Serial entrepreneur Wilhelm to discuss challenges in soft goods industry
Released on 10/01/2014, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
WHEN: Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014
WHERE: 11 Home Economics Building, 35th Street North of East Campus Loop
Walter T. Wilhelm, chairman of Walter Wilhelm Associates LLC, a Utah-based management consulting firm, will deliver a free public address at 4 p.m. Oct. 7 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Wilhelm will speak in Room 11 of the Home Economics Building, 35th Street north of East Campus Loop.
He will address challenges facing the soft goods industries today, including the question, "Made in the USA: can apparel manufacturing ever return to the United States at any kind of scale?"
Wilhelm heads a firm that helps retail and brand clients refine "front-end" processes. It focuses on empowering apparel, footwear and retail executives with the strategies, processes and technologies that create tangible business value and sustainable competitive advantage. The firm's deep industry expertise and best-practice knowledge base built from hundreds of successful projects around the globe, make it unique among consulting agencies. Its experts in the apparel, footwear and interiors markets offer valuable domain expertise from product development, to supply chain, to retailing.
A serial entrepreneur recognized as one of the most innovative and "connected" executives in the soft goods industry, Wilhelm is one of the pioneers in creating and implementing technology to streamline the product design and development processes. 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 Co.'s Apparel and Footwear Automation Systems Division.
Wilhelm holds a bachelor of science in industrial management and a master of nusiness administration in finance from the University of Southern California.
He will also speak to several classes in the UNL Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design and will meet with faculty members and students in small group conversations Oct. 7-8.
Writer: Michael James, Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design