Alex WesterbandDr Alex Westerband was born in Cap-Haitien, Haiti and later graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Universite d’Etat d’Haiti on August 2nd, 1982. After practicing one year in the rural community of Kenscoff, he decided to travel overseas as an avid young physician in quest for more knowledge and expertise and then he pursued advanced surgical training first in France, then in the United States. He holds a Diploma in Surgery from the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg, France. He is also Board-Certified in Surgery and in Vascular Surgery by the American Board of Surgery. Dr Westerband spent many years as a clinician researcher and a surgical educator for the students and surgical residents of University of Arizona where he became an Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery in 2002. He also occupied the position of Clinical Director of Vascular Surgery while caring for the US Veterans at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System from 1997 to 2004. Throughout the years, Alex has authored or co-authored more than thirty peer-reviewed articles and several book chapters. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the Society for Vascular Surgery, the Association for Academic Surgery, the Western Vascular Society, the International Society of Endovascular Specialists and other medical societies. He is now in private practice in Tucson. He intends to dedicate part of his time and experience helping his native country Haiti and contributing to its development particularly in the field of health care and education.

Darron SmithSince May of 2010, Darron has served as a business leader for Americas Airlines. In this role, he manages a multimillion dollar profit and loss between Honeywell Aerospace and number of US based Airlines. Key areas of responsibility include sales, business growth, strategic alignment, product support and customer service. In advance of this role, he was the Customer & Product Support Director for Americas Airlines from 2008 to summer 2010. Here he led the Americas team of customer support program managers to achieve best in class customer service as measured by standardized customer feedback methodologies. Before supporting the Honeywell Airlines business, he served as Global Customer Care Leader for Honeywell’s Business & General Aviation group. He also managed a sales team at Honeywell Consumables Solutions with AOP financial, past dues, and inventory targets, and actions in support of the Consumables Solutions to BE Aerospace divestiture.  

In advance of his start in Aerospace in early 2006, he spent 8 years at Honeywell’s Automation and Control Solutions (ACS) Strategic Business Group (SBG), where he worked in the information technology function. Here he was the DigitalWorks leader for ACS and was collaborating with IT leaders across Honeywell to share insights, technologies, leverage best practices in support of Honeywell business objectives and formulate spans Honeywell strategic plans. On a separate assignment, Darron spent a number of weeks in Europe leading Information technology integration initiatives to assist ACS’ acquisitions and mergers. In an earlier roles, he a significant amount of time program managing global technology deployments, progressive IT solutions and Voice of the Customer processes.

Before joining Honeywell, he worked at Standard Products Canada Limited where he was a plant launch manager and assisted with the setup of a facility in Aguas Calientes, Mexico which supplies parts to Nissan, Chrysler, and many other automotive companies. In this role he worked in Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Mexico to coordinate global processes and logistics.

Darron is from Toronto, Canada. He and his wife, Deborah, and their three boys (11, 9 and 6) moved to Phoenix, Arizona in April 2006. Darron is a professional engineer and holds degrees in Engineering and Biophysics from the University of Western, Ontario, Canada. He is Six Sigma Black Belt Certified. 

Leon Andrews

Leon T. Andrews, Jr. serves as senior fellow at the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, where he has led all of the Institute’s youth development work with mayors and other municipal leaders around the country including in areas related to childhood obesity, disconnected youth, youth engagement and leadership, and youth master planning since 2006. Before joining the National League of Cities, Leon completed a research fellowship at The Forum for Youth Investment. Leon has an extensive background working in government, the community, the private sector, and academia for the last 18 years including the United States Department of Justice, United States Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, the United States Public Interest Research Group, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, YouthBuild Pittsburgh, the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University. He is a published author, a presenter at a number of conferences and other forums throughout the country, and serves on a number of national and local boards. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Howard University, a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, and is a PhD candidate in the Urban and Regional Planning program at The University of Michigan. Leon is married to an amazing woman, Dr. Kristine M. Andrews, for the last nine years and they have two beautiful daughters – Jessica Austin and Julia Iris.  

Jacques JeanJacques M. Jean is originally from Haiti and left his native country immediately after high school to pursue higher education abroad. He is the founder of Universal Learning Centre and has always wanted to bring quality educational tools to his native country. He is an accomplished business professional with over 15 years of dynamic business experiences.

Currently, Jacques is the Director of Global Service Delivery for Invensys. A global technology group, supplying solutions, software, consultancy and equipment to monitor, control and automate processes in a wide range of environments. From oil refineries to power stations, from railways to domestic appliances, helping our customers to optimize their processes and improve their performance.

Prior to that Jacques was the Value Based Planning Manager for Honeywell International. A technology and manufacturing company, which serves the aerospace products and services, control, sensing and security technologies for buildings, homes and industry, turbochargers, automotive products and chemicals etc. Jacques worked with all business unit CIOs to optimize their IT infrastructure services and minimize spending. Jacques was the IT International Manager for Honeywell Consumer Product Group, he was responsible for the business IT planning, services delivery, and team development in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Preceding that, Jacques was the Strategic Planning Manager at the Honeywell Automation & Control Solutions business group where he was responsible for establishing real-time, high-performance analysis and reporting for all levels of business users and optimizing overall business performance through intelligence business puzzling. Prior to that, Jacques served as the IT Six Sigma Leader in Latin America for Honeywell Corporate where he was responsible for the regional Program Management deployment and deployment of Six Sigma across Honeywell Latin America and the Caribbean.  Before joining Honeywell in 1999, Jacques worked for Carnegie Mellon University as a Linguist Technician in the Diplomat project in Pittsburgh, PA.

Jacques earned a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and continued his studies with an Executive Program in Business Marketing Strategy from the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Jacques also holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from La Universidad De Guadalajara, in Mexico.  Jacques speaks Creole, French, Spanish, English and some Portuguese.  Jacques lives in Texas with his wife and three children.

Eric Awerkamp

Eric C. Awerkamp received his B.A., summa cum laude, in Accounting from Arizona State University in 1986.  he received his J.D. from J. Rueben Clark Law School in 1989 and was a member of law review.  Upon graduation, Mr. Awerkamp joined the law firm of Beus, Gilbert & Morrill as a litigation associate. In 1993, he joined the law firm of Brown, Arenofsky, Squire & Sacco and practiced in the areas of workers’ compensation and personal injury.  In 1997, he opened his own practice and continued his practice in the areas of workers’ compensation and personal injury. He is a certified specialist in workers’ compensation and a member of the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association.  He is the past co-chair of the workers’ compensation section of the State Bar of Arizona.

On a non-professional basis, Mr. Awerkamp is an Eagle Scout and has served many years as a volunteer leader with the Boy Scouts of America.  Mr. Awerkamp has served on Woodbadge staff, which is advanced training for adult Boy Scout leaders.

Internationally, Mr. Awerkamp served a French speaking mission for the LDS church in Belgium and France during 1981 and 1982.  His mission exposed him to a wide variety of people from around the world.  This experience created his desire to help educate and assist people around the globe.  Mr. Awerkamp believes that education and service are what will truly improve this world for everyone.

On a personal basis, Mr. Awerkamp has been fortunate to be married twenty two years to Debra, the love of his life.   He has six children spanning nineteen years.  Mr. Awerkamp lives in Arizona.

Rodrick Miller

Rodrick T. Miller is the president and CEO of the New Orleans Business Alliance, the official economic development organization responsible for driving the long-term economic vitality of the City of New Orleans. Miller arrives at the NOLA Business Alliance, after having served as the Executive Vice President of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber for the last year. In that role, he managed day-to-day operations, strategic planning, and coordinated efforts for the firm’s $20M capital campaign. Previously, Miller was Vice President of International Economic Development for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) where he lead international economic development activities which encompassed foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction, deepening relationships with foreign markets, and increasing international competitiveness of the region. In this role he played a key role in crafting the Arizona Global Network, a statewide collaboration of economic development organizations. He also led the competitiveness practice of GPEC where he led public policy efforts and development of the organization’s action plan which led to delivery of more than 9,600 jobs in just 2 years. Before GPEC, Rod held a myriad of positions in the public and private sectors with the City of Glendale, Infrastructure Management Group, Ernst & Young, and CEMEX.

Miller is a results-oriented leader with strong experience in strategic planning, developing and managing budgets, and providing complex analysis to ensure achievement of long-term objectives. He has managed large development projects ranging from the development of large shopping centers to relocation of company manufacturing facilities. He has also put together financing models for diverse projects ranging from professional stadiums to public airports. He is an experienced policy analyst, advocate and negotiator, skilled at crafting unique policy solutions and easing tensions between multiple competing factions. He has strong business development skills and is accomplished in project management, team building, and leading consultative sales. His international experience spans the globe and includes work in the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Miller has a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Science degree in international business from St. Augustine’s College. He also gained a Graduate Diploma in Finance from the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Mexico while completing a Fulbright Fellowship there. Rodrick was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a Fellow at the International Career Advancement Program at the Aspen Institute. Miller was recognized by Ebony Magazine as a rising young leader under 30, the Phoenix Business Journal as one of the “Forty Leaders in Arizona under 40”, The Phoenix Business Journal as a “Global Power Player” and the Arizona Republic as the “Executive of the Week”.

Miller is an intellectually curious professional whose interests lie at the intersection of economic development, international commerce, innovation, and community action. A scholar practitioner, he is a sought after lecturer and contributes to various publications on diverse topics including the economy, education, and diversity. He enjoys playing the piano, reading, and spending time with his family. Miller is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese.