Featured Members

Natalie Lowell, President Elect

Speaker Submission video for the PMI LIM Event for November 2025

Title of Submission:

Collaboration Beyond Boundries: Enhancing Cross-Chapter Synergy

Natalie Lowell, Western Michigan Chapter Presenter

LeighAnne Martin, Great Lakes Chapter Presenter

Natalie Lowell click her to launch video

Shari Hufford, PMP

Director, Traverse City Branch

Shari is a newer but very active member of WMPMI. She moved to Traverse City from southern Ohio in 2016 and immediately began working to connect with other local Project Managers. Realizing that WMPMI, the closest chapter, was based over two hours away, she began reaching out to local PMs, businesses, and organizations to determine the level of interest in the area.

Once interest was established, she worked with WMPMI leadership to form a Traverse City branch and the first local meeting was held in November 2018. The branch has recently added a monthly Happy Hour event to provide additional opportunities for networking and sharing of best practices. Shari is serving as the Director of the Traverse City branch, coordinating all outreach and events.

Shari is the Commercial Proposal Manager at EWI, a nonprofit R&D and Engineering Consulting company based in Columbus, Ohio. She has spent nearly 20 years designing and managing complex material handling projects around the country. She has a BS in Technical Management from DeVry University and MBA from Morehead State University.

Shari lives in a log cabin on the Boardman River with her husband Phil, and their two dogs, Remy and Kizzy. She spends her free time hiking with Kizzy, riding quads with Phil, and kayaking. She also enjoys target shooting and is an avid reader. Shari and Phil have four sons and three grandchildren living in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Texas. Shari says she is fortunate to have a wonderfully supportive husband and family, a rewarding career at an innovative company, and an opportunity to grow leadership skills through WMPMI.

Andrew Gill, PMP

President Elect

Andrew Gill is a very valuable member of WMPMI. He is currently serving as the chapter's President Elect. Previously he served as the VP of Programs (now known as VP of Professional Development), mentored a number of college teams for the WMPMI collegiate project management competition, THEProject, as well as judging the event as a member of the member PMO Panel (not at the same time!)

He served sixteen years as a Royal Naval officer before making a career change to engineering and project management and in his former role as VP of Programs, he initiated the concept of Veterans Month. Every November all our speakers are military veterans and we offer all veterans and current military personnel free admission to all our chapter events. Andrew has a passion for process improvement and personnel development and his activities with WMPMI reflect his particular focus on youth development and support for veterans moving into civilian occupations.

He lives in Grand Rapids but still much enjoys travel, even on business, to Europe and beyond.

Cindy Lewis

PMP, PMI-SP

Cindy has been a member of WMPMI for over 20 years! During that time she has frequently served on the board and served as a volunteer in numerous roles.

For the past 5 years, Cindy has been running her own training and consulting business called 4 Pillars of Success® and this business involves lots of travel, providing Microsoft Project Training to clients, tailored project management solutions, and fully customized software training.

On one airline alone, they reported that she traveled around the world over 3 times and that is just visiting US clients in one year!

Kinga Winiarska, PMP, CSM

President, WMPMI

Kinga Winiarska, PMP, CSM is President of WMPMI and has been active in WMPMI since August 2011. She took the helm as President on January 2020 for the next two years. Kinga's passion for WMPMI has helped to grow the chapter membership in a short time and we are grateful for her dedication!

Her current professional role is as a Sr. Project Manager for the Affinity Division of Cigna where she providers her expertise in launching new products, partnerships as well as business support. Prior to her seven years at Cigna, she managed loyalty programs for Spartan Stores and Borders Books and provided competitive analysis, acquisition campaigns, and loyalty and CRM marketing.

Originally from Poland, Kinga came to the US in 2001. She attended University in Szczecin and earned her Masters in Business and Bachelor degrees. She speaks fluent English and Polish and some conversational Dutch. She really regrets losing Russian and German which she was fluent in as well.

Aubree Clark

Past VP, Marketing

PMP

Aubree Clark, PMP, joined the WMPMI Board as VP of Marketing. She has been a member of WMPMI since she earned her PMP in 2016.

Previous to her joining the board she volunteered as the Assistant PM of Event Day for THEProject collegiate competition in 2018 and continued in this role through the 2019 competition. In addition to her work with WMPMI, she also volunteers as an Outreach Chair with her church.

Prior to working at Hastings Mutual Insurance Company, Aubree worked for Amway in the Business Process Management Department.

Patricia Boer, PMP

Director, Member Experience

I have been in project management since 1997 and I became a certified Project Manager Professional (PMP) in April 2007. I have been a LEED Accredited Professional since March, 2008. I completed the Harvard School of Public Health Project Management in Health Care Certification Program in November 2012. I have worked for Spectrum Health for the past eight years and am currently serving the Priority Health campus as a Sr. Facilities Project Manager. I have project management experience in retail and educational design and construction, insurance, manufacturing and health care.

I served as the West Michigan Project Management Institute (WMPMI) Director of Volunteers from 2008–2011 and as the WMPMI VP Finance from May 2011 to December 2012. I had the honor of becoming the VP Membership in December 2012. The Membership Team is now lead by Patricia Brown-May as the VP Member Experience and I have moved into the Director of Member Experience.

Since 2014 our chapter has seen record increases in the membership numbers as we exceeded the previous high of 707 members in June 2009 to 967 members in January 2018! It is rewarding to see our chapter growing as we are providing benefits to increasing numbers of project managers in our region.

I am excited about the opportunity to continue working with Patricia and the WMPMI membership to maximize the opportunities and benefits of being a member of WMPMI.

Kim Kalman

VP, Marketing

CAPM

Kim Kalman, CAPM, has served on the WMPMI Board as VP Education (now known as VP Academic Outreach). She has been a member of PMI and WMPMI since November 2013 and earned her PMI certification in November of 2014.

Kim became a very active member of our Western Michigan chapter in the summer of 2015. It is at this time that she stepped up and accepted the role of Director for THEProject, an annual WMPMI collegiate competition. She continues to have an active role in THEProject and has served as the Director of Academic Outreach. That role also included implementation of the 9 – 12 Program which is geared towards high school students learning about project management profession with possible expansion towards community colleges.

Long-time member and Xerox employee Mike Janisse takes a trip down memory lane to recall what WMPMI used to be like upon joining the early chapter in the 1990’s.

The WMPMI meetings were held at Noto’s when it was located on the SE corner of the East Beltline and I-96. We didn’t have a good way to serve Lansing, Kalamazoo, Traverse City, Muskegon, Holland back then, so we had a number of members who did travel to the monthly dinner meetings. Chapters were later started in other parts of the state of Michigan, and WMPMI certainly influenced that momentum.

Mike continues with answers to:

How did you become a member?
Impressions after joining?
Was the PMP certification well-known?
Are you still serving on Chorus Board or singing in a chorus?

Robert Berlin, PMP

Education Outreach Administrator

Robert Berlin, PMP, is a versatile business and information technology project professional with over 20 years managing medium to large projects in multiple industries during his 47 years in IT. He is currently a Consulting Project Manager with Clover Consulting where he provides project consultation and management in the retail and wholesale food distribution industry.

Robert has been a member of PMI since April 1997! He now serves the WMPMI as the Education Outreach Administrator and he has held leadership or advisory roles in project management and project management education with PMI Central Virginia Chapter, University of Mary Washington, Germanna Community College, Virginia State University, Virginia Union University, and ECPI University.

He holds a BS in Accounting, an MBA in Management, an MS in Project Management (MSPM), and most recently a Certificate for Advanced Graduate Studies in Business Administration [DBA/(ABD)].

His favorite hobbies are walking, hiking, cycling, baking, canoeing, and learning.

Jeff Kissinger

Past President, WMPMI

PMP, FCT, FCP, CSM

Jeff Kissinger is WMPMI’s Past President. His two-year term as WMPMI’s President ended December 31, 2019.

Jeff recently began working at Bissel, and previously worked at Grand Rapids Community College, where he was a senior project manager in the Information Technology Department. He has 20 years of experience managing information technology projects in academic and commercial organizations. He also has over 25 years of experience as a volunteer managing projects in non-profit organizations.

Volunteering is Jeff’s passion. He has been doing it since he was 19 years old. The work is often challenging, but it’s always meaningful.

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