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Ed Warnock

Contributing Associate Professor of Strategic Management

Headshot of Ed Warnock

Contact Information

Salem Campus

Address
900 State Street
Salem  Oregon  97301
U.S.A.

Portland Center

Address
200 SW Market Street, Suite 101
Portland  Oregon  97201
U.S.A.

Message

“In order to improve long-term performance, an organization must tie strategic goals to operational plans, project portfolios and daily management practices.“

Change. The one dependable constant in business.

Effective managers must draw on all of their professional experience and education to devise the best possible strategy to ensure long-term change is successful. Managers must not only be familiar with the isolated components of business, but also understand how they interact in a dynamic environment. In order to improve long-term performance, an organization must tie strategic goals to operational plans, project portfolios and daily management practices.

Strategic management is the art of positioning an organization for sustained excellence in an uncertain world. In class, students will measure, evaluate and determine their competitive position and the systems-wide leverage points that build high-performance differentiation over a long period of time. They will develop systems-analysis skills to plan large scale, long-term sustainable change. Students are encouraged to reach a level of high mastery.

Learning should be exciting and practical. The class is a symposium in which everything, including what the instructor presents, should be questioned, examined and critiqued.

Biography

Ed Warnock works internationally with both private and public organizations to plan and lead strategic change. The Bonneville Power Administration used Ed to create a Project Management Office. Providence Hospitals relied on Ed to consolidate and merge regional IT offices into a central department. He helped the legislatures of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho develop policy governing the Columbia river system for power generation, fish preservation, agriculture, and recreational needs. Ed has aligned the strategic goals of dozens of other clients with their operations and helped specify accountability to achieve specific, measurable results.

Ed has been invited to teach classes and address conference audiences on a variety of topics, including balanced scorecard for the health industry, project portfolio management, earned value management, strategy mapping and implementation, new venture planning, and managing in the future. He has also given professional development seminars focused on leadership, strategy and project management.

While he still consults for clients, Ed brings his years of classroom experience to the Atkinson School of Management with an emphasis on strategic management and organizational leadership. Ed has taught for educational institutions around Oregon, for businesses around the country, and for governmental entities around the world.

Ed draws on his training as an aerospace engineer, experience as a research scientist and success as an entrepreneur to develop leaders capable of executing strategy and creating sustainable change.

Ed is also a commercial glider pilot. He has even been known to take students up in his Grob 103 high performance sail plane.

Education

  • M.A., Antioch University
  • B.S., Aerospace Engineering, University of Arizona

Areas of Instruction

Planning, leading and executing strategic change

Professional Experience

The Perlan Project, President and CEO. 2010 – present.

Perlan Project is a non-profit organization doing high altitude research. “The Perlan 2 is a pressurized, two-place, space capsule with glider wings designed to use only the power of stratospheric mountain waves to fly as high as 90,000 feet to explore very high-altitude aerodynamics and to perform research in “near space.” (quote from a 2018 Royal Aeronautical Society medal citation). In 2018, the Perlan II research glider set three world altitude records. On September 2, 2018 it reached 76,124 feet surpassing the highest altitude of the U-2 and became the “highest flying, piloted, subsonic airplane in history.” The project has received the following honors and awards:

  • Two-time nominee for the Collier Trophy for “for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America” in 2018 and 2019
  • Aviation Week Laureate for commercial aviation “technology and innovation”
  • Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, Group Diploma of Honor

Cumulus Resources, LLC. President, Managing Partner. 1984 – present. Cumulus Resources works with companies and government agencies in the United States, Canada, SE Asia, and Africa on planning and managing strategic change.

Selected Publications and Presentations

“Balanced Scorecard for the Health Industry”

“Performance Management for Teams and Organizations”

“Balanced Scorecard: A context for clean execution”

“Change Planning and Change Management”

“Managing Performance with an Earned Value Management Systems”

“Requirements Clarification on Strategic Projects”

“Managing Project Portfolios for Strategic Results”

“Outcome-Driven Project Management”

“Decision-Making and Design Techniques for Groups”

“Catalytic Leadership: Leadership in complex organizations and communities”

“Reengineering Systems”

“Transition Management – The People Part of Strategic Change”

“Virtual Teams – Building Teams Across Organizational Silos”

“Leading in Chaotic Systems”

“Future Directions in the New Economy”

“Management Skills Required in the New Economy”

“Strategies To Be Successful In The New Economy”

“Building Community Leadership”

“Leadership Lessons from Chaos Theory And Game Theory”

“Systems Change and Empowerment”

“Value Chain Reengineering”

Willamette University

Atkinson Graduate School of Management

Salem Campus

Portland Center