Culture > People > Jeff Dunn |
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| Jeff is a Texas farm boy that has not wandered far from his hometown in Hunt County. For three generations, his family raised cattle, cotton, oats, wheat, and other crops on several hundred acres of East Texas blackland. His father and grandfather were recognized by state agriculture officials for their use of soil conservation techniques as well as their superior levels and quality of crop production. In his earlier years, Jeff spent countless hours removing weeds from the cotton fields, planting and harvesting crops, and tending to the cattle herd. It was during this time that his Dad and his family instilled in him a spirit of teamwork, patience, and quality that drive him still today.
After graduating from East Texas State University, Jeff began his professional career as a software engineer for E-Systems, Garland (now Raytheon Systems). It was near the end of his 15 years there that he began "filling the gap" between development and quality assurance in a variety of leadership and liaison roles. After a bit of Java development, Jeff soon realized that he could add greater value by letting the uber-coders do their work while he focused on other tasks such as testing, configuration management, and process guidance. He finds pleasure in offloading needed but less technical tasks from those on his team that must keep their hands on code. During his time at E-Systems/Raytheon, Jeff supported projects for the U.S. Government, the Federal Aviation Administration, and a Raytheon/Lockheed commercial joint venture known as Space Imaging (now http://www.geoeye.com ). It was on this last effort that he became associated with a number of great individuals who are now employed by Improving Enterprises. Since his Raytheon tenure, Jeff has supported customers such as Travelocity, Nationwide Insurance, and Southwest Airlines with process transformations and system development. He has enjoyed assisting these teams with their initial and refined use of iterative and agile development practices. When asked what motivates him, he replied that he "...enjoys seeing someone on the team finally 'get it' and begin to independently use a new technique to improve what they do." Jeff was attracted to Improving by the honesty, integrity, and leadership of the company's founders and senior management. He's worked with many of these folks for 10+ years and feels blessed to be a part of such a high quality team. He views the opportunity to work with such an outstanding group of very talented, energetic individuals as an endless source of both challenge and accomplishment. Jeff's favorite personal activities are spending time with his sons in whatever activity they enjoy, researching his family genealogy, and travelling. He also enjoys spending time on the family farm that he still owns jointly with his brother and sister. |
