General InformationIn order for us to have a fun, useful and enjoyable networking and social experience on this first-ever virtual online AGIFORS conference, we are requesting that you provide us with a brief bio, a photo, and your email address when you register.Without this information, it will be difficult for people to connect with each other. This has always been one of the most important features of AGIFORS conferences -- connecting and re-connecting with colleagues in your disciplines. Our social program is going to be by sign-up to chat-rooms of up to 25 people, with a chat leader. You sign up for chats each day by chat leader. We are seeking volunteers for chat leaders. If you are interested, please email to mike.irrgang@gmail.com
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Photo & BioAs guidelines for what we are asking you to submit, here are the bios and contact information for the co-chairs of the Operations and Maintenance Study Groups and conferences: 
Mike Irrgang has been in the airline industry since 1985, and active in AGIFORS since 1987. A past senior executive of LATAM Airlines and Air Jamaica,
Judith Semar started her aviation career at Lufthansa in 1999. As senior project manager for Lufthansa Systems she supported airline projects worldwide. For many years she has been product manager for the commercial and operational product suite NetLine. Her focus is optimization and predictive analytics & helping airlines with automation in scheduling and operations. Judith can be reached at judith.semar@lhsystems.com.
Mei Zhang has been with American Airlines since 2001. She has led OR teams supporting various business organizations, such as Technical Operations, Network Planning and more recently Crew Management and Integrated Operation Center. Mei received her Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and worked at Sabre and i2 Technology briefly before joining AA. Mei can be reached at mei.zhang@aa.com.
Rod can be reached at tjoelkerr@gmail.com | Social ProgramAnother important element of our physical conference has always been our social program and networking opportunities – getting to know your colleagues in the industry. We are also going to try some fun and innovative actions online to recreate this opportunity in the conference. To make it work, we are going to ask you for more information when you register, to distribute to the other conference attendees. We ask you all to please be open to our approach. During twice-daily coffee breaks, we will run a screensaver of the fun photos which we have collected from you during registration. This to add more fun to the conference. These will be what you will vote on for the photo contest. There will be online social events daily. The delegates will sign up for and participate in fun networking sessions using an interactive platform. We are requesting your bios and your head-shot photos to make this both a more valuable networking opportunity for everyone as well as a more fun experience. Every day there will be a “social hour”. The social hours will require signup for groups of up to 25 people (the number of live webcams you can tile on the screen). Also, at registration we need to solicit people to be group leaders. You sign up today for John Smith’s group, tomorrow for Mary Jones’ group. You give an alternate in case choice #1 is full. The job of the leader is to restart conversation when it lags. If you are willing to be a group leader, please send an email to mike.irrgang@gmail.com. |
Rod Tjoelker has been in the aviation industry working at Boeing since 1990. He has specialized in statistics, data mining and analytics primarily focused on aircraft maintenance applications. He currently leads a group developing analytical methods to support products and services in this area for Boeing airline customers.