BARBARA SIGNO, M.S.E.
1848 EVERGREEN DRIVE, WEST PALM BEACH, FL 33406 * PHONE: 561-670-3916 * BarbaraSigno@aol.com * WWW.SIGNO-US.COM
OBJECTIVE
A management position in a dynamic environment that will allow me to utilize and take full advantage of the management, operations, quality control, engineering, planning, organizing, coordinating and problem solving skills
and proven abilities that have been honed throughout a high profile professional career.
PROFILE
Highly motivated, results-oriented experienced leader with a combination of quality management, technical, research,
and operations experience in a wide variety of industries. Demonstrated ability to prioritize, research, analyze, plan,
manage and motivate, with advanced skills in:
* cross functional teams
* strategic planning
* engineering
* corporate development
* project management
* budget management
* quality improvement
* process improvement
* policy development
* training & development
* business development
* alliance building
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
PALM BEACH COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 2009 - Present
Consultant and Adjunct Faculty: Responsible for developing and teaching Process Measurement Fundamentals
(Instrumentation and Controls) course (Winter). Present “Gardens Going Green†Steering Committee member.
SUGAR CANE GROWERS COOPERATIVE OF FLORIDA, Belle Glade, FL 2001 - 2008
Project Engineer – Executive Office - Planning Department: Responsible for several million dollars of capital
projects resulting in higher revenues, energy savings, process and environmental improvements; e.g., project saving
4,300 KWH. Managed all aspects of projects including economic feasibility studies and research, scope development,
budgeting, scheduling, design, bidding, equipment selection, contract, permits, construction, and startup. Owner
Representative who interfaced with consultants, contractors, and supervised project team. Effectively prioritized and
delegated tasks. Developed Plant Energy Balance and other systems SCADA GE – Fanuc Cimplicity® HMI screens.
ASME Pressure Vessel Section III and VIII design, pipe design.
DIRECTV-LATIN AMERICA, Fort Lauderdale, FL 2000 - 2001
Quality Assurance Auditor and Program Management Business Analyst Consultant – IT: Led the Corrective
Action System implementation and the Internal Audit Process. Developed, measured, and analyzed IT Operational
Performance Metrics for 40% improvement. Helped establish and implement standards across the organization.
Developed and presented quality problem solving tools and training for Headquarters and Latin America Companies.
Led the due diligence to re-engineer the multinational Treasury system. Prepared business cases and
recommendations for Corporate Financial and Information Officers approval.
FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT, Juno Beach, FL 1997 - 1999
Power Generation Business Unit Leader III – Training Specialist: Led Business Unit team hiring technical
personnel for eleven Florida plants. Oversaw development of web-based training and proficiency evaluation for
maintenance workforce. Redesigned plant's "Economical Operation Strategy Model" and initiated “pilotâ€
implementation at Riviera plant. Applied reliability tools to pinpoint and predict main causes of uneSxpected outages.
TELECTRONICS, ST. JUDE MEDICAL, INC., Miami Lakes, FL 1995 - 1997
Good Manufacturing Practices Training Specialist – Management Staff: “Change Agent†who managed the
“Culture Change" strategy and "Personnel Continuous Quality Improvement Program" by creating and managing
training department instructing 450+ employees implementing a Quality Management System, GMP, ISO 9000, new
SOPs, and system improvements towards FDA regulatory compliance. Coached and trained managers and
supervisors empowering them to learn, develop, train others, and advance. Debugged automated laser welder.
PALM BEACH COMMUNITY COLLEGE, Lake Worth/Boca Raton, FL 1991 - 1995
Adjunct Instructor and Learning Specialist: Taught Algebra and Introduction to Statistics College courses.
FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, Boca Raton, FL 1989 - 1993
Teaching – Research Assistant – Thermal and Fluid Transport Phenomenon Lab: U.S. Navy Research Grant.
H.A.F.A. INTERNATIONAL, INC., Riviera Beach, FL 1984 - 1988
Staff Engineer/Project Manager/Principal Engineer: Consultant to the Nuclear Energy Industry with 10CFR50.59 experience.
EDUCATION / ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
* M.S.E., Mechanical Engineering, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.
* B.S.E., Nuclear Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
* Executive Certificate in Project Management, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.
* Six Sigma Green Belt Certificate, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.
* Certificate in Manufacturing Operations – Raw Sugar, Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, LA.
* Lead Auditor - Quality Systems Management Certificate, QSI, Miami, FL.
* Leadership positions in various professional associations, i.e., American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME.
* Published author in various publications.
* Languages: Fluent in English and Spanish.
Professional Profile
Barbara Signo is a proven bilingual executive with a Masters degree in Engineering and
extensive experience in management with a record of achieving innovations, process & quality
improvements, savings & higher revenues. She has a vision for business and technical
feasibility and is capable of leading multifunctional teams and multi-site programs and
successfully managing several million dollars projects from research through implementation.
Barbara is known as being a keen strategist, innovative, and creative problem solver with
technical knowledge and results driven management expertise that has significantly improved
operations and revenues for the companies she has worked with throughout her career.
Barbara is recognized as being a “Change Agent†who managed the "Culture Change" strategy
and "Personnel Continuous Quality Improvement Program" developing and empowering
managers, supervisors, and 450+ staff members implementing Quality Management System ISO
9000, GMP, system improvements, and new Standard Operating Procedures.
Barbara has a passion for efficiency and process improvements, high technology, energy, the
biomedical fields, and traveling. She has traveled extensively in North America, Europe, Latin
America, and the Caribbean.
WWW.SIGNO-US.COM
Professional Accomplishments
Skill: Management
Circumstance:
Project Engineer and Manager responsible for several million dollars worth of projects at Sugar
Cane Growers Cooperative.
Action:
Managed the due diligence and feasibility study for the projects, prepared Project Plans including
scope, budgets and schedules, request for proposals, bidding, selection of equipment, and their
procurement according to schedule and deadlines. Dealt with Procurement Manager and
managed contractors and contracts. Gathered specifications and reviewed designs. Supervised
installation of multiple projects. Interfaced with Engineering Managers and Supervisors for in-
house work and installation requirements. Supervised installations. Acted as Owner
Representative and supervised contracted Engineers, Consultants and Contractors.
Results:
Multiple projects delivered on time for savings, increased revenues, and environmental
improvements. Projects completed include installation of Convective Feed Water Heat
Exchanger including system changes, instrumentation and automation retrofit for water and 4,300
kWH energy savings for the 55% efficiency boilers. No outside Project Manager contracted for
this nor for most projects. In-house Project Engineer and Manager for the Reverse Osmosis
Water Plant interfacing with contracted Project Engineer.
Skill: Presentations
Circumstances:
Telectronics was under FDA consent decree and I was hired to lead the company Good
Manufacturing Practice training and Implementation Program. The 800 Staff was downsized to
450+ staff.
Action:
Planned, Scheduled, and delivered presentation of Good Manufacturing Practice for medical
devices presentations to all 450+ employees, staff and executives. Worked with the different new
Managers to empower them with their groups. Helped train each department by identifying major
problems. Worked with Facility Management to implement clean room procedures. Included
photo posters of proper gowning in and ungowning out of clean rooms. Worked with the different
corresponding managers to establish appropriate procedures and present to the appropriate
departments: i.e., worked with Laboratory manager to present laboratory procedures. Presented
Auditing and corrective Action presentations. Worked with Validation manager to present and
implement Validation Protocols and Equipment Qualifications. Led training, troubleshooting, and
CAD - CAM code translation debugging for the new pacemaker Automated Laser Welder
successfully.
Results:
Acted as change agent. Company was granted permission to sell in the US again and approval of
a new state of the art pacemaker within 2 years.
Skills: Cost Reduction and Negotiation
Circumstances:
The Treasury system at DirecTV was very person manual and excel sheet dependant for
forecasting and treasury. Each country site had different ways of running the Forecast and
Treasury systems. Difficulty understanding the derivatives and hedges across the sites. There
was no system that could house and work with the different countries tax and financial regulations
of the multi national DTV companies. Company was implementing SAP financials at the time but
SAP would not address this issue. Meetings of the multinational companies had not been
productive.
Action:
Initiated a due diligence to re-engineer the Treasury system. Worked with IT and the Assistant
Treasurer in US and identified the decision makers at each country’s company. Researched
vendors for software that would provide necessary financial usability to replace the Excel spread
sheets for the forecasting. Initiated Web communication with the identified stakeholders at the
different countries subsidiary companies using software provided by one of the vendors and
assisted by IS of the different country sites to be able to communicate through the firewalls of
each of the companies. (Mid 2000) Gathered individual system requirements from each of these
individuals during multi country web meetings and one on one. Engaged each of the identified
persons into the selection of the required software. Provided information gathered on the
capabilities of the different softwares and presented via web to a multinational meeting.
Requested feed back, Gathered feedback. Presented the capabilities of the 2 systems (Hyperion
and Sungard IQ2) that were chosen as the most flexible and likely to meet the needs of “allâ€
economically.
Result
Hyperion and IQ2 were chosen as the systems capable of offering the required capabilities within
economical budgets for $5M savings and seamless interaction among the countries.
Skill: Innovation
Circumstance:
Needed to connect to American Gas Association Physical and Chemical Property Internal Library
(part of NIST today) to use as subroutine in computer code being prepared for calculating and
correcting flow rate of breathing gases for US Navy deep sea divers (Grant Research Circa
1991).
Action:
Worked with Florida Atlantic University Mechanical Engineering IS and determined 2 possible
protocols for the link out of a matrix of nearly a hundred possible protocols. Recommended one
protocol over the other but the other protocol was used.
Result:
Resulted in the ITP/TCP web protocol. It was eventually changed to the first recommendation.
Skill: Analyze
Circumstance:
I was asked to identify and recommend maintenance or repairs that would have a significant
positive impact on revenues. I asked 3 Process Managers who I considered had a realistic
assessment of the plant situation and they stated that they were concerned about an increasing
number of unexpected forced outages at fossil and combined cycle plants. Down time of the
plants were forcing the Utility to purchase electricity from other Utilities or plants out of state for
more than $12 Millions that year.
Action:
Researched various company reliability databases containing information about equipment failure
events requiring maintenance which had been related to forced outages. Pulled reports from
relational databases on to Access and ran statistics and noticed that 40% of the problems were
caused by two different problems generalized through 11 plants. Failure of a specific boiler area
tube and failure of a specific type at a specific position turbine valve. Prepared report and
presented to appropriate Directors. However, Directors were skeptical and not open to change
maintenance strategy that they had already planned and budgeted. No budget that year. The
problem escalated during the year and the study was then resurrected and preventive
maintenance was conducted on the identified potential failure equipment.
Result:
Improved plant availability including manpower that would have to be mobilized during a not
planned outage. Led to a change in business strategy.
References are available and will be provided upon request
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