Project Manager / Business Analyst/ Technical Liaison (link2val@gmail.com)
Huntsville, Alabama Area
- Current
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- Major Defense Acquisition Programs Manager at Missile Defense Agency
- Past
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- Management Consultant at Diplomac Solutions, LLC
- Governance Consultant at Bank of America
- Project Manager / Sr. Business Analyst / Technical Liaison at SAIC
- Program / Change Manager on Transformation Management efforts at Department of Defense
- Program Management: Supply Chain Management & Logistics at Advanced Technology Systems, Inc
- Project Lead / Business Process Consultant at CACI
- Systems Manager / HR Specialist at Navy
- Education
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- Averett University
- University of Phoenix
- Nicholls State University
- Thibodaux High
- Recommended
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2 people have recommended Valerie - Connections
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500+
connections
- Industry
- Defense & Space
- Websites
Valerie Cortez’s Summary
VETERAN with an active SECRET clearance, MBA, and over 8 years consulting to federal government in IT STRATEGIC PLANNING, BUSINESS PROCESS, BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, MISSION INITIATIVES, and DECISION SUPPORT ANALYSIS with a focus on ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING systems and processes.
Project Management, Senior Analysis, and Technical Liaison with a strong foundation in business process reengineering and defense acquisition. Manage Defense Acquisition Programs focused on Information Technology Transformation & Continuity initiatives.
Valerie Cortez’s Specialties:
Change Management; Knowledge Management; Technical to Business Liaison; Extensive knowledge & understanding of development, business intelligence, database/warehousing, and process methodologies, techniques, & tools; Root Cause, Return on Investment, Cost Benefit, Feasibility, Six Sigma, Lean, Customer-Focused, RUP, UML, DMAIC, Agile, Spiral, Features Driven, Scrum, Extreme Programming, C4ISR, Architecture, SIMProcess, Informatica, Corda, ERWin, BPWin, Rational Rose, Sharepoint.
Valerie Cortez’s Experience
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Major Defense Acquisition Programs Manager
Missile Defense Agency
(Government Agency; 501-1000 employees; Defense & Space industry)
November 2007 — Present (9 months)
Systems Accountant to MDA through L3 Communication charged to lead, develop, manage, and coordinate among process areas and track implementation of the defense agencies mission initiative program. This is a multi-organization implementation of Oracle 11i Business Suite Federal Financials with Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Ensure consistency between program efficiencies, MDA business requirements, and financial & systems governance compliance. Develop metrics to track program goals and assess progress of achievement of strategic objectives. Coordinate the development of information feeds through various communication vehicles to attain customer feedback. Recommend process improvements and adjustments to the business operations and strategic plans. Form strategic alliances with other agencies in partnering for funding and data fusion.
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Management Consultant
Diplomac Solutions, LLC
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2007 — August 2007 (8 months)
Strategic Consulting and Business Development for a technical small business start up as a 1099 developing RFP responses, statements of work, and negotiating contract terms with new clients.
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Governance Consultant
Bank of America
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Banking industry)
October 2006 — January 2007 (4 months)
Governance Consultant on SHort-term contract doing Systems assessment for audit risk analysis and mitigation.
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Project Manager / Sr. Business Analyst / Technical Liaison
SAIC
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
April 2005 — May 2006 (1 year 2 months)
Managed the development of a decision analysis support tool delivering enterprise reporting capabilities of assets and programs supporting mission critical initiatives, the PPBE processes, implementing DOD 5200 compliant security standards, and assisting with the achievement of Federal financial compliance for the OSD budget of nearly $500BB/annum using Informatica’s OLAP application and backend. Utilized rapid application development (RAD) spiral development philosophy to create a near-production web-based ETL, storage, query, and display environment with dynamic dimensional modeling founded on object oriented design. Achieved enterprise data efficiency implementing a quality improvement methodology adapted from Lean Thinking with a customer focus. This resulted in actualizing a common data structure that enhanced the reporting capabilities supporting congressional and executive mandates to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and align to the Enterprise Architecture.
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Program / Change Manager on Transformation Management efforts
Department of Defense
(Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Defense & Space industry)
October 2004 — April 2005 (7 months)
Developed the strategic plan for transforming the enterprise financial management business, improving operational efficiency, optimizing business systems, leveraging existing technologies, expanding functional capabilities, and conducting analysis to identify new opportunities to integrate mission capabilities. Maintained awareness of congressional actions, other agency programs of interests, developed
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Program Management: Supply Chain Management & Logistics
Advanced Technology Systems, Inc
(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
March 2001 — September 2004 (3 years 7 months)
Sr Systems Analyst in support of Supply Chain Management & Logistics decision analysis programs for Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia. Supervised and performed operations research studies such as feasibility studies, cost benefit analysis, risk assessments, trade off analysis, best/worst case analysis, Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats (SWOT), GAP, root cause and Return on Investment (ROI) studies. Utilized Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology in centralizing the supply chain management and logistics systems and functions supporting all DoD subsistence management. Collected and validated data on and provided competitive market & trend analysis used in performing benchmarking studies.
Generated contract awards worth 500K+ through contributing to corporate proposals. -
Project Lead / Business Process Consultant
CACI
(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 1999 — March 2001 (1 year 10 months)
BA / Lead to Navy SPAWAR ITC PMO serving as the principal simulation process modeler & team lead for a team of 3 to 8 consultants. Participated in gathering detail information on business processes, systems, data, & requirements; developed use cases, process models, work flow analysis, functional needs assessment, gap & SWOT analysis; performing financial analysis (ABC, Economic Analysis, ROI); researched & recommended best practices; established program methodologies; made recommendations on process improvements & automation efficiencies; & created integration & implementation strategies. Directly responsible for the development of several SDLC documents, architecture products, requirements definition, as well as developed & presented program briefs to high level government & congressional constituents. Tasking involved interfacing with & presenting to high level executives at the PMO and interacting & coordinating with peers from outside organizations & vendors.
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Systems Manager / HR Specialist
Navy
(Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Defense & Space industry)
April 1992 — July 1999 (7 years 4 months)
MILITARY SERVICE
~ Honorable Discharge, United States Navy: Apr 1992 – Feb 1994 to Aug 1995 – Jul 1999.
~ Campaign Badges: Southwest Asia Service Medal with Bronze star: Kuwait Liberation (Saudi, Arabia).
Major Awards:
~ “Navy Achievement Medal”: Secretary of Defense, John B. Dalton, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Blue Jacket of the Year”: Commander Naval Reserve Force, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Military Citizen of the Year”: Chamber of Commerce, New Orleans, LA.
Valerie Cortez’s Education
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Averett University
MBA, 2002 — 2004
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University of Phoenix
BS, BA / Business Information Systems (New Orleans Campus), 1996 — 1999
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Nicholls State University
Sociology 1990 — 1991
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Thibodaux High
Diploma, 1986 — 1990
Additional Information
Valerie Cortez’s Websites:
Valerie Cortez’s Groups:
Active PMI member; Metrolina Chapter & Women in PM SIG.
Associate member; American Society for Quality (ASQ)
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Forbes.com Life member -
OpenNetworkers.info member -
Networlding member -
Green member -
Channel Huntsville member
Valerie Cortez’s Honors:
~ “Navy Achievement Medal”: Secretary of Defense, John B. Dalton, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Blue Jacket of the Year”: Commander Naval Reserve Force, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Military Citizen of the Year”: Chamber of Commerce, New Orleans, LA.
Valerie Cortez’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
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- consulting offers
- job inquiries
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