Abbie Cates has more than 20 years of professional experience in nuclear power, defense, public sector, food manufacturing, and information technology industries. She has provided strategic planning, process improvement, change management, leadership development and coaching, and workforce development and training at both the federal and local government levels.

Abbie has a strong foundation in listening, analyzing project details, and quickly forming relationships with key stakeholders. On every project she listens to customer needs and helps shape their vision into an actionable plan with excellence and integrity at the core.

PROJECT EXPERIENCE:

• Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department
• Washington State Department of Enterprise Services
• City of Seattle, Office of Economic Development
• United States Nuclear Navy
• Naval Sea Systems Command
• Pearson Packaging

EXPERTISE:

• Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement
• Organizational Change Management
• Project Management
• Program Management
• Strategic Planning
• Workforce Development
• Operational Analysis
• Reporting via roadmaps and dashboards

SAMPLE PROJECTS:

At Tacoma Pierce County Health Department Abbie created work processes that allowed for successful and repeatable implementation of software applications and technology integration projects. The processes focused on the human aspects of a major software implementation, ensuring that each impacted staff member fully understood their role in the project. This led to an increase in software adoption and user satisfaction due to these changes.

For the U.S. Navy Abbie performed program evaluation and analysis. She led work teams that collaborated at a national level, working with peer groups to establish best practices in areas including diversity leadership, continuous training and development, and strategic nuclear refueling planning. Each work group documented their findings and created comprehensive reports. These reports included a summary of findings, communication and implementation plans, and lessons learned.

Abbie worked with the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development to develop requirements for a future Special Events Permitting solution. This included documenting details of the current highly manual processes for the Special Events Permitting Office and providing an understanding of the process complexity and need for a modern, automated solution. The project identified risks from the manual process and added value by comparing other cities’ Special Events Permitting processes. This project used a hybrid Lean-Agile methodology and brought together more than a dozen stakeholder groups including City, County, and State entities.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS:

Abbie has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Wheeling Jesuit University and Master of Science in Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Refining from the Colorado School of Mines. She earned a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a Project Management Certification from the Department of Navy, and Agile certification from Colorado University at Boulder. She is a certified change practitioner in the Prosci® ADKAR methodology of Organizational Change Management and a meeting facilitator trained in the SuperTeams Elite Facilitator program.