Presenter Bios

Ms. Ashforth has over 25 years’ experience testing and certifying composite structures, as both a certification manager and composite materials specialist. Her background includes student research at the air force research lab, testing and certification at propeller and general aviation manufacturers, certification and quality assurance at an aviation equipment manufacturer, and FAA program manager for international validation of transport aircraft.

As one of the FAA’s subject matter experts for advanced materials and manufacturing, she provides technical advice on rulemaking activities, writes guidance documents, supports industry standards development organizations in a leadership role, oversees research, develops and delivers educational materials, and assists in certification projects and continued operational safety activities related to composite and additive manufacturing applications. She has also developed the related strategic plans to address safety challenges, ensure certification efficiency and workforce education in these areas.

Ms. Ashforth has a BS in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin and a MS in Materials Science from Wright State University.

Download presentation: Considerations for Certifying Additive Manufactured Parts

Raj Bashnoi is a Senior Technical Account Manager with Altair Engineering. He is a (insert year?) graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has helped companies in the defense, aerospace, automotive, consumer goods and maritime industries find optimal product design methods and workflows. Raj is passionate about helping designers, engineers and scientists improve all aspects of their product lifecycles. He maintains a tenacious focus on improving design efficiency – assisting companies in the development of lighter, stronger, and less costly products; all while reducing overall time to market. Raj is an outside-the-box thinker, always looking for ways to apply new technologies and solutions to customers’ challenges.

Download presentation: Digital Twin for Ensuring Part Performance before Build

Allison Dolan-Wilson is the Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Executive Director of the NECC Foundation at Northern Essex Community College, with campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, MA. At Northern Essex, she oversees fundraising, marketing and communications, alumni relations, stewardship, grants, the Center for Corporate and Community Education, career services, institutional effectiveness, and MassHire Merrimack Valley. With more than 20 years of experience in higher education, she was most recently Executive Director of Alumni Relations as well as Interim Executive Director of Annual Giving for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A Lowell native, Allison is a board member for Lowell Youth Lacrosse and Top Notch Scholars in Lawrence, and serves on the executive board of the Haverhill Chamber of Commerce, and as a corporator for Haverhill Bank.

Allison is a graduate of Emerson College, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Speech Pathology (BSSp), in Public Relations and Advertising; and a graduate of San Diego State University (SDSU), where she earned a Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) with a marketing specialization.

Download presentation: Social Impact and Equity: Making it in the Merrimack Valley – Bridging the gap between workers and career pathways in manufacturing

Stephanie Guyotte is the Associate Director of the UMass Lowell Innovation Hub Haverhill, a business incubator and coworking space driving startup innovation and entrepreneurship in Greater Haverhill. She joined UMass Lowell in the summer of 2017 to launch the iHub, where she leads operations, community engagement, and program development while serving as the primary day-to-day contact for members and external partners. Prior to joining UMass Lowell, Stephanie spent 15 years in communications, public relations and community education. Active within the community, Stephanie is currently the vice president of the Board of Directors of HC Media and on the board of the Haverhill Partnership Loan Fund.

Download presentation: Social Impact and Equity: Making it in the Merrimack Valley – Bridging the gap between workers and career pathways in manufacturing

John Michitson has worked for the MITRE Corporation for 36 years as a Project Leader, Systems Engineer and Innovation Catalyst where he applies systems thinking and advanced technology to provide solutions for some of our nation’s most critical challenges, such as Command and Control capabilities for our warfighters

John also serves as Vice President of the City Council in Haverhill, MA. He is now in his 21st year on the City Council, serving nearly half of that time as President

At MITRE, he was a trailblazer anticipating a shift toward the innovation economy and the need to collaborate with startups at innovation accelerators such as MassChallenge, FORGE and Entrepreneurship for All.

John developed partnerships with startups and scale-ups to address opportunities in public safety, defense and advanced manufacturing markets with several success stories developing partnered solutions.

As a City Councilor, he has led or co-led several innovation initiatives, including the successful Haverhill Hardware Horizons Challenge, a competition for hardware-based startups, which was a successful proof of concept for partnering local manufacturers with the innovation communities in Boston, Cambridge and elsewhere to co-develop products.

He also developed and managed new products in commercial telecommunications and networking industry, as a product manager and systems engineer at Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs.

He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Merrimack College. He also completed the Entrepreneurship Development Program at MIT Sloan.

Download presentation: AM Trust Showcase Introduction

He received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Civilian Service Medal and Secretary of Defense Excellence Award.

Today, Neal is president and co-founder of ASTRO America, a research institute and think tank supporting focused on manufacturing technology/policy formulation. In this capacity, he develops and oversees the organization’s strategic vision, in concert with other members of the Board of Directors, which he chairs.

Recently, he launched AM Forward along with President Biden and several major U.S. company leaders to help modernize key supply chains with 3D printing.

Over the last decade, he worked in private industry as an executive at both the General Electric Company and 3D Systems, overseeing those companies’ additive manufacturing research & development collaborations with the U.S. government. In that time, he has supported important agreements for investments in large scale metal 3D printing, in-process controls, machine learning, rapid qualification technology, and new high temperature materials.

This work has drawn on 20 years working with the government. In the Obama Administration, as DoD Director of Manufacturing, he oversaw Defense-Wide Manufacturing Science & Technology, Defense Production Act, and Industrial Base Analysis & Sustainment programs. The capstone of his tenure was launching the Manufacturing USA’s pilot institute, now called America Makes.

He currently serves as the Board Secretary of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing institute.

Download presentation: President Biden’s Additive Manufacturing (AM) Forward Initiative

Download presentation: Manufacturing Estimating & Quoting Software

Shaw Rosen is a Development Consultant for Lupoli Companies Real Estate Division, and works at all phases of new developments, including responses to RFP’s, community relations, state, federal and local tax incentive programs, historic rehabilitation, and project management. Prior to joining Lupoli Companies, she worked for ten years in education and workforce development as Executive Director of Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board, and was a member of the Haverhill School Committee. She is currently Chair of the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce and is a 2022 LEADS fellow.

Download presentation: Social Impact and Equity: Making it in the Merrimack Valley – Bridging the gap between workers and career pathways in manufacturing

John Sinopoli is an IT executive with over 20 years of technology consulting and leadership experience. In his prior position as Senior Vice President of Information Technology at Berkshire Bank, he led the IT team during the company’s aggressive merger and acquisition-based growth across the US. Sinopoli is now the President and CEO of Synagex, Inc. Synagex is an IT managed service provider focused on simple, result driven services for small to medium sized businesses. The company is a CMMC certified Registered Practitioner Organization focused on cybersecurity in the manufacturing space. Sinopoli is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell with a BS, Information Technology. He also holds an Executive Certificate, Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Download presentation: Cyber Security Assessments for Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturers

Sophan Smith is the executive director of EforAll/EparaTodos Merrimack Valley. EforAll is a nonprofit organization with a mission to help under-represented individuals get the training and support they need to start and grow their own business. In this role, Sophan serves as a visionary leader to raise the profile of EforAll/EparaTodos while strengthening relationships and collaborations with organizations and leaders who are connected to EforAll’s mission and purpose. In addition, she develops and implement a comprehensive fundraising plan while managing the day-to-day operations.

Prior to her role at EforAll, for almost two decades, Sophan spent her career working in Boston with institutions such as the Boston Private Industry Council, UMass Boston, and State Street Bank.

Sophan is a Khmer American, born overseas but raised in the city of Lowell, MA. She was born in Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge War, a genocide that killed over 2 million Cambodian men, women and children. Her family relocated to the U.S. as refugees and settled in Lowell. Sophan was 2 years old when they began their new lives in America. Sophan is a first-generation college graduate and studied her undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She currently serves on several steering committees and board, including the Asian Community Fund, the Lowell Development Financial Corporation, Mosaic Lowell, the Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce and Launch Your Business Now at Middlesex Community College.

When she isn’t wearing the executive director hat or networking in the community, Sophan can be found browsing cake recipes. She is a baking enthusiast and is self-taught. She also enjoys cooking traditional Khmer dishes and hosting dinner parties at her home. Currently, she resides in Dracut and is also a mom of two, Natya and KJ.

Master of Ceremonies

Mike is a skilled team builder and excels at identifying under-utilized talent within organizations and identifying needs for future growth. Mike works in a collaborative way ensuring partnerships/acquisitions are beneficial for all parties. Mike brings M&A, Sales/Marketing, Executive management, growth and business development experience in the Automotive, Medical, Aerospace, and commercial markets.

Mike started his career 20 years ago as a financial advisor in a family firm before starting on his entrepreneurial path building several businesses from the ground up in the technology, Financial, and manufacturing spaces. In 2011, Mike acquired Crystal Engineering, a family run manufacturer of High speed stampings and CNC machined parts. In 2012, Crystal did an internal startup concentrating on Capital equipment builds and Engineering services. Revenue has increased 3X and gross margins have improved significantly year over year while adding a number of employees to the organization. Mike is currently involved with the HP3, Haverhill Public Private partnership which was established to help secure living wage jobs for all graduating Haverhill High School seniors.

Mike Lives in West Newbury, MA with his wife and daughter and while not working enjoys skiing, rugby, and coaching baseball. Mike has a Bachelors degree from the University of Central Florida.

Download presentation: Needs of SMMs

As a part of her MITRE duties, Ms. Zides is the co-lead for the MITRE Advanced Manufacturing Marketplace (AMM) – a trusted digital environment in development that aims to securely connects buyers, designers, manufacturers, and sellers across government, industry, and academia.

Ms. Zides is also engaged with creating solutions to end the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging social innovation participatory design models to ensure equitable outcomes resulting in expanded business opportunities for non-traditional and socioeconomically disadvantaged vendors/startups, and bridging innovative technologies to support Federal agency sponsors such as the Dept of Defense, FAA, and Health and Human Services.

Prior to joining MITRE, Ms. Zides served as a Federal employee Business Management and Technical Management Professional (NH-04), leading the U.S. Air Force’s portfolio of counter small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) urgent operational need activities, expediting the acquisition, testing, and fielding of $800M in defensive capabilities to multiple combatant commands.

Ms. Zides is a retired U.S. Air Force officer with 20 years’ experience in a diverse and extensive array of program management, engineering, S&T, operational, mission support, and key leadership assignments. She has acquired command and control, space, and information operations weapon systems.

Ms. Zides received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also holds multiple master’s degrees including a master’s in organizational management from George Washington University, a master’s in gastronomy from Boston University, and a master’s in military operations from Air University. She is DAWIA Level III Program Management and Project Management Professional (PMP) certified.