It is always a pleasure to have a guest writer for my weekly letter, and this week I am so excited to have one of AME’s favorite volunteers, Todd Reese, share his thoughts on the AME conference. Todd serves on the AME Great Lakes Board as past president and has volunteered in many roles, including serving as this year’s AME St. Louis 2025 International Conference program chair. He is leading an incredible team with Melissa Buie, Terry Spalding, Steve Ebbing, Ryan Zeng and Dave Zink.
A volunteer's perspective: Todd Reese on the power of AME Conferences
Todd M. Reese, Director Commercial Quality Americas Nutrition, Abbott
“My first AME Conference experience did not go the way I expected. It was in my hometown of Chicago in 2007, and I went with a very specific purpose — I wanted to learn what a kaizen approach was and how to facilitate one. What I actually came away with was a trip to California, a certification as a kaizen facilitator and a network of people who are some of my best confidants to this day.
After asking around and networking with other conference attendees, I learned I needed to meet a guy named Jerry. Jerry’s company ran many successful kaizen events and had developed a great program for training and certifying new facilitators. Jerry and I talked for nearly an hour between sessions at the conference, and he answered every question I asked him.
After being so generous with his time and knowledge, Jerry gave me his contact info and let me know he was planning an AME event to train and certify new kaizen facilitators. I jumped at the opportunity, flew to California and got my hands-on experience on a kaizen team in one of his plants. Jerry and several other people I met at that first conference are my advisers, consultants and mentors; they’re still the people that I reach out to if I have questions or challenges in my work to this day.
This is what makes AME and its conferences so unique and special. It places such an emphasis on practitioner-to-practitioner learning and creates opportunities not just for you to visit a manufacturer on a tour, learn from a best practice presentation, or get inspired by a keynote speaker, but to truly make connections that will help you today and in the future. This is why I got involved with an AME Regional Board and why I love helping plan future conferences: to create more opportunities for everyone to have experiences like this.
I’m so excited about this year’s lineup of conference speakers. The team that has selected this year’s best-practice presentations is absolutely top-notch, and their depth of expertise and network is unlike anything I’ve worked with before. As a team, we were very intentional about identifying the topics most relevant to our working lives today and then finding the practitioners doing great work on those topics who can share them in the most helpful way.
On top of this, echoing my experience almost 20 years ago, AME conferences are an opportunity for so much more, and we wanted to find new ways to help all attendees make connections that will last far beyond October.
This year, you will have multiple chances to dive deeper with presenters from notable companies. For example, Honeywell will lead an interactive session on AI and present a keynote address on next-gen supply chain using innovation and technology, giving you multiple insights into the business and important people to meet and interact with. Additionally, both Clemco Industries and Melton Machine & Control will have team members sharing best-practice presentations and leading tours through their facilities, allowing you to dive deeper and network with practitioners.
If there is something you want to learn, chances are great that someone else in AME is working on it, too. And chances are also high that they will be willing to share, learn and grow. And if you want to meet some amazing people who could be your lifelong friends and confidants, I can’t think of a better place to look than at AME. So, come to the AME St. Louis 2025 International Conference in October. We can’t wait to share, learn and grow with you.”
Todd summed up this year’s conference perfectly. It is going to be the best one ever, featuring impressive and celebrated keynote speakers like:
- Rami Goldratt & Andy Busch
- Elizabeth Haberberger
- Sarah Kernion
- Tom LaMantia
- Chen Lin
- Aimee Peacock
- Jeff Puma
- And Robert “Cujo” Teschner
Thanks so much to Lynne Johnson, this year’s conference keynote chair, and Wesley Farris.
We will have over 20 tour opportunities to high-performing facilities, like Ameren Corporation, Cambridge Air Solutions, Hunter Engineering, Melton Machine & Control Company, Watlow and even the Saint Louis Zoo. Explore the impressive tour lineup. I am sending a huge thank you to Meg Brown for chairing tours this year and to Jonathan Jones for all of his hard work and enthusiasm.
Did you know you can enhance your conference experience by adding a workshop to your schedule? You can choose from 18 full-day or half-day workshops. In the spirit of the conference theme, “Gateway to the future: AI and beyond,” we’re especially excited about these hands-on and interactive learning experiences around artificial intelligence:
- The people implications of Industry 4.0 and AI
- AI-driven enterprise transformation: A hands-on experience in scalable impact
- Embracing organizational design in the AI era
- And Human-centered AI in practice
Thank you so much to the conference workshops chair, William Harvey, and his team.
The practitioner sessions are exceptional this year, as well, encompassing topics like leadership, lean product development, daily management systems, 2P, A3, AI, culture and value stream mapping. Thank you again, Todd Reese and your team.
And of course, the networking is what we all come for, as Todd shares above. Explore St. Louis in our ever-popular AME-zing Race, connect during the AME Breakfast Club or Lunch Bunch, take away helpful first-time conference advice at the Club Nubee orientation night, enjoy local food in our nightly Dine Arounds, dive deeper in our Idea Exchanges, or be a part of our fun Passport Game.
Last but most definitely not least, you don’t want to miss the Welcome Reception on Monday evening, a celebration of the St. Louis spirit, AME's commitment to excellence and the power of coming together as a community. Everyone knows Ellen Siemenski and Sara O’Hara love to have fun!
Finally, I want to give a big shoutout to this year’s conference chair, our Australian friend, Barry McCarthy, who is leading with innovation, creativity and inspiration. Please go watch his recent fun, Barry-style LinkedIn post and video, where his rogue AI “team” hilariously plots to attend the AME International Conference 2025.
Three other board members also shared wonderful videos on LinkedIn — please go interact with posts from Billy Ray Taylor, Peggy Gulick and Ellen Siemenski.
I will see you all at the AME St. Louis 2025 International Conference the first week of October! If you haven’t registered, now is the time. Register by August 31 to take advantage of our Last Chance Pricing. And don’t forget to make your reservation at the conference hotel: Marriott St. Louis Grand.
As always, please stay safe and keep looking out for one another.
