Our Team

Karen Martin | Mike Osterling | Ric Van Der Linden

Karen Martin, Principal

Karen Martin provides Lean transformation support to organizations of all types, with particular expertise transforming office, service, government, knowledge work and creative environments. Her broad understanding of operations design and business management stems from her experience building the operational infrastructure for several start-up operations with annual growth that ranged from 50-100%.  Her expertise also includes a keen understanding of customer value, which she honed while serving in sales and marketing roles, and legal and regulatory issues, which she developed while working in highly regulated and litigious environments. She has provided support to organizations in a broad range of industries including: manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, government/military, engineering design, information technology, construction, oil and gas production, insurance, distribution, and publishing.

Karen’s quality and process orientation evolved from her early career as a scientist (B.S. Microbiology, Pennsylvania State University) and was formally developed while serving as the Director of Quality Improvement for an organization that managed the healthcare for 22 million Americans and the Director of the Institute for Quality and Productivity at San Diego State University, where she oversaw the university’s sell-out Lean Enterprise and Quality Business Practices programs.  Her passion for workforce development led her to a graduate program in adult learning (M.A. Education, California State University, Bakersfield).

As a consultant, Karen is known for her keen diagnostic skills and rapid results-focused approach to meeting client needs.  A skilled change agent, Karen builds energy within work teams by helping them focus an organization’s key performance goals – faster delivery of higher quality products and services at lower cost – while simultaneously boosting workforce morale.  Clients also give Karen high marks for helping them create continuous improvement cultures and support systems so they may become self-sustaining as quickly as possible.

Karen’s healthcare-rich background includes clinical, administrative, and regulatory work in hospitals, post-acute care settings, payor services, medical research, clinical laboratories, physician group practices, integrative medicine and behavioral healthcare.

Karen is an instructor for the University of California, San Diego’s Lean Enterprise program and San Diego State University's new Advanced Lean program. Additional academic experience includes faculty, guest lecturer and/or extension program instructor posts at Azusa Pacific University, California State University, Northridge, California State University, San Marcos, University of California, Bakersfield, University of California, Los Angeles.

She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and chapter meetings for organizations such as the American Society for Quality (ASQ), Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), American Electronics Association (AeA), Shingo Prize, Society for Manufacturing Engineers (SME), APICS, Society for Health Systems (SHS), Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and The Joint Commission. She maintains her license as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, is co-author for the book The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Environments (Productivity Press, October 2007), and co-developer for Metrics-Based Process Mapping: An Excel-Based Solution, both available through Productivity Press.