Dr. Kenneth W. Sullivan is the CEO of Micro Craft, Inc., a small employee owned (ESOP) machine shop located in Tullahoma, TN. Micro Craft has served the aerospace and defense industry for over 60 years. Dr. Sullivan is also the former Director of the Office for Operational Excellence in the Research Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). While working at UAH, he performed industrial based and supply chain assessments of the Army aviation and missile enterprise for over a decade. During that time, Dr. Sullivan worked directly with over 70 defense suppliers at all levels of the supply chain. He has also worked for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MFSC) and United Technologies Corporation (Carrier). Dr. Sullivan has over 37 years of experience in both the commercial and government sectors.
Dr. Sullivan holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, a M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) and a Ph.D. from UA Huntsville in Industrial and Systems Engineering with an emphasis in Engineering Management.
Dr. Sullivan serves as the Chairman Emeritus for the National Defense Industrial Association’s (NDIA) Manufacturing Division and currently serves as President of the Arnold Community Council (ACC). He serves on the Board of Directors for Defensewerx, SME 2021 SMART Manufacturing Executive Committee and on various community advisory boards primarily related to education. Dr. Sullivan is a registered professional engineer (Alabama and Tennessee), a certified Six Sigma Green Belt and a certified NIST Lean Manufacturing and MIT Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI) trainer. He has published multiple technical papers and made presentations at various conferences regarding lean principles, supply chain implementation and industrial base issues. He has received two MSFC Director's Commendations, 1988 San Fernando Valley Engineering Merit Award and a Project Manager on the team that received the 1998 Grover E. Bell award.