Seasoned professional with 11+ years of work experience in a wide variety of roles spanning from MSAT, Life Cycle Management, Strategy, Process Development, Design Engineering and Cell Therapy Research.
Passionate to lead and engage my interdisciplinary skills towards acceleration and delivery of novel therapeutics to patients in need globally.

Kevin started his career in the Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) and served onboard
USS REEVES (CG-24) and USS CHANDLER (DDG-996). He got his first exposure to plant
operations and maintenance when he qualified as Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) on
a 1200 psi / 950 0 F, oil-fired, steam ship - old school!
He then went on to join a small Diagnostics manufacturing company as a bench chemist. He
was eventually promoted to lead Manufacturing which included responsibility for the filling line
and lyophilizers. Kevin later joined IDEC Pharmaceuticals. The Oceanside based biologics
drug substance manufacturing site eventually became part of Biogen Idec and then
Roche/Genentech. While at Roche Genentech, Kevin held various leadership positions in
Operational Excellence, Production Scheduling, Project Management, and Facilities Systems.
He is currently a Global Senior Principal Operational Excellence Partner at Roche/Genentech.
He holds a BS in Biology from Cornell University and an MBA from San Diego State. He is also
a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt.
Kevin enjoys surfing, grape growing, wine making and meat smoking.

One of the best parts about my job is the opportunity to solve problems - especially the difficult,
cross-functional ones. The best part about my job is teaching others the tools and techniques
needed to solve their own problems! I especially enjoy working with those new to the workforce
and seeing them develop and grow their skills. And, my role as an Operational Excellence
professional in Pharma Manufacturing gives me the ability to do all this in support of delivering
quality medicines to our patients everyday.

Gary Knapick is a pharmaceutical engineering leader with over 25 years of industry experience and innovation. He recently joined the Global Engineering organization of Sanofi, where he will build and deploy a company-wide maintenance and reliability program. He will be responsible for driving performance, continuous improvement, best practices, and standardization in maintenance and reliability across the Sanofi manufacturing network. During his previous Global Engineering role at Takeda, he built a community of practice, performed site maturity assessments, published an internal reliability playbook, and oversaw the maintenance portion of a global model for site engineering organizations. His prior experience includes engineering leadership positions at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he was named reliability Excellence Leader of the Year and his organization was recognized with an Uptime Award™. His industry credentials include the SMRP Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP), AMP Certified Reliability Leader (CRL), and IFMA Certified Facility Manager (CFM) designations. He has a keen interest in the application of lean principles to maintenance operations and is energized by the potential of modern reliability practices to improve cost, quality, and safety performance.

Business leader with over 20 years leading Engineering, Maintenance/Reliability, Operations functions, Capital & Strategic Projects, and integration with site operations to achieve optimum levels of efficiency, productivity, and regulatory compliance. Ensure the alignment of systems, equipment, and processes with corporate strategies.
Experience across different industrial settings: biotechnology, pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging (solids), highly automated electronics manufacturing, and construction capital projects.
Outline maintenance and reliability strategies resulting in effective execution of programs, processes, equipment, and systems, reducing deviations and costs while improving performance.
Maintenance and Reliability Subject Matter Expert Subject (Americas, Asia, Europe, and Australia), driving pilot initiatives and establishing benchmarks.
People development, identify and maximize potential; leader of student/rookie groups, many growing quickly in responsibilities with outstanding performance evaluations.

Dr.-Ing. Peter Kytka, born 15 April 1976 in Hanau/Germany, is married, and has a 7y old son, lives near the headquarters of B&K Vibro in Darmstadt/Germany. He speaks fluent German, English, and Czech. After graduating from high school in 1996, Peter studied electrical engineering at the Technical University (TU) of Darmstadt. During his studies, he completed a 6-month internship in Prague/CZ in the automotive industry. In 2003, Peter obtained his Ph.D in mechanical engineering in "Robust Control for milling machine axes in active hydrostatic bearings" at the TU Darmstadt. During his doctoral thesis, he published several papers at international conferences (IEEE, IFAC, etc.) and completed a two-month internship at the University of Campinas/Brazil. Dr.-Ing. Peter Kytka has been with B&K Vibro since 2009. He has been working in the fields of prescriptive/predictive maintenance, asset management, strategic market analysis, and condition monitoring for over 14 years. After almost a decade as a product manager for portable instruments, Peter is working as the Global Sales Specialist, currently focusing on the pharmaceutical sector. He combines strategic and technological expertise and a customer-centric mindset when advising customers, sales, and other stakeholders.

Since falling in love with “vibrations” during my decade as product manager for high-end portable vibration instruments, I enjoy working versatile, international, multi-cultural, and strategic nowadays as a kind of combined ‘consultant and evangelist’. Learning by doing and working differently on arbitrary, low to high-complexity tasks that require business and marketing knowledge down to in-depth application or technical expertise makes my job never boring. Exchange and engagement with new amazing people day by day makes “working life = fun,” driving me forward! A key pop in my vibration business job is “the truth is in the long-term as in the waveforms ///”

Reza is a skilled chemical engineer with a two-decade-long career and dual master's degrees in
mechanical engineering and machine learning. He has thrived as a leader in reliability,
maintenance, and calibration, making significant contributions at Pfizer, Gilead, and Genentech.
His expertise spans reliability, capital project management, facility management,
maintenance/calibration program setup for greenfield projects, CMMS system integration, and
FDA audits, while his true passion lies in asset management. Reza's commitment to enhancing
processes resonates through his work, reflecting his dedication to engineering and technology.

One of the best parts of my job is troubleshooting and trying to find the root cause of failures.
Over the past 15 years, I've learned that a failure often has more than one cause, and it's
interesting to interact with people during the RCA (Root Cause Analysis) process.