Keynote Speakers

Be inspired and challenged to improve your own facilities by healthcare process improvement and quality leaders during keynote presentations at the conference.

Friday, Feb. 18, 2011

Kathy Kilmer
Director, Industrial Engineering for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts U.S.

Kathy Kilmer is the director of Industrial Engineering for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts U.S., which includes the world's largest vacation destination, one of the largest single-site employers in the world, and home of one of the largest centralized industrial engineering teams. She has the challenge of improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and overall profitability across all areas of the business from front-of-house operations (e.g., six theme parks, two water parks, 20 resorts, two Downtown Disney areas, the Disney Cruise Line, etc.) to back-of-house operations (e.g., four textile plants, three distribution centers, asset maintenance, energy management, etc.), as well as sales and marketing and new development around the world.

Her team, consisting of more than 100 industrial engineers, serves as an internal business consultant applying the IE skill set to a multitude of challenging issues. Such issues include establishing operating hours and monthly sales goals, optimizing bus routes for 250,000 daily guest trips, implementing meter-based maintenance scheduling for ride vehicles, and building queuing and simulation models for call centers, theme park rides, and resort front desks. The industrial engineers' span of control across all business units makes them uniquely qualified to solve the more complex business challenges.

A graduate of Purdue University, Ms. Kilmer received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. She also holds a master's of science degree in operations research and an executive master's of business administration from the University of Central Florida (UCF). She serves on the Council of Industrial Engineers' Executive Committee and was a keynote speaker at IIE's Annual Conference and Expo 2006, the 2008 Industrial Engineering Congress in Monterrey, Mexico, and the 2009 Canadian Operations Research and Lean Health Care Conference in Vancouver. Her leadership of Diversity and Community Service teams at Disney demonstrates her passion and commitment to those efforts, especially as it pertains to increasing K-12 students' awareness of the engineering field.

She also shows her commitment through her participation on Purdue University's Engineering Advisory board and the production of a video that describes Industrial Engineering at Disney (the video can be found on IIE's website at http://www.iienet2.org/media/disney/flowplayer.htm ). Kathy is also a recipient of IIE's UPS Excellence Award for Minority Advancement, Disney's Partner in Excellence lifetime achievement award, and Purdue University's Outstanding IE Alumni Award.