Our Presenters

Tom Fawls

With over 20 years experience planning, negotiating and executing complex, cutting-edge technology development projects, Tom Fawls has negotiated clear, concise global agreements that stand the test of time. Tom has the depth of experience that can only come from managing the delivery on virtually every contract he's negotiated. He has led product procurement and development teams in North America, Europe and Asia. Since the 1980's Tom has used his spare time to develop and teach graduate level courses on Contract and Project Management for the University of Phoenix, Embry Riddle University, Webster University and others. Tom is the CEO of The Council for Small Business, Inc.

Ron Scruggs CTPE

Ron Scruggs, Senior Consultant has a proven track record in contracting, negotiating and purchasing. Ron has negotiated significant deals with a wide range of key vendors including Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Accenture, IBM, Dell, Sun, EDS and others.

He brings clients a wealth of experience including contract and procurement management for major technology organizations including Westinghouse, Control Data, Digital and Bay Networks. As manager of Strategic Alliances for Digital Equipment Corporation, Ron negotiated software alliances with Microsoft, Olivetti and other industry leaders.

Ron also spent 15 years as Director of Contracts for multi-national corporations doing business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, leading procurement and sales activities. 

His areas of expertise include all forms of procurement and outsourcing as well as development of standard form sales, service and purchasing agreements. Ron is a particularly well-seasoned negotiator, having earned the respect of clients and vendors worldwide, including saving $50 million in a single deal and earlier negotiated major computer procurement worth $25 million per year.  This effort enabled his company to implement its personal computer strategy in Europe.

One of his clients commented: “Ron, thank you for your leadership and professionalism. Thanks to you we completed our project ahead of schedule and you saved us millions of dollars.”

He has wide and varied experience negotiating software, ASP/SaaS, cloud, hosting and outsourcing deals with major vendors.

Ron has led Merger, Acquisition and Divesture activities for clients saving millions of dollars and maintaining software compliance for the effective’ go’ dates. Ron led the IT procurement activity for a European client, setting up a vendor management office as well as obtaining better deals, doing negotiation training for the IT procurement group and establishing agreement templates for their use.

Scruggs holds a BA and MBA and has completed extended post-graduate courses at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and the Institute of Business Methods in Lausanne, Switzerland. Ron has also presented numerous seminars including Contracting in the Cloud, Open Software, Developing Effective Work Statements, Software Business Issues and Negotiation.

His published articles include “Cloudy SLAs”, “Writing Effective SOWs”, “What Vendors Do Not Want You To Know About Escrow” and “Get Better Deals By Listening”.  In 2011 he co-authored the book “Contracting for Cloud Services. He currently teaches the Cloud Contracting course at UCLA Extension Services.

Jane Smith

Jane Smith has many years of experience negotiating with foreign governments and corporations throughout the world. She led the negotiations for formerly West Publishing for the right to access and use the law of the European Union, its member states, the law of Mexico, Central and South American nations, China, Japan and Vietnam for use in product development to meet the corporate needs of the Fortune 500 Corporations globally. Jane has negotiated for LiSimba’s corporate clients for global sourcing of supplies, manufacturing sites, shipping contracts and labor negotiations. She negotiates in all civil and common law legal systems and cross cultural situations. Jane is a trained litigator, mediator, negotiator and teacher.

Her education includes undergraduate work at the University of Madrid, Spain, Facultad de Filosofia Y Letras, post graduate work at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University in the WEST Program, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, as well as a law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. Her published work includes a chapter on “Minimizing Risk: Best Practices in Managing Cross Cultural Concerns in Global Contracting”, THE ABA GUIDE TO INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS, A Comparison of Cross-Cultural Issues and Successful Approaches, Third Edition, James R. Silkenat, Jeffrey M. Aresty, Jacqueline Klosek, Editors.

Sterling A. Spainhour

Sterling A. Spainhour is currently Of Counsel with the firm of Sapronov & Associates in Atlanta, Georgia, where he specializes in technology and outsourcing. He previously served as Adjunct Professor of Law at the Charlotte School of Law in Charlotte, NC. where he taught Advanced Contract Drafting, Banking and Financial Institution Law and Predatory Lending Law. Sterling also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Wake Forest University for 16 years where he taught similar courses.

Prior to joining the Charlotte School of Law, Sterling served as Deputy General Counsel for Wachovia Corporation in Charlotte, NC for 37 years. As Deputy General Counsel, Sterling led the practice group within the Legal Division which was responsible for all of the corporate legal issues relevant to Global Supply Chain Management, Global Offshoring and Outsourcing, Intellectual Property, and Corporate Technology.

He has been a presenter at several Practicing Law Institute Seminars and other national and state continuing legal education seminars.

Sterling received his BA Degree from Hampton University and his JD Degree from Notre Dame University School of Law.

Sterling will discuss in detail the legal and business issues relevant to the contracting process and will focus on the specific language in all of the normal and customary paragraphs included in complex business contracts including, but not limited to, Termination, Intellectual Property, Limitation of Liability, Insurance and Disaster Recovery.

The discussion will also concentrate on the way each paragraph should be written from a business and drafting perspective with specific attention to the best way to achieve the client’s business objective while also managing risk.

Marlene Bauer

Marlene Bauer has over 9 years experience in deploying automated contract management solutions, and has conducted or overseen 200+ customer implementations. In addition, Marlene has 10+ years experience in sourcing and negotiating complex technology deals, as both a consultant to Fortune 100 companies as well as a manager of internal teams of sourcing and negotiations professionals. With her breadth and depth in the sourcing, contracting and systems arenas, Marlene brings a wealth of experience to the subject matter. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Business, and is currently VP, Professional Services and Customer Operations at Ecteon, Inc., a leading provider of contract management solutions. Marlene is currently serving as VP, Professional Services and Customer Operations Ecteon, Inc.

Paula Birth

Paula brings over 20 years of field sales, operations and management to the course with experience at all levels of development, writing, negotiation and execution of the Sales Contract, Statement of Work and Service Level Agreement. She has been on both the provider and customer side of the process and understands the needs these documents address for both parties. Her insight to these needs will make an interesting course.

Paula is the President of P-Squared Solutions, LLC.

James M. Johnson, Ph. D.

James M. Johnson, Ph.D. is Professor of Finance at Northern Illinois University. He publishes articles and books on financial and equipment leasing issues, has been an expert witness in numerous disputes and has conducted many workshops and seminars over the past 30 years.

Wayne L. Kost

Wayne L. Kost is an internationally accomplished lecturer and consultant who has taught and consulted in the fields of Procurement , Negotiations, Sales Strategy and Quality Management in 28 countries.

During the past 20 years, Mr. Kost has made presentations to and conducted training sessions for over 10,000 senior executives from Fortune 500 companies to small not-for-profit organizations. Specific areas of expertise include:

• • • • Technology Sourcing
      • Supplier Negotiations
      • Vendor Performance Measures Strategic Sourcing
      • Sourcing Objectives
      • Vendor Sales Tactics

Mr. Kost’s education includes a B.S. in Communication Studies from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; where he was a Governor’s Fellow and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.

He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World.

Barry S. Marks

Barry S. Marks is a founding shareholder of Marks & Weinberg, P.C. Mr. Marks' practice focuses on equipment finance, with an emphasis on structuring and documenting equipment lease transactions and policies and procedures for equipment finance companies. Mr. Marks is former counsel for the National Association of Equipment Brokers, a past member of the legal committee of the Equipment Lease and Finance Association and the author of numerous books and articles on equipment leasing and finance. Mr. Marks may be reached at (205) 251-8303 or through the firm’s website.

Bob Schmitt

Bob is a Chicago native, who did his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. After military service, he completed a MS in Information Science in 1973 and then a Juris Doctor in 1976, both at the University of Hawaii. He was admitted to the Hawaii Bar in 1976 and the California Bar in 1987. After graduation, he was an Assistant Division Counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers, Pacific Ocean Division, for legal reviews of construction and engineering contracts. Bob relocated to California in 1985 to take a position as a contracts manager for Cubic Defense Systems and later, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), both government contractors. In 1990, he transitioned to Information Technology contracts management for company-wide systems with the Walt Disney Company and was there until 1998. He had similar responsibility for IT contracts with Wellpoint Health Systems, PacifiCare (medical insurance) and Toyota Financial Services until becoming a consultant in 2007.

Bob’s experience with IT contracts ranges from mainframe hardware and software acquisition to outsourcing and SaaS ("cloud") agreements and includes dealings with hundreds of vendors.

Bob is a member of the State Bar of California, the Hawaii Bar Association, International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM) and the Frazer Nash Car Club Ltd. Bob resides in Burbank, California.

Richard H. Seamans

Mr. Seamans is a trade compliance professional with 25 years experience. He has implemented export compliance programs while employed in industry and as a consultant and has given over 200 trade compliance training presentations in the U.S. and other countries during his career. He is also an instructor and a course developer for senior college level export compliance courses at the International Import-Export Institute covering the US and the UK export regulations.

Mr. Seamans has been the Manager of Physical Distribution and Export Compliance Manager for the Communications business at Motorola as well as holding numerous other international positions there.

Mr. Seamans is an International Import-Export Institute Certification Advisor (formerly Certification Board of Governors). Affiliations include the Society for International Affairs, the International Compliance Professionals Association and the International Trade Association of Greater Chicago.

Mr. Seamans has an MBA from the Keller Graduate School of Management in Chicago, is a Certified US Export Compliance Officer® and Certified International Trade Educator.®

Rich is President, RS Global Trade Compliance Services, Inc.

Robert Weltner

Robert Weltner is Senior Counsel for Freudenberg North America, located in Plymouth, Michigan, supporting Freudenberg-NOK and 12 other independent Freudenberg & Company technology based manufacturing and services affiliates, plus Freudenberg Real Estate. Previously, as a Contracts Negotiator in Hewlett-Packard's Legal Department, Bob supported commercial contracts in an assigned territory. Bob was also in-house counsel for NCR Corporation and AT&T for over 25 years, where he delivered a full-range of legal services for business units and subsidiaries. This work included commercial transactions, distribution, manufacturing, IP licensing, outsourcing, M&A, real estate, disputes management, and compliance. As Chief Counsel for Global Procurement, Bob directed a global group of professionals through a Procurement Law Council, while serving on a Procurement Leadership Team. As the Disputes Manager for NCR and AT&T, he centrally handled pre-litigation disputes involving customers, suppliers, partners, competitors, and other parties, and he developed and deployed a company-wide disputes management process. Bob chaired NCR’s antitrust compliance counsel, handled bankruptcy matters, and negotiated high-impact multi-million dollar agreements, including several large outsourced manufacturing agreements. Bob managed law professionals, a law intern program, chaired an antitrust committee, and bankruptcy matters.

Bob holds three degrees from the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio -- BS in Business Administration, with a major in Accounting (1977), MBA (1979), and JD (1981). Bob is admitted to the practice law in Ohio and has applied to be admitted in Michigan.