Ara Surenian, the Founder and President of Cadent Resources, Inc. and Chief Design Architect of DemandCaster has more than 20 years of experience in management, operations, and engineering. His specialty is designing and implementing business processes that blend lean manufacturing, process flow, and business intelligence to significantly improve a company’s cash flow and profit.

His professional experience includes Jacquard Associates, a turnaround consulting firm, where he held the role of senior consultant and implementation manager for their operation’s practice. He was plant manager at Universal Superabrasives, Inc, a leading manufacturer of diamond and CBN grinding tools where he was instrumental in their turn-around effort. Ara also worked as a product engineer at Raytheon’s Missile Systems Division where he was project manager developing new electronic packaging technologies.

Ara is an advisor to business owners and is a seasoned and storied presenter at professional associations, executive roundtables, and seminars. He is a current member of APICS, The Association for Operations Management and the Institute of Business Forecasting. Ara has an MBA with a specialization in Strategic and Entrepreneurial Management from the University of Illinois, and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston.

Jeff Balkan, provides Cadent Resources clients with strategic planning and process guidance. Jeff brings more than 25 years experience in providing business growth strategies, plans for both process and profit improvement services, and change management to his clients.

Most recently Mr. Balkan and Mr. Surenian successfully designed and delivered a new Sales and Operations Planning process for a rapidly growing $200 million manufacturer of electrical products. He has also completed a redesign of the strategic planning process for a major agricultural equipment manufacturer. Mr. Balkan’s past experience includes Executive Vice President at FPC Corporation a family-owned manufacturer/distributor of adhesive products, co-founder of a middle market consulting practice, practice leader with Jacquard Associates, a turn-around and general management consulting firm, Managing Director for 9 years with the Chicago Consulting Group of American Express TBS, and consultant at Andersen Consulting.

Mr. Balkan has served on the AICPA Consulting Services Executive Committee Board, and is a member of American Production and Inventory Control Society and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence.  He has spoken before the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, the National Association of Store Fixture Manufacturers, and the In-Store Marketing Institute.  Jeff also co-authored the book “Steering Client Success Through Performance Measurement”.  He holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Graduate School of Business of The University of Chicago (1985) and a B.A. in Biology and Psychology from The University of Pennsylvania (1983).

Mark Gavoor, is Managing Director of our consulting partner, CR-Supply Chain Consulting. CR-Supply Chain Consulting is an independent spin off company of Cadent Resources, Inc. that provides consulting expertise and training for Cadent Resources, Inc. clients and others. Mark has over 32 years of experience in Quality and Supply Chain Management in the consumer products, automotive and defense industries. His areas of expertise include warehouse, transportation, inventory, and customer service management and continuous improvement. He has also led the implementation and optimization of SAP in the Supply Chain at two global companies.

Mark’s focus is metric-driven, sustainable improvements using sound Lean Supply Chain principles and process improvement techniques. Most recently, Mark was Vice-President, Supply Chain, at Newell Rubbermaid’s Office Products Division. Prior to Newell Rubbermaid, Mark spent sixteen years at Colgate-Palmolive where he was Director of Customer Service and Logistics for the Latin American Division. He has also held positions in Warranty Analysis, Reliability Engineering, Operations Research, Quality Control and Total Quality Management at Ford, General Dynamics, Rockwell and TRW.

Mark is an active member of the American Society for Quality Control where he is on the Standing Review Board for ASQC Quality Press; he is also on the Editorial Review Board for Quality Progress Magazine. Mark is currently teaching two statistics classes at The College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois. Mark has a BS and an MS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan and an MS in Operations Research and an MA in Statistics from Wayne State University.