OUR
TEAM

The power of NEXT LEVEL Partners^®, LLC is our people and our experience.

Our leadership team has decades of collective expertise driving superior shareholder value creation. Our practitioner team is unmatched in real-world experience and success implementing Lean, Toyota Production System and Six Sigma methods enterprise-wide. Read a little about us and find out how we can connect with you to help your organization.

Our Leadership Team

Bill Butler

Founding Principal

Bill is a founding principal of NEXT LEVEL Partners^®, LLC. He founded the firm with the vision to leverage his more than 30 years of successful leadership experience into Lean transformation client offerings that take organizations to the next level of business performance. Prior to founding…

Don Dreher

Founding Principal

Don is a founding principal of NEXT LEVEL Partners®, LLC. He founded the firm with the vision to leverage his more than 30 years as an exceptional leader of Lean enterprises and top practitioner of Lean Business System implementations to help clients consistently deliver outstanding…

Dennis Longo

Founding Principal

Dennis is a founding principal ofNEXT LEVEL Partners®, LLC. He founded the firm with the vision to leverage his more than 30 years of human capital experience to help clients build winning, high-performance teams that deliver outstanding results. Prior to founding Next Level Partners®,…

Ronica Bowen

Principal

Ronica is an accomplished Lean operations executive with a strong track record of transforming organizations through the implementation of comprehensive Lean Business Systems. As an experienced business leader, Lean Transformation architect, and Lean TPS sensei, she is…

Darlene Kober

Principal

Darlene Kober is a commercial leader with more than 25 years of experience accelerating profitable growth in high-performance, high-expectation organizations. She has developed and executed several advanced Commercial Excellence/Growth Tools as both a…

Andy Lee

Principal

Andy is a recognized pioneer and leader of Lean implementation in a broad range of geographies and industries with deep expertise in the hospitality and entertainment industry. As a former Danaher Business System (“DBS”) Director at Danaher Corporation, Andy had…

Eric Lussier

Principal

Eric is a hands-on student and practitioner of Lean with a passion for building problem-solving cultures built on the pillars of continuous improvement and respect for people. Originally trained by a Japanese sensei as an engineering co-op student, he has over 25 years of experience…

Brian Maready

Principal

Brian Maready brings a unique leadership background in Lean healthcare and manufacturing with over 25 years of expertise in engineering, operations, and marketing. Specializing in supporting complete business transformations, he ensures companies become…

Will Bedingfield

Vice President

Will has more than 20 years of experience implementing Lean principles and strategies in both the service and manufacturing industries. He is a hands-on leader-of-change with an enviable track record of coaching and mentoring teams through transformational Lean journeys…

Skip Gallo

Vice President

Skip is a broadly skilled sales, marketing, and operating executive with more than 30 years serving the industrial marketplace. He is passionate about helping clients achieve breakthrough growth and profit improvement using Lean transformation techniques. Before joining NEXT LEVEL…

Jim Kenyon

Vice President

Jim is a human resource executive with 30 years of experience identifying A-player talent in private equity-backed and Fortune 500 companies. Before joining, NEXT LEVEL Partners^®, LLC, Jim founded Better Talent Faster, a human capital and executive search firm. He is also HR…

Our Practitioners

All are Lean “A” Players
Have 15 - 25+ years of experience
Most have both domestic and international experience
On average, have facilitated / led over 450 kaizen events in a high-performance / high-expectation operating environment
Collectively have hundreds of years of experience insolving real-world problems

All understand that you live continuous improvement, you don’t implement it
All understand the importance and alignment with Strategy Deployment
All are TPS (Toyota Production System) based Lean tools certified
All have expertise in multiple tools, ensuring your improvement roadmap contains an an optimal mix of tools