Doug Skonord has an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. His five years of engineering experience were spent with a large construction company in South San Francisco and as an engineering officer in the U.S. Air Force. Doug switched to a manufacturing career when he was offered a role as General Manager, with leadership responsibility of over 100 personnel. Subsequently, he spent twenty-one years leading (General Manager and Chief Operating Officer) various manufacturing organizations with employee populations from 100 to 600. Two of the companies were divisions of Fortune 500 companies and three of the companies were privately held. The manufacturing technologies he oversaw included printing and bindery, paper and synthetics converting, web coating, and metal fabrication. In the late 1970's, he installed an MRP system in the Dennison Manufacturing Division, with exceptional results. Inventory was reduced more than $1MM as stock availability and inventory accuracy both rose over 98%. He has been a member of APIC for more than twenty years.

Doug received an MBA in Finance and Management from the University of Southern California in 1978. In the early 1980's, Doug began his education in Quality, taking a 40-hour course in Statistical Process Control. He introduced SPC to Avery International. By 1984, one of the plants under his responsibility had achieved a Q1 rating with Ford Motor Company. Much of the increase in sales at that time could be directly contributed to Avery Industrial plants being on the leading edge of the quality movement. Doug has been an ASQ member for ten years and has been trained as an ISO 9000 auditor. In the late 1980's, Avery Base Materials Division won the Xerox Supplier of the Year award for shipping over $10MM of product with zero rejections. All 5 organizations enjoyed dramatically improved profitability and substantial strengthening of the management infrastructure under Doug's leadership. In 1991, Doug started Transition Management, his own consulting firm. He specialized in helping organizations change to team cultures, implement quality improvement tools and strategic planning.

In 1995, he decided to broaden his influence in working with companies by becoming part of a national organization known as Renaissance EXECUTIVE FORUMS. Doug is a business owner, with the business territorial rights to Wisconsin. He works with other business owners and leaders to help them strengthen their organizations through making positive changes to the human dynamics within their organizations.