Interview with John Cook

December 2021

I worked for thirty years in senior leadership roles for Kimberly Clark Corp. I was involved with the design, construction, start-up, and optimization of manufacturing at sites throughout the world. I led teams of professionals with an emphasis on product development and high-volume manufacturing of consumer products. I got a chance to work extensively on process improvement and supply chain management. I also led Quality Improvement and Information Technologies teams to create world-class process monitoring systems.

I retired but got very bored and decided to start a new career in teaching. I use my knowledge developed from working in private industry to give students real-life, practical techniques in operations management, supply chain management, project management, process optimization, quality control, and LEAN. I continue to consult with consumer products companies which allows me to stay aligned with the latest management techniques.

My primary teaching interest is finding ways to make teaching interesting, practical, and fun. I am particularly interested in helping students in my classes who do not have all the required skills to be successful. To help with this, I have received training and participated in three programs at Cal Poly to help me improve my class (Association of College and University Educators training, “Quality Materials” class organization, and Passion PLC).

The Association of College and University Educators training (ACUE) organization believes all college students deserve an extraordinary education and that faculty members play a critical role in their success. ACUE training is designed to help teachers find the best ways to make class exciting for their students. The approach stresses proven techniques that help to keep students interested in the concepts they are learning. I have been able to implement a lot of the concepts I learned in this program to make my classes more relevant and interesting.

Quality Matters (QM)professional development is designed to help educators deliver the promise of quality learning. QM provides teachers with methods to efficiently organize the critical class materials. By making the class website and presentation materials extremely organized, students can concentrate on learning the content. QM has also helped me conduct much more structured lectures.

Passion PLC is an organization that is focused on developing critical skill sets in students that come from disadvantaged environments. We meet regularly to discuss techniques to make students from disadvantaged environments more successful. Each member of the team is trialing different classroom techniques. In my classes, I am trialing the utilization of short videos on “critical math principle’s” to help students in my TOM 3010 learn mathematics they may be struggling with.

The last focus area for me is to stress why the topics I am teaching in class are so important. I try to share personal experiences and actual examples of how I have used the material presented in class in my career. I feel by showing the practical applications, students get excited about learning