ongoing website updates.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 1-2 hours/week to 10+ hours/week leading up to events.
Brian Hull (email)
Brian Hull is a National Account Manager at VMware responsible for the strategy, enablement and execution for VMware’s third largest channel partner. Prior to VMware, Brian was the E-Commerce Manager for a 12-person ergonomics retailer (The Human Solution). Because of the size of the organization this role allowed him to develop a broad skill set across operations, marketing, sales and project management. Brian graduated Magna Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Songwriting.
Over the past two years Brian has been actively involved with the ProductCamp Austin Planning Team, serving first as the Sponsor Advocate to help bridge the gap between marketing and sponsors. In this role Brian helped to design and develop the sponsor recruiting packet we still use at PCA. Recently Brian worked with Marketing Chair Mike Boudreaux as the Marketing Team Lead. This has given him the opportunity to work year round with one of the largest and most active teams within ProductCamp. Specifically,Brian focused on the messaging and email campaigns for each event and then collaborated with his team to deliver the other marketing goals. He looks forward to the opportunity to continue serving the ProductCamp Austin community, and to help drive the vision of the organization’s next evolution.
Logistics Chair
Responsible for the recruitment and coordination of PCA volunteers for a variety of activities. Runs PCA registration, setup and teardown, onsite vendor coordination, timekeepers and note-takers, materials and giveaways, and coordination with the PCA venue(s). Manages logistics team. Maintains PCA master project plan.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 1-2 hours/week to 10+ hours/week leading up to events. Is usually the first person to show up and the last to leave from PCA events.
Brian Rhodes (email)
Brian Rhodes is an experienced product and program manager responsible for delivering products that solve business problems. Brian has provided strategic direction to international enterprises and tactical team leadership solving marketing automation, stakeholder collaboration and service delivery problems. Marketing solutions that foster one-to-one relationships have been delivered to verticals such as photo processing and the Texas maritime industry. Collaboration solutions created a competitive advantage for law firms by enabling them to work with engineers, insurance companies and architects to complete contracts for buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects. At Cisco Systems, Inc., Brian created services for international service providers that enabled them to drive revenue in enterprise video. Currently, Brian is a Product Manager at ServiceMesh defining go-to-market strategies and developing market driven solutions to drive growth in US and global markets.
Brian graduated from Texas A&M University with a BBA in Marketing and South Texas College of Law with a Doctor of Jurisprudence. He is an alumni of both Pragmatic Marketing and the 280 Group training and certification programs and is a Project Management Professional (PMP). On the weekends, you can find Brian on the golf course at Twin Creeks. He’s usually the one looking for his ball in the woods or at the bottom of the nearest water hazard. Brian has been an active volunteer for logistics over the past year and is eager to make future ProductCamp Austin events successful.
Sessions Chair
Responsible for the recruitment of volunteer-led sessions at PCA events. Determines what types of sessions are in-demand, and drives PCA members to offer sessions. Runs the voting process on the day of PCA events where applicable. Manages the sessions team.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 1-2 hour/week to 10+ hours/week leading up to events.
Jeremy Gorr (email) (Twitter) (LinkedIn)
Jeremy is currently a Senior Product Manager at Seilevel, where he leads consulting projects for software products in a wide variety of industries. Prior to Seilevel, he worked as a Product Manager for several building materials manufacturers. He has also done software development consulting, as well as stints at both IBM and Hewlett Packard.
Jeremy has been an active volunteer on the Sessions team for every Product Camp in the last two years, and has been that team’s planning lead for the last year.
Sustainability Chair / Secretary
Responsible for defining the ongoing strategy and path to sustain and grow PCA as a mature organization for the product management and marketing community. Manages the non-event PCA website, responsible for capturing and maintaining PCA event content after-the-fact, and advising the board on how to evolve the PCA organization for the future. Manages the sustainability team.
Time Commitment: Ranges from 3-5 hours/week.
Jim Discher (email)
Employment
Eight years with Xerox in direct sales, sales management and produced training, meetings and events for two of those years.
During my time with Xerox Also was also an Associate Professor at Wayne State University and Oakland Community College. Developed course content and taught Salesmanship and senior level Sales Management courses. With the exception of two years have been with BI Worldwide since leaving Xerox. Have held Regional VP positions in Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles. Responsible for business development and operations. Client included major domestic and Asian Automotive clients and Verizon.
Started a sales training and productivity company for two years. Development strategic selling course and marketed sales automation software.
Last year held position of Commander, United States Power Squadron, Alamitos Bay Chapter. As leader of this 95 person organization wore numerous hats such as: producing bi-monthly membership meeting including booking guest speakers, staff meetings twice monthly and managed volunteers for all administrative, recruiting new members, soliciting volunteers, financial, educational and social activities. Successfully initiated and engaged membership in process of completely revamping organizational structure, reporting relationships, responsibilities and scope of mission. Time commitment averaged 10 -20 hours per month.
Late 2010, we relocated to Austin to be near family and open a new office for BI Worldwide. My present challenge is developing business with clients in Austin-San Antonio markets.
Relevant Skills/Experience
About 30% of our business at BI Worldwide is creating and delivering all aspects of group travel and business meetings. Services include creating and managing all content and logistics, including: airline, hotel, ground transportation logistics, food/beverage, activities (i.e.; golf, sailing), breakout meetings and full business meeting production (set design/construction, all meeting content, entertainment, sound/light production, etc.). During my stint managing our Verizon business, we delivered somewhere between $12MM-$20MM in travel and meetings per year. My style is to be very hands-on and involved all aspects of developing, planning and operations.
Have had extensive experience in communications strategy and development. Almost all the initiatives we produce have some form of communication. Most of that has moved to a web based format, but have done quite a bit in print media as well. I am not the producer of these assets, but have significant involvement in the creative process and development of content.
It’s called by lots of different names, but we’ve labeled it, “Live Marketing”. That encompasses other formats like pop-up-retail, guerilla marketing, etc. Essentially taking products to where people live, work and play. As part of the Toyota Tundra launch strategy, we had six teams covering the Southeast US. Managers were given a Toyota Tundra and responsible for placement and staffing at all significant events in their respective markets. Did a similar program for Chrysler. Product placement in shopping malls and special events across U.S. with over 200, in market brand ambassadors. Program ran for 5 years at between $20MM-$30MM per year.
In addition to the training background highlighted in the first section, I’ve delivered numerous training initiatives for Toyota and Verizon. Most notable would be the experiential learning we delivered for the Toyota Tundra launch. I would be the first full sized pick up in Toyota’s 50 year history in the U.S. market. To level the playing field with long time competitors Ford and Chevy, we proposed and delivered a program to develop a “truck culture” in all 1200 dealerships nationally. The program was a huge success and a high impact element to the Tundra launch.
Emeritus Advisors
Appointed by the Board, Emeritus Advisors have previously served on the Board, or as Team leads on the Planning Team. TAdvisors are non-voting members of the Board for consultation and use of their all-important contacts.
| Paul Young (email) | Bertrand Hazard (email) (Twitter) |
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Former President
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