Debbie Deland
Debbie is our business citizen at large. Her passion is to make contributions for action across the United States to radically reduce our use of world resources and to encourage preparation for major climate disruptions. Debbie is an experienced project/program manager with over 20 years of experience in large new product development and introduction, as well as in major process redesigns and improvements. She is a certified PMP (Project Management Professional) and Six Sigma Black Belt in Quality Management. She introduced and deployed multimillion dollar new products for AT&T and AT&T Solutions and delivered numerous process improvement projects with over $50M in cost reductions. The telephone voting services we take for granted today is just one of the new services, she developed and introduced through teams of AT&T Engineering, Operations, Marketing, and Bell Labs. She was key in supporting Live-Aid, Puerto Rico Mudslide Victims support, and many others. As Executive Director of the TeleManagement Forum, she led the development of the eTOM business process framework. This business process framework developed to Level 3 is the standard for all Telecoms and ISPs and has been accepted by the United Nations. Debbie tried her hand at small business by opening the first Cartridge World in the United States to refill ink and toner cartridges to keep them from dumping in landfills. She sold that business to find larger ways to make contributions to accelerating sustainability. For the panel, she will be focusing on providing learning articles and opportunities.
Debbie is expert in climate change and sustainability, as well as schooled in lean practices, The Natural Step, and systems thinking. Her vision is to integrate lean practices with the scientific principles of The Natural Step and broader understanding of complex systems behavior and ways to leverage them to produce more agreement on principles in hopes of creating more of a public tipping point for pointed actions to drive change across the US.
Debbie is a strong advocate of democracy and leads a voting precinct for every election as the Precinct Clerk. The money she and her team receive for their voting work all goes to S.T.A.R.S. who provide school supplies for kids that can’t afford them. Debbie is a big believer in contacting her representatives from President to state and local levels mostly focused on ideas, recommendations with less emphasis on complaint. Based on her attraction to systems thinking and The Natural Step, as well as lean and quality practices, she believes positive actions, recommendations and visions bring far more results that we all desire than complaints and negative outlooks.
Debbie worked for AT&T for 21 years in a variety of functional roles, predominantly as a Director for program/project management, new product development, quality and process improvement, as well as Operations and working with Bell Labs. Debbie spent 5 years working for the TeleManagement Forum working with International teams. She opened the first Cartridge World in the USA.
