 Al
Rago
Senior Associate
Al Rago is a Senior Associate in the Software Testing
and Automation practice at Olenick & Associates.
He has 19 years experience in engineering and IT
consulting. Industries include Transportation, Manufacturing,
Health Care, Financial Services, Industrial Automation,
and Utilities. He has performed in the capacity of
Programmer, Systems Analyst, Project Manager, Quality & Testing Manager and Director of Quality Assurance.
He
has built successful consulting practices and implemented
automated software testing strategies in the software
quality field for the past 12 years and has extensive
experience with automated software testing tools
like Mercury’s LoadRunner, WinRunner and TestDirector.
Mr.
Rago has served as a speaker for QAI International
Quality Assurance Conference, QAI Software Testing
Conference, Mercury’s Worldwide Users Conference,
STAR East, Chicago Quality Assurance Association
and numerous panel discussions and local users' group
meetings.
Al
earned Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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 Kevin
Flynn
Senior Associate
Kevin Flynn is a Senior Associate at Olenick & Associates.
Kevin is responsible for business development at
Olenick & Associates and the supporting delivery of software testing consulting services.
His responsibilities include software testing sales,
pre-production and production operations, engagement
management, project and product implementation
support, and consultant management.
Kevin was a Director
at the Chicago based Whittman-Hart, (acquired by)
marchFIRST, and (acquired by) Divine professional
services firm, specializing in software testing
sales, engagement management, and software testing
project delivery. Kevin was also the marchFIRST
National Practice Leader with testing resources
distributed at all of the firm locations in the
United States.
Kevin began his
career as a consultant at Andersen Consulting,
now Accenture, supporting the Chicago Technology
Integration Services (TIS) business unit in the
telecommunications vertical. Kevin completed several
large development and testing projects for telecommunications
companies in the Chicago area.
After graduating
from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor
of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering, Kevin
served as a United States Army Officer specializing
in Air Defense Artillery and Advanced Maintenance
and Logistics Operations and Reporting for a divisional
army group.
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 Rick
Lesley
Senior Associate
Rick Lesley is a Senior Associate at Olenick & Associates. Rick has 11 years of experience in IT consulting and has worked on software projects within the Financial Services, Utilities, and Factory Automation markets. As the Testing Practice Lead, Rick is responsible for the delivery of software testing consulting services. His specific responsibilities include engagement management, implementation support, consultant management, and continual improvement of Olenick & Associates’ software testing service offerings. Rick also leads the Practice Delivery Group at Olenick & Associates to ensure client satisfaction across all of Olenick & Associates’ service concentrations.
Before joining Olenick & Associates, Rick was a Quality Manager at Geneer where he managed the testing and quality efforts for numerous custom software development projects in the Factory Automation market.
Rick has designed and built automated test frameworks for large-scale functional and performance tests using commercial and open source tools and is currently leading Olenick & Associates’ effort to apply automation methods to SOA implementations.
Rick earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.
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 Gary
Cunningham, SPHR
Director of Human Resources & Employment
Services
Gary Cunningham is an Associate at Olenick & Associates
(O&A) and the Director of Human Resources & Employment Services. In his role, Gary is responsible for developing people
strategies, directing HR delivery, and overseeing
the firm’s employment services. Gary is also responsible
for leading the Talent Management Group (TMG).
Gary
has 13 years of experience in Human Resource Management
and Talent Acquisition supporting both large and
small companies in various industries and markets
including CPG, Energy, Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Information Technology and Insurance.
Prior
to joining Olenick & Associates, Gary was an HR Consultant with CNA Insurance and a Recruiting Manager
for Ajilon Consulting. Throughout his career, Gary
has focused on leveraging best-practices in HRM,
HRD, and Talent Acquisition to maximize the effectiveness
of an organization’s human capital and contingent
labor for the purpose of achieving business objectives.
Gary
earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical
Science from Texas A&M University, and in the Fall of 2007 will complete a dual-degree program with
a Masters of Management in Human Resources (MMHR)
and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA). He
also holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources
(SPHR) designation as granted by the Human Resource
Certification Institute.
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 Tom
Van Duerm
Director of Finance & Business
Administration
Tom Van Duerm is the Director of Finance & Business
Administration for Olenick & Associates. He is responsible for managing the accounting and finance functions
of the firm as well as the internal administration
of O&A’s corporate offices.
Tom has over 17
years of experience working domestically and internationally
in financial administration, operations and sales/marketing.
Tom has worked for both large and small organizations
in industries ranging from OEM, wireless, to real
estate. Tom has been able to successfully apply
his wide range of experience to his position at
O&A.
Prior to joining
Olenick & Associates, Tom was the VP of Operations for Peoples Auto Parking, a parking
and real estate acquisition firm here in Chicago.
While there, Tom successfully managed several key
strategic initiatives to include a financial system
conversion and the automation of the firm’s revenue
collection process.
Tom earned his
Bachelor of Science from De Paul University in
Management with a minor in Accounting.
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 Ernie
Van Stedum
Practice Director - O-Solutions
Ernie Van Stedum is an Associate at Olenick & Associates
and the Practice Director of O-Solutions. In his
role, Ernie is responsible for recruitment strategies,
account service delivery, requisition fulfillment,
contractor facilitation, and business development.
O-Solutions is a practice within Olenick & Associates that focuses solely on augmenting the staff of Fortune 1000 IT departments
with IT professional in all disciplines of IT by
facilitating contract, contract-to-hire, and permanent
placements.
Before joining
Olenick & Associates, Ernie was a key Account Manager for Insight Promotions where he
was responsible for business development and client
satisfaction at The Kellogg Company, Land O’Lakes,
and General Mills. Prior to Joining Insight Promotions,
Ernie was a Client Manager at Geneer Corporation
responsible for consulting engagements with GE
Fanuc, Mitsubishi, and Siemens to name a few. Additionally,
Ernie has held various roles in Information Technology
such as MIS Manager, Systems Engineer, and Senior
Developer.
Ernie earned his
Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering
from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Tom
Olenick