The Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design will host Walter T. Wilhelm at 4 p.m. Oct 7-8 in the Home Economics building on East Campus, Room 11. Wilhelm is the chairman of Walter Wilhelm Associates, which is a Utah-based boutique consulting organization that helps retail and brand clients refine “front-end” processes.
As a management-consulting firm, WWA focuses on empowering apparel, footwear and retail executives with the strategies, processes and technologies that create tangible business value and sustainable competitive advantage.
The team has built hundreds of successful projects around the globe, making WWA unique among consulting agencies.
Wilhelm is a serial entrepreneur recognized as one of the most innovative and “connected” executives in the soft goods industry. He is one of the pioneers in creating and implementing technology to streamline the product design and development processes.
Over the course of his successful career he has held senior positions in retailing, manufacturing and technology sales and development. Wilhelm’s extensive experience domestically, as well as internationally, includes opening six offices in Europe and four in Asia.
In addition to leading WWA, Wilhelm was a co-founder of Microdynamics; served as President of Animated Images; co-founded Wilhelm-Leslie Associates; and was General Manager of Hughes Aircraft Company’s Apparel & Footwear Automation Systems Division.
WWA identifies operations obstacles and designs production systems to increase efficiency and responsiveness.
While on the UNL campus, Wilhelm will speak before several TMFD classes and will meet with faculty members and students in small group conversations.
Wilhelm will also provide background on himself and the firm and will address challenges facing the soft goods industries today, including the question “Made in the USA: can apparel manufacturing ever return to the US at any kind of scale?”
UNL faculty and students are invited to join TMFD classes in which Wilhelm will speak.
For more information about his schedule, contact the department office at 402-272-2911.
