International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Greater Philadelphia Chapter

Board of Directors

Carol Miller is the VP of Professional Development for the Advanced Concepts Center (ACC), a learning solutions and service provider to Fortune 1000 corporations. She currently holds the position of Vice President of Professional Development of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) Philadelphia Chapter and is looking forward to serving another term. Carol has 20 years of experience where she has consulted with Fortune 1000 corporations on learning, process and knowledge transfer, and building Project Management and Business Analysis processes and skills development programs.

ACC was originally owned by General Electric and Lockheed Martin, where Carol served as a Program Manager as well as a Business Analyst and Systems Engineer. Carol holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont and has recently achieved certification from IIBA as a CBAP (Certified Business Analysis Professional). Carol resides in Philadelphia with her family where she is active in all the sports and school activities that come along with raising two young boys.

Marie Brady - Secretary

Marie is currently a Business Systems Analyst/Tester with the Vanguard Group. Her current focus is implementation of a 3rd party product. Business Process Modeling, Change Management, Organizational Design and Process & Controls are concepts being applied to ensure the successful rollout of the product. Marie serves as an adjunct faculty member for teaching facilitation skills and the requirements sub-process.

During her tenure at Vanguard, she has also worked on the business side as a Technology Manager, responsible for a team of 14 people. Her team ensured that the technology needs for a group of 280 people were satisfied by providing production support, business analysis, project implementation, contingency and security services. Over the course of her career, Marie has also fulfilled the roles of HRIS Analyst, Human Resources Generalist and Compliance Testing Manager.

Marie and her husband, Ross, live in Perkiomenville with their youngest son. Their eldest son is currently teaching English in South Korea. Summer entertainment is supplied by the fish and frogs in their backyard pond. They have lived in Indianapolis, Baltimore and Pennsylvania.

Trent Coombs - Treasurer

Trent is currently a senior level Business Systems Analyst with The Vanguard Group. His daily tasks involve the application of Use Case requirements development in both waterfall and Agile project methodologies for web based and mainframe software development, Enterprise Analysis and Configuration Management, and mentoring junior level BSA’s. As the Institutional Process advocate, Trent assists BSA's in adhering to standard requirements practices and provides expertise in Process Improvement Initiatives.

Previously assigned to the System Test department at Vanguard, Trent has served as a project manager and as the subject-matter-expert for automated testing tools, having completed advanced training in the Rational and Empirix suites of tools. In this role he was responsible for developing automated test suites, training crewmembers in the tools, and acting as the knowledge base liaison between our organization and the tool companies, as well as being responsible for planning, developing and executing performance testing through automated scripts across all projects in the Institutional Division. Additionally, he has shared his requirements and testing program expertise to instruct a standard methodology in test plan and test case development derived from Use Case repositories.

Prior to Vanguard, Trent was employed as a Systems Engineering consultant, accumulating sixteen years of software and hardware development experience. For numerous projects, he developed software and hardware requirements documents and design specifications, developed all levels of test procedures, and planned and executed all phases of software and hardware test and evaluation for both military and commercial applications.

Trent resides in Horsham, PA with his wife and son where he serves on numerous Boards and committee’s in the Hatboro-Horsham High School, youth sport organizations and township. His hobbies include an extensive board game collection and golf , with long time membership in the American Cribbage Congress and USGA.

Gia Marie Guss - VP of Web Communications

Gia Marie Guss is currently a Project Coordinator for a major pharmaceutical company. Prior to her current position, Gia has worked as a Business Analyst / Web Analyst for GMAC Mortgage, a consultant at the Project Management Institute (PMI), Marketing Manager / Implementation Manager at Cruise411.com, and Web Developer / Operations Manager at Vivisoft Corporation.

Gia earned her BS in Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science fromVillanova University in 2002 and has recently earned her MBA with a concentration in Management.

Gia has also been a dancer since the age of 2. She attended the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and has performed all over the tri-state area. She was also part of the Villanova University Dance Ensemble during her years there. Gia is currently part of the Synergy Dance Company and teaches dance to students of all ages at the Bucks County Dance Center.

Gia resides in Montgomery County , PA.

Karen Williamson - VP of Marketing and Member Development

Karen Williamson has been a member of the Project Management Institute since 2002 (served on the PMI Education Committee 2006-2007), and an active member of the IIBA Philadelphia Chapter for the past year. In the past year, Karen approached the Philadelphia Board members and worked with them to expand to a Center City presence. As a result, the Chapter held its first Center City meeting at Drexel University. Karen served on the Chapter’s Advisory Committee for the upcoming PM/BA World conference at the VF Radisson; Karen currently serves on the Chapter’s Event Planning committee. Karen has her BS from Syracuse University, and an MBA from the University of Delaware; Karen has worked in Information Technologies in the Greater Philadelphia for over 20 years, including 18 years at ONLC (IT Consulting and Technical Education); 1.5 years at Microsoft (.NET Solutions Developer) and currently as a BA/PM Solutions Specialist for PM Centers USA which offers BA Certification through its affiliation with Drexel University. Karen is committed to evangelizing the value of BA Education and Certification and helping the Philadelphia Chapter to grow its membership!

Susan Block - VP of Professional Development / Member Services

Sue is currently a Lead Business Systems Analyst / Systems Tester at The Vanguard Group. Sue is a multi-faceted IT Project Leader and Business Analyst with over twenty years of technology-related experience, including project planning, process improvement, business systems analysis, software quality assurance, and data design. She is experienced in full system development life cycle activities spanning the financial services, insurance, and manufacturing industries. Sue has enhanced system development methodologies, developed data standards, and championed the Business Analysis role. Sue is an expert in Requirements planning and execution, a leader of enterprise-level Business Architecture efforts, and an author and trainer of customized BA courses.

She has recently presented at two regional Business Analysis conferences. Sue is proud to have achieved CBAP certification in April 2008. She is excited to be the newest board member of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of IIBA.

Sue has a BS in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering from Temple University and an MS in Information Studies from Drexel University.

Sue is a Philadelphia native and her family currently resides in the Worcester area of Montgomerty County, PA. Her hobbies include cooking, photography, scrapbooking, and travel.