Hello! I'm Val.
Innovative leader with more than 17 years of distinguished achievements in strategy and integration, financial and program operations, and organizational transformation and change management. My intrapreneurial skills have solved tough, complex business challenges. You will find that I lead with grit, passion, teamwork, and resilience.
Optimistic, resilient leader that is sought globally to create and execute transformational change.
Vision
Uncovering creative, new ways of moving the organization forward to continuously grow.
Mission
Extensive track record of managing successful cross-functional, large-scale strategic initiatives.
Impact
See my projects for success stories.
Val Ruark
STRATEGY & OPERATIONS EXPERT
443-735-6373
Email:
Timezone/Location
Eastern Standard Time
Vermont, United States
Phone:
PROJECT SAMPLING
Revitalizing a National Brand
[CHALLENGE] NASA Flight Projects were consistently reported by GAO as behind schedule and with excessive costs, which was increasing lack of congressional support for new work and missions.
[SOLUTION] A business change initiative was chartered to work across the 9 programs and 28 projects. Cross-functional teams were chartered to identify cost, schedule, and technial best practices and employ standards.
[VALUE] 100+ changes created and adopted in under 2 years. Increased programmatic and technical reliability. Next 8 missions were on schedule and budget, gaining a 6% ROI, $300M.
"Val worked tirelessly to define and deploy program planning and control best practices..., results have begun to restore NASA Goddard’s reputation for cost and schedule excellence."
--Chief Financial Officer, NASA
Building a Federal Business
[CHALLENGE] There was no single entity for vendors to do business with and each agency was negotiating independently, creating price variance, inoperability, and growing threats.
[SOLUTION] A governmentwide transformation that joined the four major acquisition programs from NASA, NIH, DoD, and GSA to provide a one-stop-shop for acquisition intelligence and support the $74B a year IT portfolio.
[VALUE] Operationalized in less than 6 months, gaining 1K subscribers within first 2 quarters and a net promoter of 94%. On target to secure more than $1B in cost savings on IT products.
"Val has been exceptional in identifying creative opportunities to amplify our business (the Federal IT Vendor Management Office) and help us evolve and grow."
--Deputy Category Manager, GSA
Improving Capital Programming
“...thankfully for NASA Goddard, Val Ruark had a drive and ambition that couldn't be stopped. Val was critical to revamping the Capital Planning and Investment Management Framework”
--NASA Director for Management Operation
[CHALLENGE] IT assets were managed disparately across the NASA portfolio, which made data unreliable and difficult to access resulting in duplicative processes and waste to resolve.
[SOLUTION] A revamped Capital Framework and IT Business Tool, streamlining cross-functional processes, increasing data reliability/accruacy, and improving data-driven decision making for NASA business planning.
[VALUE] Uncovered more than $28M in rogue IT assets. Secured buy in and more than $10M annually for new development investments going forward. Solution was sought agency-wide.
SKILLS
Strategic Planning & Execution
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Develop 1, 3, and 5 year strategic plans
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Create Objective Key Result (OKR) strategies
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Employ business performance management systems
Business & Financial Acumen
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Acute perception of the business and how to manage
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Identify and achieve cost effective approaches
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Ability to make sense out of complexity and uncertainity
Program, Planning, & Control
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Manage projects within budget and cost constraints
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Proactive risk management and problem solving skills
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Well adept in Scum, Agile, Waterfall, and Lean methods
Cross-Functional Operations
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Keen ability at working across departments
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Persuade and build consensus through give and take
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Actively manage internal/external politics
People Strategy & Workforce
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Create talent acquisition and retention strategies
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Design workforce plans (titling/compensation/succession)
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Develop career pathway programs and curriculums
Data & Communications
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Uncanny style at synthesizing data and driving decisions
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Prepare external and internal communication campaigns
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Breakdown complex data into visuals and reporting sets
EXPERIENCE
2019 - Present
Senior Manager, Strategy & Organization
REI Systems | Advisory Services Practice
Principal consultant to Federal, State, and Local government executives and programs. Counsel on business strategy and operations for portfolios ranging from $2M to $74B. Led initiatives which have developed and grown new federal business sectors by more than 33% year-over-year.
2015 - 2019
NASA | Wallops Flight Facility
Senior Manager, Business & Range Operations
Operations manager, overseeing the end-to-end delivery of IT for multi-facility Range and suborbital launch missions. Spearheaded new approaches for identifying and managing business transformations. Influenced and executed project that modernized infrastructure at half the costs and secured new DoD partnership.
2009 - 2015
Chief of Staff, Flight Projects
Program Manager, Capital Planning
NASA | Goddard Space Flight Center
Expert business analyst, advising executives on organization and programmatic matters for portfolios of $250M to $3.3B. Certified efficient use of resources in alignment with Federal priorities to grow and maximize value of operations. Guided change initiatives that secured more than $300M in cost savings.
MARKETS
Aviation & Aeronautics
Acquisitions & Finance
Education
Information Technology
Infrastructure & Construction
Policy & Regulations
EDUCATION
2009 - 2012
AMERICAN GRADUATE UNIVERSITY
Masters of Business Administration
Accredited university, established to serve professionals from government and military. Focused on Acquisitions and Contact Management, with supplemental coursework on Program/Project Management. Thesis was on approach for improving stewardship of IT assets despite disparate data and CIO authority; thesis was complemented with pilot of self created 'IT Business Model' that was successful employed at NASA Goddard.
2003 - 2007
Bachelors of Fine Arts
SALISBURY UNIVERSITY
Accredited, liberal arts college. Focused on three-dimensional design. Served on school's Dance Company and as a rotating choreographer. Oversaw and curated senior class BA and BFA art shows. Completed internship at Irie Radio Station. Throughout all four years maintained multiple jobs with average of 32-hours weekly; full-time (40+ hours) during summer and winter breaks.