The Knowledge Peak ITIL & ITSM Team

Katherine Lord - ITIL Service Manager - with Distinction, ITIL v3 Expert

Katherine is an ITIL certified Service manager (with distinction), certified at the ITIL Foundations level, is a Six Sigma Yellow belt, holds an ITIL Practitioner’s certificate in Incident Management/ Service desk and has been actively involved with ITIL version 3 since it’s inception. Additionally Katherine holds industry recognized Director and Service Desk Manager Certifications.

Katherine is a seasoned ITIL Practitioner with significant consulting expertise in the ITIL education and implementation space. As a certified instructor for HDI, and part of their global faculty, she teaches a variety of Support Center Certification Courses, KCS, and public, private, and custom ITIL Foundations classes across varied industry verticals. Katherine’s expertise also spans creation and delivery of customized education solutions geared towards attaining sustainability, adoption and alignment with ITIL best practices, and optimal service delivery to the business.

Stevie Peterson - ITIL Service Manager - with Distinction, ITIL v3 Expert, PMP

Stevie has over 25 years of experience in both functional leadership and consulting. During Stevie’s tenure at US Bank as VP- Process & Controls in the IT division, she had responsibility for cross-functional process improvements, strategy development and implementation, reports and analysis, along with functional responsibility for request, change, and problem management.

While employed by Qwest Communications, Stevie built and led a full service PMO accountable for the implementation of 2.3B in contract revenue. The PMO selected, trained, and developed almost 200 project managers across the country in addition to systematically tracking approximately 1400 projects.

In addition, Stevie successfully led and managed numerous enterprise-wide programs involving product introductions, new processes, and significant cultural changes.

Stevie has consulted and trained for a number of organizations headquartered in Minnesota and South Dakota in the areas of Project Management, Process Design / Improvement, and Organizational Transformation. She has been a featured speaker at PMI and itSMF local and national expos, with consistently high evaluation scores by attendees.

Julie L. Mohr - ITIL Service Manager, ITIL v3 Expert, PMP

Julie Mohr has over 14 years of IT service management experience, Julie continues to be passionate about service and support management. Her broad range of experiences include working as a Managing Consultant for outsourcing providers ARC and Pomeroy as well as NASA, The National Institute of Health and the Department of Education. Julie is a certified Helpdesk Director from Helpdesk 2000 and certified ITIL Service Manager. Julie provides imaginative insight and dynamic leadership to transform IT service and support organizations into best practice, customer-focused environments.

Julie has helped organizations to implement Knowledge Management, ITIL processes, organization structures, service catalogues, and service level management. Julie is an active contributor to the future development of the industry through speaking engagements at conferences and publishing articles on best practices. Julie is the author of The Help Desk Audit: Blueprint for Success, The Help Desk Toolkit: Companion CD and The Help Desk Dictionary, and maintains a service desk enhancement website at www.blueprintaudits.com. She is also a member of IEEE Computer Society, the Help Desk Institute, itSMF, ICMI and the Association of Support Professionals

John Custy - ITIL Service Manager, ISO/IEC 20000 Consultant, ITIL v3 Expert

John has over 25 years experience in design, analysis, and operations for Information Technology services. For the last twelve years he has served in a consultative role for technical services and IT Service Management. His global experience spans his entire career, as he has been involved in designing and implementing services for multinational, international, and global organizations. His knowledge and experience has provided outstanding value to many prestigious firms.

Jill Knapp - ITIL v3 Expert

Jill is an eleven-times ITIL-Certified hands-on systems professional with extensive experience in corporate training, outsourced IT management, service desk implementations, process redesign, technical writing, and team building. Over her nearly 20-year I.T. career, Ms. Knapp played key roles in LAN/WAN implementations, offshoring initiatives, and Sarbanes Oxley compliance audits. Her employment experience has spanned the Big 5 Consulting, medical, legal, financial, pharmaceutical, dot.com, Fortune 500, entertainment, publishing, and retail industries. Jill received formal training from the Project Management Institute at Rowan University, official Microsoft Group Policy/Active Directory design instruction, and a CompTIA+ certificate. In 2007, Jill spearheaded her employer’s Continual Service Improvement Program which focused on evaluating and coaching fellow trainers, as well as overhauling all training materials (Foundation through Service Manager). She holds a degree in Education from Montclair State University and has several published industry articles to her credit. She is currently working with Cisco Press/Pearson on the release of her book/DVD set entitled "ITIL V3 Foundation Exam Video Mentor" due out in Autumn 2009.

Ron Hovland - ITIL v3 Expert

Ron has been in the IT education field for fourteen years and has been teaching and consulting on ITIL since 2005. He has written curriculum on ITIL, Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), and .Net programming. Additionally, he is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and teaches .Net Programming and SQL Server database design for Knowledge Peak and Dakota County Technical College’s IT Training Center.

Eric Goodoien - ITIL v3 Expert

Eris has been doing consulting and training in all Service Management processes of ITIL over the last three years. He has designed and delivered multiple custom classes in ITIL Service Management for several large corporations in the Minnesota market, as well as around the United States, having trained over a thousand staff members within these companies on the ITIL Service Management processes.

Eric teaches the ITIL v3 Foundation Classes on a monthly basis and over 98 percent student pass rate.  He has delivered multiple ITIL Awareness sessions and is regularly asked to consult with CIOs and IT Directors as they look at implementing ITIL or improving the implemented processes.
 
He also teaches Microsoft Official Curriculum in the area of infrastructure and networking management, and best practices (MOF).

Ryan Ballmer - ITIL v3 Expert

Ryan has 18 years of management success. He has a proven ability to design and execute successful strategic and tactical plans while effecting continuous process improvement and market growth. He is skilled in implementing best practices through hands-on training and performance management. Ryan is known for his success in setting and achieving goals that support key business priorities and promoting accountability at all levels throughout organizations. He's a visionary problem solver with comprehensive technical background.

Ryan delivers all levels of IT service management consulting and training, including process maturity  assessments, process design workshops, implementation consulting, certification training and ITIL simulation workshops.

He has led ITIL process assessments and design workshops for standardized, consistent and repeatable processes, encompassing both methodologies and deliverables. He has directed numerous ITIL Practice engagements with clients, earning acclaim from both clients and key stakeholders

Yves St-Arnaud - ITIL Service Manager, PMP

Mr. Yves St-Arnaud has worked as an IT professional for 25 years, primarily in the areas of IT Service Management (ITSM) and Project Management.  He has held various technical and management positions within the Canadian Government and private industry.  He is also an ITSM Process and Systems Integration specialist.

Mr. St-Arnaud holds an Informatics diploma from the Outaouais CEGEP and is a graduate of the Université du Québec in Hull with a major in Business Administration.  He holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) accreditation from the PMI Institute and is ITIL Certified. (Foundation, Practitioner in Problem, Change and Configuration Management, and Service Manager (Master) level).

He has spent almost half of his career working for (or with) Military organizations in improving the Delivery of IT Services. He possesses key knowledge on the operations of military organizations and how ITSM best practices are to be applied within a military structure. He was involved in discussions with the US Army on strategy of how to establish an ITSM Program, specifically around the education area and future improvement projects.  He has delivered multiple ITIL Foundations classes for various US Army bases.

His work includes; current assignment as ITSM Strategic Advisor for the Service Management Improvement Program (SMIP) for the Government of Canada, which includes the development and implementation of all ITIL Processes for all of the Government of Canada. He was also involved in the development of Canadian Department of National Defense (DND) IM Configuration and Change Management Framework, the DND ITSM Strategic documents, and was one of the founding Board members of the ITSMF Ottawa-Gatineau Branch.  He is a Council Member of the National ITSMF Chapter and is affiliated with the ITSMF International organization.  In November 2005 he was invited to attend the ITSMF International and UK Conference.  He has been involved with the ITIL Framework for more than 5 years and has been instrumental in the launching of ITSM Projects for several Federal Government Departments.

PLUS MANY, MANY MORE GREAT PEOPLE