Manufacturing Tomorrow

Lieutenant Colonel Kathy Gallowitz, founder and CEO of Vanguard Veteran, is a seasoned 30-year Air Force veteran. In response to 9/11, she designed and led a novel statewide outreach program for the Ohio National Guard to educate and engage civilians in support of troops and their families.

Kathy is the author of Beyond ‘Thank You for Your Service:’ The Veteran Champion Handbook for Civilians, where she describes how civilians from all segments of society can become Veteran Champions and provide meaningful, practical support for those who serve. Through her business Vanguard Veteran, she helps employers source, hire and retain Veteran talent.

She is a past chair of the Governor of Arizona’s Veterans’ Service Advisory Commission and the Southwest Veteran Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. She is the veteran hiring advisor for the Arizona Society of Human Resource Management. Her practice and perspectives are framed by master’s degrees both in nursing from UT Health San Antonio and political science at Ohio University.

Keywords: workforce development, veteran employment, manufacturer employers

As Chief Learning Officer at HumanWRKS and Principal Industrial Strategist for Hexagon Asset Lifecycle Intelligence. Brent Kedzierski’s primary roles at both companies are to improve the worker experience by creating a more human-centered approach to digital transformation.

At Shell, Brent served as Head of Learning Strategy and Innovation, and Global Manager of Manufacturing Learning. He was the driving force behind many of Shell’s most critical global learning transformations, earning the company recognition as a world-leading human resource management and learning organization.

In addition to an executive leadership program at The Wharton School, Brent earned his master’s degree in Human Performance Systems at Marymount University and a bachelor’s degree in training and development at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Keywords: Industry 4.0, human-machine interface, workforce development, AI-infused data insights

Meghan Kennelly is head of Global Marketing at German Bionic, a robotics firm headquartered in Germany and the US that develops and produces wearable technologies, including connected exoskeletons driven by artificial intelligence.

Under Meghan’s leadership, German Bionic has secured a number of accolades, such as Fast Company’s “Innovation by Design Award,” the CES 2023 “Best of Innovation” Award, the German Entrepreneur Award, and a coveted Hermes Award nomination at the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industry trade fair.

Prior to German Bionic, Meghan worked as Director of Global Marketing & Communications at Yamaha Unified Communications, and as Marketing Manager for the CIO Executive Council at IDG. She earned her master’s degree in digital marketing at Southern New Hampshire University and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing at Worcester State University.

Keywords: AI, exoskeletons, manufacturing workforce, Industry 4.0