People

Professors of Practice

Frank Cain
Frank Cain is an electrical engineer with 40 years aerospace experience with Honeywell in Clearwater, FL. He earned his master's degree in management from the College of Business, University of South Florida. He has served as a part-time instructor for St. Petersburg College for 33 years.

He is a subcontractor to three registrars for auditing companies to the following International Quality Management Systems Standards: ISO9001:2008, AS9100C, AS910A and AS9120A. He reviews other auditors' reports, and serves as a trainer and consultant. This is his fifth year teaching ISO9000/ISO14000 for the College of Engineering, University of South Florida.
As a person well versed in the above quality management systems standards along with being a Distinguished Toastmaster, Mr. Cain continues to create an interesting and informative learning environment, with excellent student feedback.

Dug Cooley
Mr. Cooley's expertise is in delivering business value with a changing diverse workforce. Skills in program, project, and system management are applied to global implementation and cutting edge technology. He has experience in leading breakthrough technology development, and managing leadership teams implementing business capability around the globe. He leverages his business background, and academic education to instruct and mentor students at the University of South Florida, both the Tampa Campus and Sarasota Manatee, and the State College of Florida.

Mr. Cooley worked for IBM Global Services as a senior project manager for 15 years. He leads a portfolio team of project managers who deliver global information technology supporting business process and technology outsourcing clients. In this role, he provides program and project management leadership for large complex IT development, and data center consolidation and transformation using a PMO organizational structure.

Prior to working for IBM, Mr. Cooley was employed by Lockheed Martin and Westinghouse Electro-Optical as a senior systems engineer. During this 23-year period, Mr. Cooley worked in the areas of flight simulation, night vision system development; and research and development. Mr. Cooley was one of the leads in the development of the AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Identification System) for the FBI.

He has a master of science in electrical engineering from the University of Central Florida, and also his BS in engineering from UCF. He also earned an MS in computer information systems from Nova Southeastern University.

Joseph Daum, Ph.D.
Dr. Joseph R. Daum is the president of GoBu Consulting, Inc., a company dedicated to helping organizations expand their defense business base, and provide new and improved technologies to the warfighter. He retired from the Department of Defense with over 30 years of service. Dr Daum spent the last 18 years at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) While at USSOCOM he served in several positions including the Chief of the SOF Information Technology Enterprise Contracts Division, the chief of Acquisition and International Analysis & Oversight, the Acquisition Program Manager for the Special Operations Equipment Advanced Requirements Program (SPEAR) and the Command's Technical Industrial Liaison Officer (TILO), Procurement Analyst and a Contracting Officer. While at USSOCOM he executed several high-dollar contracts and developed acquisition policies in support of the USSOCOM Commanders in the execution of acquisition authority granted by 10 USC Section 167.

Dr. Daum spent the beginning years of his career supporting Air Force in the acquisition of Major Weapon Systems at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. He served in the System Engineering Avionics Facility at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base while attending the University of Dayton. He was a contract specialist supporting the Research and Development Contracting Office, the Reconnaissance and Warfare System Program Office (SPO) and the B-1 SPO in the Aeronautical Systems. He also was a contracting Officer for the F-16 System Program Office.

Dr. Daum is a graduate of the Air Force's Copper-Cap management trainee program and the Department of Defense Executive Leadership Development Program. He has a BS in Business Administration from the University of Dayton, a masters in business administration from Wright State University and doctorate of business administration from Argosy University. He also teaches business, logistics, math, statistics, program management and general studies classes for the University of South Florida, the University of Phoenix, and Embry Riddle University.

Richard Hunter, Ph.D.
Richard Hunter received a bachelor of science and a master's of science degree from Oklahoma State University. He completed his master of public administration degree and his Ph.D. in environmental health at the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Hunter was named president and CEO of FTSI in September, 2001. The company is a contract sterilizer of medical devices and consumer goods and operates a gamma irradiator in Polk County, FL. FTSI is listed on the NASDAQ exchange and is certified to ISO 13485 standards and FDA registered. Prior to joining FTSI, Dr. Hunter served as Florida's Deputy State Health Officer where he was responsible for overall direction of about 11,000 employees. Many of these programs had regulatory components and Dr. Hunter was highly involved in the administrative law and rule-making process.

Dr. Hunter has received several awards for his professional work and has served on numerous local, state and federal government advisory boards. He is the author of 23 scientific papers.

Sandy Lovins
Sandy Lovins holds an MBA degree from Saint Leo University in Florida, and a baccalaureate degree from Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. She received her Professional in Human Resources Certification in 1997, is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and the College and University Personnel Association. Ms. Lovins is a former president of the State of Florida System College and University Human Resources Executives Group and member of the Council for Administrative and Financial Affairs.

Ms. Lovins held the position of Vice President of Administrative Services for the University of South Florida from 2010-2014, having previously served as associate vice president of Human Resources since June 2004. She held the position of director of Human Resources from May 2003 to June 2004. As vice president of Administrative Services, Ms. Lovins was responsible for the leadership and overall direction of the following units: Environmental Health & Safety, Facilities Management, Human Resources, Parking and Transportation and Public Safety.

As associate vice president of Human Resources, Ms. Lovins served as the Chief Human Resources Officer for the University and was responsible for the overall direction and management of the division, including policy development and implementation, business unit alignment with strategic goals and mission, budget management, and people and program development. She was responsible for managing all labor relations for the University, including serving as chief negotiator for the USF Board of Trustees.

A results-oriented, seasoned business professional, Ms. Lovins has an extensive leadership background and significant experience serving on senior management teams responsible for strategic planning, execution and day-to-day operations. She has a wealth of experience working in both the public and private sectors with nearly 20 years in higher education. Prior to her position at USF, Ms. Lovins served as vice president of Human Resources at Pasco Beverage Company.

Valerie Landrio McDevitt, J.D., MST, CLP
Assistant Vice President for Division of Patents & Licensing
U.S. Registered Patent Attorney
Division of Patents and Licensing

Ms. McDevitt is a U.S. registered patent attorney and assistant vice president at the University of South Florida Division of Patents and Licensing, which is the primary university contact for industry partners and start-up companies interested in technology transfer. In 2010 USF was ranked 20th among technology transfer offices in licensing revenue and 9th among universities for US patents issued. During her more than ten year tenure at USF there has been significant improvement and advancement in licensing, revenue, and commercialization of early stage technology. Ms. McDevitt was appointed by Governor Crist and served on the Task Force for the study of Biotech Competitiveness and currently sits on the USPTO's Patents Public Advisory Committee.

Prior to joining USF, Ms. McDevitt served as assistant patent counsel and a research chemist for Bausch & Lomb Pharmaceuticals. She also participated in the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship program and worked as a science advisor with a House subcommittee in Washington, D.C.

Ms. McDevitt received her BS in chemistry from Siena College in Loudonville, New York, masters in science and teaching (MST) in chemistry at the University of Florida, and a JD at Emory University School of Law. She is a certified licensing professional (CLP) through LES, a member of the Georgia and Florida bars, and is admitted to practice before the Federal Patent and Trademark Office.

Dr. Vishnu Nanduri
Dr. Nanduri received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of South Florida (USF) in 2009 and subsequently served as a tenure track Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for four years in their Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department. For the previous two years he has been working in Big Data Analytics industry as a Senior Data Scientist and is currently the Practice Head for Data Science and Engineering in IT Operations Analytics at IBM. He has over a decade of experience in unsupervised ma- chine learning, statistics, and stochastic optimization. He has applied machine learning and advanced text analytics methods in energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and IT industries. Visit  www.vishnunanduri.com for more information.

Christos Nicolaou
Christos Nicolaou works for Raytheon, where he holds the position of operations manager for the Largo manufacturing facility. He joined the company in March of 2009 as the site's leader of the Raytheon Six Sigma™ (R6s®) program and activities. He is a Raytheon Certified Six Sigma Expert, a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, and a registered assessor of Quality Systems.
He has 31 years of diversified experience in Six Sigma and Lean, business process improvements, strategic planning, quality effectiveness and operational excellence and program management in electronics manufacturing and engineering development within the Aerospace and Defense industry.

Before joining Raytheon, Mr. Nicolaou was the senior director of Quality Assurance & Six Sigma at Sypris Electronics, where he led the development of the infrastructure and deployment of the company's Lean Six Sigma initiative. He began his career with Honeywell as a quality engineer, and subsequently held positions as Supplier Quality Engineering Manager and Product Assurance Manager. At Group Technologies Corporation, he served as a Senior Program Manager, Director of Manufacturing and Director of Operations. Under his leadership the company received the Florida Sterling Award in the Large Manufacturing Sector.

He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of South Florida and attended an MBA course at the Florida Institute of Technology. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida since 2006.