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Keith Propst retired in 2018 with 30 years of experience in proposal management. He held proposal-related positions with two high tech companies for most of this time, with a 3-year period of independent proposal contracting between companies. Like most proposal professionals, Keith was drafted into proposal work unintentionally. He worked as a hands-on proposal manager as well as a director of a proposal organization. Before making the leap into proposal work, Keith worked for several Georgia-based manufacturing companies in a variety of roles.

APMP was a major factor in Keith’s success. APMP contacts helped him get started as an independent contractor and led directly to his second proposal position, which lasted 13 years. For more than 20 years, Keith filled a variety of leadership roles with the Georgia Chattahoochee APMP chapter, starting as program co-chair, then chapter chair for several years, and finally treasurer. He also served as co-chair for the Southern Proposal Accents Conference (SPAC) for more than a decade, working closely with peers in the Carolinas and Florida Sunshine APMP chapters. Keith is an APMP Fellow and was named Chapter Chair of the Year.

An Atlanta native, Keith grew up in Savannah, Georgia and graduated from Georgia Tech in 1973 with a BS in Applied Math. He credits his favorite high school English teacher with instilling good writing and editing habits and strongly believes that the ability to write clearly helped open doors throughout his career.​

Bobbie O’Brien, CF APMP Fellow, continues her attempt to retire. Having been lured from that idyllic state three years ago; another attempt will begin again in soon and also will probably only a few months! With almost 30 years’ experience in the Federal sector, she provides leadership to diverse proposal teams with direct accountability for leading strategic opportunities as well as development and continuous improvement of processes. Bobbie served on APMP’s international board (regional and strategic initiatives director); and was founding co-chair of the Liberty Chapter formerly known as NY Metro.

Rita Mascia is Global Bid Manager at Altro Rail and has been leading bids in APAC, EMEA and North America. Since 2000,  Rita has been involved in Business Development & Capture activities, Bid Writing, Bid Management and Training & Development. An active APMP member from 2012, Rita has presented at both the APMP UK and APMP Bid Con. She was a finalist in the 2019 APMP Individual Impact Award having been nominated for her impact setting up a Bid Management programme for Altro Rail.

Rita was a Board Member of APMP UK in the role of Certification Director (2015-16).  Since 2013 Rita has been volunteering as a coach and mentor to a number of fundraising professionals through the Small Charity Coalition and also informally through personal contacts.

In addition to being a Certified Professional (CPP APMP) Rita is also a certified Prince2 Project Management Practitioner and holds a level 7 Executive Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership (MCMI) from the Chartered Management Institute.  She holds a BA (Honours) in French and Linguistics and a Master in Applied Linguistics.  Rita is a Master Practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and a Toastmasters International Competent Leader (CC) and Competent Communicator (CL).

When she is not managing bids, Rita loves cooking, travelling, politics, and watching independent films.

Pippa Birch has worked in bidding for almost 20 years, the last eight as a freelancer. Her specialism is highways; however, she works with a diverse range of clients across many sectors. Pipster Solutions has become a successful, sustainable business with over 40 clients, providing bid writing, editing, management, coaching, and ongoing support. Pippa is a fan of keeping things simple, a champion of small companies and a supporter of creating and maintaining healthy connections with other bidding professionals. She wants young people to have easy access to information about amazing careers in bidding. Pippa is CPP APMP, APMP UK Rapport Mentor, Member of the Intentional Career Path Committee and is on APMP UK Awards 2020 Committee. Pippa also hosts #ThursdayThrong and #BidBites host and is part of the Bidding Quarterly award-winning team and a coach for APMP Professional submissions!

Karina Ames is experienced in winning work for engineering consultancies and currently leads Arup’s Infrastructure pursuit and bidding team in Australasia. She previously worked as a private investigator and with the Victorian Government. Karina holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, APMP Foundation Certification and was a 2019 APMP 40 under 40 winner. She has been an APMP ANZ committee member since 2016 and the Chapter Chair since 2019. This year, the chapter won the 2020 Stephen P. Shipley Chapter of the Year award.

Sunil has over 18 years of experience in Defence, IT & Telecom and Facilities Management sectors and has worked with MNCs like Thales Group, Ericsson and ISS A/S. Sunil is currently, the Head of Commercial Excellence (APAC) at ISS A/S, a facility management company headquartered in Denmark. At ISS A/S, Sunil established the Commercial Excellence function which encompasses of Bid Management, Price Management, CRM Administration, Graphics Designing and Knowledge Management. As a member of the ISS Asia Pacific Commercial Leadership Team, he supports the development and execution of the regional commercial strategy and governance, associated reporting and commercial model sign-offs.

Prior to his Corporate stint, Sunil has served as an officer in the elite Indian Air Force for 10 years. Sunil is the Chair of APMP India and a member of the Intentional Career Path Committee of APMP International. He is part of APMP 40 Under 40-Class of 2020 and was a Blue Ribbon Panel member for the APMP-BoK. Sunil holds Bachelors’ degree in Electronics Engineering, a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration along with professional accreditations in Aeronautical Engineering and Strategic Management. Sunil likes to travel and spend time with his family, when he finds time from his work or studies.

Neal Levene, CPP APMP is the Director of Proposal Management, Siemens Government Technologies. He has 30 years of sustained, progressive, and successful proposal development experience. He was previously the President and CEO of two small businesses, a 20-person, Data Warehouse company and a sole practitioner Proposal Management consultancy. He first caught the proposal bug shortly after graduating college when he was first asked to help out on resume preparation, and he never looked back. He is serving his third year on the Board of the National Capital Area Chapter of APMP, currently as the Technology Chair. He appreciates the opportunity to give back to the industry that has given him so much. Neal has been an active member of APMP since 2010, and he recently presented at the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Bid & Proposal Conference. In addition to APMP’s Professional Level Certification, Neal also holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification from the Project Management Institution (PMI). Neal lives in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife Diane. He has two grown daughters, one pursuing a history Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin, the other a Junior at Carnegie Mellon studying Engineering.

Mairi Morrison originally started her working life as a graphic designer, moving into bid and proposal management 18 years ago. She’s an all-rounder in the profession, with an excellent track record of proposal management – winning complex multi-million global bids for corporate companies; bid writing – helping clients focus their words on the customer, as well as successfully hitting the dreaded word and character count, and bid strategy. She’s worked across most sectors, in the UK and the US, and worked on specific deals in Greece, Kuwait, Norway and South Africa. Having worked her way up the ranks from small company to corporate life, she now works for Strategic Proposals.

Mairi’s been a member of the APMP since 2014 and won the Bid Excellence award in 2015. Holding APMP Professional certification, Mairi now also sits on the APMP UK Board as Marketing & Communications Director. She’s also actively engaged in thought leadership, publishing her research paper on “Mental health and wellbeing in the bid and proposal profession” in May 2020. As well as being an advocate for nurturing good mental health in our profession, she is also a crisis volunteer outside of work, to help those in need. Mairi has also presented at the APMP UK annual conference, and the US Nor’easters conference in 2017.

Jeremy Glover is a TS cleared, certified Project Management
Professional (PMP) with 10 years of proposal and project management
experience with a track record of multiple billion-dollar proposal
wins. Jeremy graduated with a bachelors of arts degree from the
University of Virginia and currently works as a proposal manager lead
for Lockheed Martin. Jeremy is also a 2020 APMP 40 under 40 award winner

Maria Flikkema directs proposal development for IBI Group. With a primary focus on the Canada East region, she has managed large scale proposals across the firm globally and provides strategic direction to proposal teams outside of the Toronto headquarters. Overseeing all aspects of proposal activities, including management of proposal deadlines and progress, and directing the Canada East proposal team, Maria is also responsible for developing a wide variety of customized marketing materials for new pursuits and contract renewals. Having been with the firm for more than 12 years, Maria has a proven track record delivering winning, multi-million to -billion dollar proposals under challenging deadlines for both public- and private-sector clients.

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Sonya Wooley is the President of Mammoth Technologies, LLC, a small boutique proposal firm specializing in proposal management for small business federal contractors. She has over fifteen years of experience in business development, proposal preparation and management, and pricing for federal government opportunities. She has generated proposals valued from $25 thousand to over $1 billion, acting as both Proposal Manager and Capture Manager for small to mid-sized government contracting firms. Sonya has a MA in Behavioral Science from University of Houston-Clear Lake, and received her BA in History from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She has served as the Chapter Chair for the Lone Star Chapter of APMP for seven years, served on the international board of APMP from 2015 to 2016, and currently serves on multiple APMP committees

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Gareth Earle has been in bid and proposal management pretty much throughout the whole of his career, with nearly 15 years’ experience in managing the submission of winning bids and leading the delivery of projects and programmes to achieve customer and business objectives. He made the conscious decision to specialise in the profession 7 years ago.

Gareth has been on the other side of the table, evaluating proposals and commissioning work for a major technical and social change programme on behalf of the BBC. For the past 5 years, Gareth has worked for TP Group, a specialist engineering and consultancy company, where he has developed and implemented TP Group’s Bidding Process and is the bid and project management office function owner across the Group globally.

Gareth has been a member of APMP since 2015. Ever since joining, Gareth has been a great supporter of APMP, encouraging other bid professionals to join and pursue certification, as well as attending best practice sharing events. This included Gareth being a speaker at the UK’s 2017 conference; only his second conference attendance. Gareth holds Practitioner certification and was awarded recognition for his influence and achievements in the profession under the 2019 40 Under 40 class.

Gareth has been a member of the UK chapter Board since April 2018, and having held the positions of Membership Director, Conference Director and Vice-Chair, Gareth is the current UK Chapter Chair and is a member of the APMP Chapter Liaison Committee.

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Mike Walsh, CF APMP is the current Chair of APMP. Concurrently, he leads the Alumni and Strategic Business Development efforts for EY’s Financial Services Organization. Mike has spent his entire time at EY in Business Development, starting more than 8 years ago as a Communications and Pursuit Strategist then leading the Service Line Enablement team prior to taking his current role. He was first introduced to proposal management while at Odyssey Systems Consulting Group, a midsized defense contractor. His professional career began 24 years ago as an officer in the US Coast Guard, and since then has taken a few twists and turns on its way to Business Development including stints as a Fire Training Captain for the State of New Hampshire, a middle and high school English and History teacher.

Mike received a B.S. in Government from the US Coast Guard Academy and M.S. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University. He has been on the Nor’easters board of directors since 2012 and served as the Chair of the Nor’easters Chapter from 2014-2019. Mike began APMP International board service in 2016, serving a 2-year term as Director and is currently in the middle of his 3-year term as Vice Chair, Chair and Past Chair.

• Winning specific projects and contracts for clients by providing ‘hands-on’ strategic proposal and presentation support in formal procurement and informal / proactive sales scenarios
• Delivering interim management and consultancy services to help organisations to improve their win rates whilst increasing the efficiency of their bid and proposal operations
• Delivering proposal skills development, coaching and APMP accreditation training

Larissa Cornelius owns nFold, a South African proposal consultancy that inspires success through words that win. She is the current chair of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) SA chapter. She has over 17 years’ business development and operational experience. She is a certified APMP Professional and was voted as one of the 40-under-40 APMP professionals in 2018. By combining proposal best practice with her operational and sales background, she actively promotes the proposal profession and helps businesses to win more. She is passionate about proposals and following best practices; as winning proposals ethically – improves lives, by creating and retaining jobs.

Randy Richter is Chairman and Price to Win Director at Richter & Company, Competitive analysis and market research firm focused on the Federal market.  Previously, Randy was a Senior Consultant at CAI/SISCo, served as Vice President, Strategic Business Development for Integrated Communication Solutions, responsible for the capture and operation of long-term programs within the Federal government.

Alan Howard , a 40+ years proposal industry veteran is a Certified Professional of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP®). Alan joined APMP in 2009 and was appointed to the APMP UK Board in 2016 as the Certification and Apprenticeship development director where he was heavily involved with the mentoring programme and the conference training days. ​

In his 40+ years’ working on proposals, Alan has worked on 100’s of proposals, has trained and mentored 150+ proposal professionals

As Sr. Vice President of Consulting at Shipley Associates, David Bol has over 30 years as a Senior Proposal Manager helping client’s win over $220 billion dollars of revenue. He has co-authored three books for APMP that still influence winning business development practices today. Mr. Bol is APMP certified at the Professional level, is an APMP Fellow and co-founded the Rocky Mountain APMP Chapter. He earned the Visionary award guiding the APMP group through the 90’s. He has held every international APMP Board position including being CEO of the Board of Directors in 2009.

Samantha Enslen runs Dragonfly Editorial, an agency that helps companies around the world write, edit, and design great content — including proposals. Sam is an APMP member and a frequent speaker at Bid & Proposal Con. She’s on the board of ACES: The Society for Editing, and she’s a writer for the Grammar Girl podcast. In short, she’s a book lover, word nerd, and grammar geek all in one.

Nicholas Adams is an industry veteran with 30+ years IT and bid and proposal experience having recently worked for Teradata as Lead for EMEA proposal management and RFX process previously leading their UK & Ireland Opportunity Management function. Before Teradata, Nic also worked at Liberata, Atos/Siemens IT Solutions, Dell, HP and Fujitsu.

Nic has served on the APMP UK Chapter Board of Directors since 2007. Nick was also 2017 and 2018 UK Conference director. At an international level, Nic has served as APMP International chair, past chair and was also first ever Treasurer for the Association. Nic is APMP Practitioner certified and has a business management degree from university of south Africa. Nic also served in the board of AFSM International, Rotary, Lions International and various education institutes.

Dick Eassom, aka Wordman, a Certified Fellow of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP®), past APMP Chief Executive Officer, recipient of the APMP William C. McRae Founders’ Award, past Chair of the APMP California Chapter and a proud member of the chapter’s Mentor program. Dick has presented at 15+ APMP Annual International Conferences on using Microsoft Word for proposal development.

Dick has authored over forty articles for “Wordman’s Production Corner” in the APMP Perspective. In his 40+ years of experience, Dick has led or contributed to numerous proposals in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia. Dick has a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Leeds in England.

Over the last 30 years Margaret Helsabeck has focused on leading proposal management, learning and communications across large business winning organisations in UK and USA. Margaret was the second UK APMP CEO and became an APMP Fellow in 2009. Margaret officially retired in 2015 and now runs Mags Arts Space travelling, drawing and painting.

Tim Snell has 20+ years’ experience in helping companies create solutions to win business. He has worked in some of the most remote, austere and dangerous places in the world including Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Mali and Sudan in support of military, United Nations, NATO and commercial organisations. Tim is an executive & Personal Coach, Business Winning consultant and Trainer. Tim is APMP Deputy Chief examiner and a regular speaker and contributor to APMP.

Ali Paskun CF.APMP is the founder of AbiL Solutions LLC and RFPtrainer. Ali is a veteran in the world of Federal Government contracting having worked for a number of government contractors to develop and refine successful approaches to winning Federal Government contracts. She has spent 35 years developing win strategies with expertise throughout the entire phase of proposal development cycle, primarily for small and mid-sized companies. Ali has an impressive track record of collaborating with and managing capture teams to identify best possible solutions for proposals. She used to manage the Journal of the Association of Proposal Management and has lectured nationally. She is an APMP Fellow and has earned APMP certification.

Kristin (Baron) Dufrene, CPP APMP Fellow, has twenty-six years of experience in Federal sector business development, including capture management and proposal development. Kristin has been a member of APMP since 1995 and served as the 2017 Chair of the International Board of Directors. She has led many joint Industry-Federal initiatives, including the Procurement Improvement Committee (PIC), the Federal Procurement Community, and the Government-Industry Acquisition Task Force. Kristin is currently Strategic Capture Executive Director for CACI and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from LSU.

Colleen Jolly has 20 years’ experience in visual communications, training, marketing (event management and sales (B2G, B2B, and B2C) across several industries and countries including deep expertise in the US, UK, and Australia. She is the youngest person to win the APMP Fellow Award in 2010; she won the APMP Insight Award in 2012 for her article on international business; was featured in Northern Virginia magazine’s “Top 10 Entrepreneurs Under 30” in 2010; and was a finalist for the Stevie Awards Creative Professional of the Year, 2009. She just won the inaugural “40 Under 40” honor from APMP in 2017.

She is a former Southeast of England Women’s Business Ambassador (2008-2010); docent at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (2004-2014); board member at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (2007-2014); served as Secretary of APMP NCA chapter 2010-2012; and on the International Board of APMP 2012-2015 as Secretary, COO, the youngest CEO in the organization’s history, and Past CEO.

Kirste Webb is APMP Fellow with 30+ years’ experience in all facets of business development and marketing services. Kirste is Senior Vice President Business Development at ARS Aleut Remediation. Kirste has twice been the volunteer Chair of APMP and was also instrumental in APMP’s certification program by pushing for an APMP Body of Knowledge (BoK).  Kirste also serves as a counselor with the East Tennessee Procurement Technical Assistance Center. She achieved APMP Certification – Foundation Level, and holds Bachelor’s degree and MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Eric Gregory has 42 years experience in business development, capture and proposal operations.
Eric has been honoured with APMP’s highest service award, the William C. McCrae Memorial Award, he also received CACI’s top honor for service excellence, the Admiral Thomas H. Moorer Award.
Eric is APMP-certified proposal professional (APMP CPP) and an APMP Fellow, Twice ex. CEO of APMP

Cathy Day has over 35 years’ experience directing, delivering, and training capture and bid teams. Cathy designed and developed the Association Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) Accreditation Programme. Cathy is APMP Fellow, APMP Accreditation Director and Chief Examiner since 2004.

Tony Birch is Chairman of Shipley Limited. An industry veteran with 40+ years’ experience who has trained over 10,000 people, helped win over $30bn in new business. Elected a APMP Fellow in 2006, Tony served on the main board of the APMP for 4 years; during that time he oversaw the development and launch of the APMP’s Certification Program. As one of the founders of APMP UK, Tony’s mission is to ensure that the role of a bid or proposal manager is recognised throughout the world as a profession – and not just a job.