September 20, 2023
Gillette Stadium

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Panel Discussion: Hire a Hero

4:00 PM – 4:45 PM | West Red Level, Suite 70

Attracting top talent is key to the success of your organization and hiring managers are challenged to recruit and retain the right candidates. The skills and capabilities they learn as part of their service immediately brings value to the biopharma industry, easily transitioning into roles across Capital Projects such as CQV, Engineering, Project Management, Quality Control/Assurance, and Safety Management as well as Operations Management including Facility Maintenance, Operations, and Manufacturing Operations

Military veterans bring a unique work experience to an organization.  They are on average, highly technically trained, have learned to thrive under pressure in high-stress environments, sometimes quite literally life or death situations, and are the most loyal and dependable people you can find. Each military branch is different, but the core values embodied by our military personnel span all services: integrity, teamwork, ownership, and commitment to excellence.

Come hear from a panel of professionals about their personal military experiences or experience hiring and working with veterans.  See how they have applied those experiences to their pharma/biotech careers.

If you are a hiring manager, come hear about why you should include our nation’s veterans as part of your talent pipeline to help source the best candidates.

Panelists:
Todd Hiser, Senior Director of Infrastructure & Operations, ElevateBio
Steve Marr, Head of Real Estate, Facilities and Capital Programs, Spark Therapeutics
Victor Taubinger, Senior Operations Project Manager, Takeda

Moderator:
LTC Nathan Speanburg, US Regional Director of Project Management, DPS

Todd Hiser joined ElevateBio in 2019 as Head of Automation initially supporting the Basecamp buildout.  He quickly expanded his role as Senior Director of Infrastructure and Operations to include all IT & OT operations from the service desk, infrastructure, and IT projects to shopfloor systems and CSV/A.  Todd brings 20 years of automation experience and strategic leadership in the biotech industry.  He was previously Site Head of Automation, MES, & IT at Sanofi Genzyme in Framingham, where he oversaw a diverse team of IT and OT professionals supporting a multi-building commercial manufacturing campus.  Prior to Sanofi Genzyme, Todd worked at Lonza and at a local engineering company in the Boston area as a controls engineer and served in the US Navy on submarines.  His hands-on experience deploying and operating digital systems has been critical in the successful implementation of ElevateBio’s own digital strategy.  ElevateBio was ‘born’ digital, but maturing digitally is a never-ending process that Todd continues to lead.

 

 

 

Steve Marr is a global biopharmaceutical executive with extensive experience leading large organizations in the biopharmaceutical and nuclear industries.  He spent 26 years in the United States Navy as a nuclear submarine officer where he held several key leadership positions including Commanding Officer of the USS SALT LAKE CITY (SSN 716) as well as Commodore of Submarine Squadron ONE in Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Steve retired from the Navy as a Captain in 2009. After retiring from the Navy Steve spent four years in the civilian nuclear industry working for Areva and then Westinghouse as a project director for large multi-billion-dollar new nuclear facilities. In 2014 Steve transitioned to the pharmaceutical industry. He first joined Shire Pharmaceuticals as a project director and site lead where he successfully delivered a new $2B manufacturing facility. Steve spent 3 years as the Head of Capital Programs for Shire where he was accountable for developing and implementing capital management programs and services with direct oversight of the $1B annual capital budget. Steve joined the Spark team in April 2020 as the Head of Real Estate, Facilities and Capital Programs where he is responsible for leading the evolution of Spark’s expanding corporate facilities portfolio and long-term facilities strategy. He received a B.S in Ocean Engineering from the United States Naval Academy.

 

 

LTC Nathan W. Speanburg, P.E., PMP is the US Regional Director of Project Management with DPS Group. He has been with DPS for almost two years and has worked much of his career in the design and construction of complex manufacturing facilities (Advanced Technology and Life Sciences). Nathan works with and aligns a group of design and construction management directors across five offices who deliver design as well as construction management services for DPS’s life science and advanced technology clients. Prior to DPS he worked in the heavy civil industry for 4 years and spent 10 years working at all levels of EPCM Advanced Technology Projects. In parallel, LTC Speanburg is approaching 22yrs of Service in the U.S. Army comprised of 7 years on Active Duty, 14 years in the Vermont Army National Guard, and just recently started a position in the U.S. Army Reserves. LTC Speanburg has been deployed to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Honduras and served in multiple positions from Platoon Leader to Battalion Commander. He currently is the State Emergency Preparedness Officer (Vermont) reporting to the Defense Coordinating Officer in FEMA Region 1 here locally. Nathan has a Masters of Science in Civil Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Tech, and a BS in Civil Engineering from West Point.

 

 

Victor Taubinger has been with Takeda Pharmaceutical LLC in Cambridge, MA for over 23 years. He’s had various roles in Manufacturing Operations of increasing responsibility. His current role is a Senior Operations Project Manager within the Manufacturing Compliance group. He has been an active member of ISPE since 2008, volunteering on the Boston Chapter Product Show planning committee since 2012, serving as the chair of that committee from 2021-2022. Prior to Takeda he worked at Genetics Institute in North Andover for 3 years. He retired from the US Army after 22 years of service within the Infantry after having several combat deployments starting with Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001-2002), Kosovo (2006-2007) and Afghanistan (2010-2011).  He also spent 3-4 months in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina under Humanitarian Relief efforts. Victor has a BS in Biology with a Certificate in Biotechnology from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.