Conference Agenda

Sara Gallagher is President of The Persimmon Group, a Tulsa-based award-winning consulting firm. Sara helps organizations thoughtfully select, plan, and execute high-stakes projects and business transformations. Her approach to solving business problems is interdisciplinary, focused on “leading with both sides of the brain”, on the premise that even technical efforts require innovation, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence to execute effectively. She is a Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Professional Scrum Master (PSM I). Sara holds a BA from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and has also studied at the American University in Cairo.

Jason Ketchum is the Vice President of Commercial Activities for ONE Gas in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jason specializes in building teams that are adaptable, innovative and growth-focused. With over 20 years in all aspects of the energy industry, he has experience with investor relations, public relations, utility operations, energy trading, branding and building customer solutions. He is married to his college sweetheart, who he met at the University of Missouri and has three children. In his spare time, Jason likes to read, play video games with his son, fish and generally spend time outdoors.

Mark Cluff is the Vice President of Safety and Operational Excellence at Williams. In this role he is responsible for leading several multi-functional groups including: Pipeline Safety & Integrity Process, Employee & Contractor Safety, Security, GIS & Facility Asset Management, Continuous Improvement, Operating Corporate Standards, and Operational Risk teams.  Mark joined Williams in 2015. 

Prior to Williams, he worked as a senior operations leader for DuPont across many different businesses and locations throughout the company. In addition to DuPont, Mark also worked as a Capital Projects Leader for ExxonMobil at the Beaumont Refinery, Chemical Plant, and Polyethylene plants.

Mark received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering at Brigham Young University with an elective emphasis in Operations Management.

Kim Hankins is the Customer Experience Continuous Improvement Project Manager at Black Hills Energy. In this role, Kim uses her more than 14 years of utility industry experience to identify business needs, drive innovation, increase operational leverage and implement value-added solutions. Kim’s keen ability to strategically plan, problem solve, and trouble shoot has helped her identify, manage and implement continuous improvement projects, increasing company satisfaction goals year after year. 

Using her degree in Human Resources and Workforce Development from the University of Arkansas, Kim has built a highly effective, cross-functional team that utilizes critical thinking and new technology to deliver upon product enhancements and process improvements to create a top-tier customer experience.

Carlos H Torres serves as the Head of Industry 4.0 for Ericsson’s USA 5G Smart Factory in North America. In this role, He leads an organization to drive 5G Radio Automation, Software & IoT, IT and 5G industrialization. 

Carlos joined Ericsson in 2020. Prior to joining Ericsson, he was a Senior Technology Manager for BNSF Railway in Fort Worth, Texas. During his time at BNSF Railway he worked in different roles supporting Engineering, Mechanical and Operations.  

Carlos is an experienced people leader with professional experience in Operations & Advanced Technologies.

Industry 4.0 will allow Ericsson to create transparent, optimized, and autonomous systems hat can analyze and diagnose issues without human intervention.

Hannah Ralston serves the City of Tulsa’s Office of Performance, Strategy and Innovation as a project manager, where she leads process improvement projects and trains City employees to solve complex challenges. She is dedicated to building stronger communities by increasing operational capacity of individuals and organizations, and has a decade of nonprofit and public sector experience in professional development training, process improvement, and project management. Previously, Hannah worked for OU-Tulsa managing consulting teams and at Tulsa Area United Way in community investments. 

She has called Tulsa home since 2010, and holds a B.A. from Oklahoma State University.

Allison Greco created her foundation with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Master of Business Administration from the University of Oklahoma. Over the past 15 years, she has held Continuous and Process Improvement roles for Black Hills Energy, Williams, the United States Air Force and BNSF Railway. She has started up new CI programs and reinvigorated stale ones. Along the way she earned a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and became a licensed Professional Engineer.  

Allison launched Continuous Improvement International in 2018 to share her passion for continuous improvement, process improvement and change management.