Meet Our Coaches

Tom Bacus brings over 25 years in the transportation, land development, and sustainability fields. He has extensive experience in business development, operations, project delivery, program management, training, leadership development and strategic planning.

Tom currently serves as California Regional Operations Manager for HW Lochner, a national consulting engineering firm. Over his career, Tom has managed projects at all scales from $10K planning studies.

Tom has held various leadership roles throughout his career, including office and market leadership, executive leadership, and companywide operations, and is particularly skilled at developing business strategy, opening new markets and geographies, and implementing business processes.

Robin Bellerby, AIA, has over 30 years of experience in architecture and organizational change. She brings a unique blend of technical expertise and transformational leadership to every initiative. As chief architecture officer at one of the nation’s largest multifamily firms, she oversees architectural operations and risk management with strategic insight and a calm, steady hand. Robin’s background—spanning more than $1 billion in completed projects and academic training in learning & organizational change—equips her to lead workshops that help professionals build confidence, navigate complexity, and drive organizational transformation. As an instructor, she infuses each session with practical insight, engaging delivery, and a genuine passion for empowering others. Known for her approachability, integrity, and collaborative style, Robin inspires confidence.

In his more than 15 years with PSMJ, Michael D’Alessandro has trained thousands of AEC professionals on the principles of successful project delivery. His areas of particular expertise include present-worth cost estimating, negotiating capital financing, code investigations, multi-disciplinary engineering coordination, equipment and subcontractor procurement, construction management, and facility commissioning.

Michael is a Senior Principal Environmental and Civil Engineer with Geosyntec and has more than 25 years of experience focused on the development of environmental and infrastructure projects using design and build and performance-based implementation strategies. He has special expertise as a construction engineering consultant, engineering practitioner, and project and program management specialist.

Bill Hinsley brings more than 16 years of experience in the AEC industry to leading PSMJ AEC Project Management Bootcamp. Previously serving as the Associate Vice President of renowned international firms ARCADIS and Atkins, Bill has spearheaded projects ranging from $1 million to $11 billion. With PSMJ, Bill has trained over 8,000 AEC PMs across the globe. With extensive project management experience in the planning, engineering, procurement, and management of large civil works projects, Bill has served as Senior Project Manager, Principal PM, and Principal-in-Charge. As someone who has successfully led projects both as a PM and Principal, Bill intimately knows the challenges of both positions, giving him keen insight into the challenges and rewards of each role.

After a successful career of over 20 years with AEC firms, Jared shifted gears to pursue his passion for helping other firms succeed through consulting and teaching. Jared is an accomplished engineering executive with extensive experience in project management, operations, financial management and business strategy.

Jared spent most of his career at Hankins and Anderson, a full-service A/E firm where he served as a Senior Vice President and Director of Operations. He was heavily involved with strategy, management, and finance and was also responsible for developing and implementing the firm’s strategic management system and improving its quality management system.

Elise Kirchofer has the unique experience of having served on the design, construction and Owner’s side of a project. With over 20 years of experience in the AEC industry, this background allows her to understand the project and processes from all sides of the table. Elise is a professional engineer who spent 15 years practicing at a national MEP firm, Henderson Engineers. As Vice President at Henderson, Elise led a team of engineers responsible for managing a wide range of projects, from small national accounts to large complex healthcare and commercial projects exceeding $100 million. Elise then led up Project Management for CBRE in the Kansas City area. Elise is Principal at Hoefer Welker where she leads up Operations, Engineering and is integral in business development.

Warren Ladbrook brings broad experience surveying, engineering, project delivery, program management, and business operations. He has 35+ years of international AEC experience, in a progressive range of different roles. When he’s not leading programs with PSMJ, Warren leads the Project Management transformation at WithersRavenel, a growing mid-sized consultancy, developing policies & procedures, software tools & dashboards, quality assurance & quality control, KPI reporting & compliance monitoring, plus ongoing training for a large number of assistant project managers, project managers, senior project managers, project coordinators, directors, and more.
He has worked as a sole proprietor on small engineering projects, for a variety of different size firms on mid-size projects, and up to a large multinational AEC company where Warren directed large international infrastructure projects.

Duane Lindner has been actively engaged in the consulting engineering industry for over 25 years. He is a senior Project Manager for Associated Engineering in Ontario, Canada, where he built a successful branch office in new geographic territory from the ground up. More recently, he has handed off his management roles to focus purely on his passion: project delivery. Duane has served as Project Manager and Lead Engineer for many civil engineering projects as well as both commercial and residential developments. He is a two-time recipient of the Consulting Engineers of Ontario “Award of Excellence” for Project Management on complex projects. As an executive Vice President, he was instrumental in helping a small civil engineering firm grow from 40 people to a multi-discipline firm of over 200 staff that ultimately joined PSMJ’s AEC Circle of Excellence. He was responsible for implementing corporate Project Management and Cost Accounting systems for multiple organizations.

Chris has been a progressive and proactive leader in the AEC industry for most of his nearly 40 years in the profession. He has successfully managed technically complex and highly accelerated design-build/IPD projects as well as conventional projects, ranging from smaller ongoing multi-project efforts to ones exceeding $125 million. During his 15 years with national multidisciplinary AEC and design-build firm McClier (an AECOM company), Chris was Senior Vice President managing larger projects, as well as responsible for the mentoring and training of project management staff and developing and refining the firm’s fully integrated project delivery processes. As Vice President and Director of Project Management for Cannon Design, Chris led and trained AEC staff and teams in project, program and construction management for this 750-person firm. Chris founded Perkins+Will Integrated Services and program management services at this 1,000-person firm.

Emily Tilgner is a professional engineer who spent 12 years practicing at a national MEP firm, Henderson Engineers, Inc. As Director of Kansas City Operations at Henderson, Emily led a team of engineers responsible for managing a wide range of projects, from small national accounts to large corporate, education and performance space projects. Emily then took an opportunity to become a Principal at Lankford Fendler + Associates. Her role included overseeing various project types, but she took the lead on creating a formalized business development strategy and tracking system and project management training. At her time with this firm, she was responsible for landing one of the largest projects in the firms 20+ year history.

Jonathan Wilson has 17 years of experience managing challenging projects from both sides of the table. Jonathan hired and led numerous AEC management project teams to fulfill a multi-million-dollar aviation capital program. First as a client-side project manager and then as a program manager, Jonathan organized and led diverse teams of planning, civil engineering, structural engineering, MEP engineering, architecture, landscape architecture, survey, and construction management professionals on individual projects beyond $10 million. Jonathan later founded the aviation division inside of KPG, an established 120-person Seattle-based interdisciplinary professional services firm. Over the years, Jonathan and his project teams completed numerous planning, survey, civil engineering, architecture, and landscape architecture projects for both airport owners and private aviation businesses, including two Fortune 50 companies.