About MyQACoach.com

MyQACoach.com's current aim is to provide affordable quality assurance and quality-related templates (priced as low as $1 US to start) and available for immediate download upon purchase/request.  Some items are provided at no expense (free download).

MyQACoach was conceptualized in 2015, initially as a concierge virtual quality service provider on a subscription or contract basis with an emphasis upon affordably supporting entrepreneurial start-ups, especially those in heavily regulated industries, such as medical device manufacturing and aerospace manufacturing.  2015 was a bit too early for adoption of the virtual approach so, since then, services have been provided only by special request and remaining activity has been limited to a few templates available for purchase.

About Diane Kulisek, Founder

 

Diane Kulisek has founded many small companies throughout her career.  MyQACoach is one of the latest.  Through all of it, her undying passion for helping people do things and make things that are as much of what they are supposed to be for those who want and need them has been her guiding light.  She does this by doing all she can to help those she works with and for understand the profound value of quality in all things.

As early as three years old, Diane was fascinated by science. She began collecting seashells as a toddler near her home in Redondo Beach, California.  By four years old, Diane had received a typewriter as a Christmas gift, obtained using Blue Chip Stamps by her mother.  In first grade, Diane sat miserably while her mother was reprimanded by her elementary school Principal for typing her homework assignments when, in fact, Diane had done so herself.  She also began winning first place in science fairs from that year forward... beginning with a display of her seashell collection which her parents were also unjustly accused of having prepared.  

Despite the age discrimination of her instructors, Diane was encouraged to continue her pursuit of science by her family.  Her first career desire was to save earth from mankind's relentless destruction, evident to Diane even in the 1960s.  She was witness to the felling of thousands upon thousands of native Southern California oak trees by a ruthless construction company in order to build what would soon after become Westlake Village.  The murdered trees could be heard screaming for weeks as they were unceremoniously hacked to pieces.  The stumps and roots were stacked along side what was then the Ventura Highway, like hunting trophies.  The wildlife that had previously been so rich in the area vanished to serve the greed of a few already wealthy individuals.  Diane, still in elementary school, vowed to do what she could to stop it.

Diane's maternal grandfather was her best friend and provided her with a flourescent light kit and access to a telescope, along with trips to museums, rock hound club meetings, amateur astronomer meetings, the Griffith Park Observatory and numerous other scientific activities.  Her mother provided Diane with her first chemistry set and a microscope set, also obtained through Blue Chip or S&H Green Stamps.  The space race began and Diane viewed it as one way to save earth... by sending mankind to the stars and thereby minimize the need to consume limited resources on earth.  She began devouring science fiction books about space travel.  John Glenn became her childhood hero, along with Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon and Jose Farmer.

In the early 1960's, at the age of less than 10 years old, when the separation of her parents left them struggling to survive, Diane helped support her single mother and younger sister by creating colorful bookmarks from scraps of discarded clothing and selling them door-to-door in Southern California.  In the later 1960's, Diane won several art contests in junior high school and, during the pet rock craze, began painting re-creations of classics like Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the Last Supper in miniature on rocks that were, in turn, sold at a local novelty shop on the Golden Mall in Burbank, California.   Her botanical mushroom rock paintings became especially popular at that time.  Each painted rock would generate up to $15 dollars when sold, half of which went to Diane.  $15 in 1969 would be the equivalent of more than $100 today (in 2021) and continued to augment the cost of living for Diane, her sister and mother.  She could create one or two painted rocks per week and the demand was always greater than the supply.

By 13 years of age, Diane also had begun working multiple, part time, cash-only, hourly jobs as a waitress, fast food server and part-time accountant until she was old enough to enter school-sponsored work-study programs, all while engaging in many extracurricular high school activities that, along with good grades, would help her to win several much needed university scholarships.  She left her art-related endeavors and part time gigs behind to finally, in 1971, accept her first corporate role as a work-study technician in the quality assurance laboratory of the Andrew Jergens lotion and soap manufacturing facility, also in Burbank.  Later, she was hired as a work-study quality technician on the night shift at the Adolph's Meat Tenderizer company's manufacturing facility in North Hollywood.

In 1974, while still working at Adolph's, Diane graduated from Burbank High School as Student Body President and had won multiple scholarships, both athletic (track) and academic.  She was accepted by multiple colleges and universities but chose to study biology at nearby California State University, Northridge. 

In 1979, Diane became the first and only person in her family heritage to ever graduate from a university and had earned her Bachelor of Arts in Biology with an emphasis upon environmental biology.  Unfortunately, the only organizations willing to hire environmental specialists were those seeking ways to avoid being held responsible for destruction they were actively doing to the environment.  Diane also found that she could earn more by remaining in what was becoming a new passion for her, the profession she had been working in since 1971, quality assurance.  Added to that, quality assurance encompassed environmental quality.  There were no undergraduate college degrees in quality assurance available at that time, so a degree in any technical discipline was usually the only academic requirement by employers... along with work experience.

So... soon after graduation, Diane accepted an offer to join the Gillette company as their first female Junior Quality Engineer.  She also began pursuing a Master of Science in Quality Assurance through the CSUN College of Engineering and Computer Science.  In the early 1980's, Diane became the first Gillette employee in Southern California to earn her credential as a Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) through the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and was promoted to full Quality Engineer status.

While at Gillette, Diane also became a Regional Sales Director for a rapidly growing direct sales district of 'Beauty Consultants' for Gillette's Jafra Cosmetics company.  She was given a lump sum buyout offer by Gillette in return for her acceptance of a new role, as the Senior Quality Engineer at Jafra's manufacturing facility in Westlake Village, California.  While there, Diane went on to establish the first documented quality management system and, as part of that effort, she tapped into her professional network for computer expertise (being applied only in aerospace at that time) to help her establish one of the first high speed automated filling process control systems. 

While at Jafra, Diane also founded a clothing company to satisfy her entrepreneurial spirit and to support the local entertainment industry's heavy metal rock era... in her spare time.  Although never patented, one of her inventions was what became popularized and appeared in many rock videos as 'shred wear'.  Her clients included some of Southern California's most famous and notorious Heavy Metal bands.  The high energy music inspired a spin off of her clothing company which was a proposed mobile health and fitness enterprise.  The fitness business was to have been funded by corporate memberships (a very new concept in the 1980's) who would be signed up in advance for the service.  The first signed client was an aerospace corporation near her then home in Moorpark, California but, before the fitness company could come to fruition, Diane was asked to lead the quality organization at a local electronics company in her first corporate quality management role.  In that role, Diane led a training program for the company's large group of over 40 quality inspectors.  Representatives from top customer organizations were invited to speak to the group in order to drive home the importance of the company's products to those customers.  One such customer was NASA... and an astronaut came to speak.  Unfortunately, not long afterward, the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion occurred.

Soon after the demise of Challenger, Diane was approached by NASA and, in 1986, she accepted a role working closely with NASA as a quality assurance manager on behalf of Rockwell International's Rocketdyne Division in Canoga Park, California.  Rocketdyne was the developer and manufacturer of NASA's Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs).  While at Rocketdyne, Diane held several quality management roles and was eventually 'elected' by 80 coworkers (mostly fellow engineers) to co-lead the self-managed Avionics & Controls Team for the Space Shuttle Main Engines as the Associate Quality Program Manager. 

During her work with Rocketdyne, Diane was provided with an opportunity to obtain her Graduate Certificate in Program Management through West Coast University.  She also earned two additional professional credentials.  The first was another Certificate from ASQ in Quality Management/Organizational Excellence (CMQOE).  The next was a Certificate as a Manager (CM) from the Institute of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM) sponsored by the National Management Association (NMA). 

Meanwhile, the Quality Assurance curriculum Diane had followed for her Master's Degree was found to never have been approved by the California State University System.  In order to graduate, Diane would need to complete some additional courses and choose an accredited Engineering curriculum.  Rocketdyne was experiencing issues with environmental problems caused while under contract to the Department of Energy when it was known as Atomics International.  Rocketdyne had constructed a small nuclear power plant in the hills between the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley, California, when the dangers of nuclear power were not well understood.  Related radiation had contaminated the soil and ground water.  Seeing the opportunity to revive her passion for the environment, Diane switched her graduate studies to Environmental Planning.  Although she completed all certification requirements through what was then known as the CSU Consortium or the CSU '1,000 Mile Campus', the program... which had been funded entirely through a grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)... was discontinued before she could graduate.  Diane finally applied the course units she had earned toward a degree in general Engineering (Civil, Industrial and Applied Mechanical Engineering) with an emphasis on Failure Analysis and minor in Engineering Management at CSUN.   Eventually, Engineering Management became an accredited curriculum in and of itself, but not during the time Diane was pursuing her studies.  She wrote her thesis about Teamsmanship Among American Aerospace Engineers and graduated with her Master of Science in Engineering from CSUN in 1991.

Despite her passion for the manned space flight program, Diane still wished to address the entrepreneurial aspect of her nature, so during the last few years of the nine years she worked with Rocketdyne, Diane was authorized by Rockwell management to launch a part-time, non-competing, independent consulting company.  She opened 'Diane Kulisek & Associates'.  That endeavor ended when the building within which her office was located was sold to a new owner and all former tenants were evicted.  However, Diane left her mark by hosting several successful weekend seminars on problem-solving and was able to create an effective quality management system manual for a local computer graphics company, Gazelle Graphics, which was soon after acquired by Logitech in 1993.  

In 1995, the Space Shuttle program's budget was cancelled by Congress.  Rocketdyne began the massive layoffs typical of aerospace companies when programs lost their funding.  What remains of Rocketdyne's SSME launch command center is now on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, along with the retired Space Shuttle Endeavor.  

Although Diane had not yet been impacted by the layoffs at Rocketdyne, Gillette was in need of a Group Manager for their new product development quality laboratory and the quality engineering group, as well as an interim manager for the manufacturing engineering group, at their Stationery Products manufacturing operations in Santa Monica, California.  Gillette's Corporate Quality Vice President, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, reached out to Diane.  In order to accept Gillette's offer, Diane proposed a voluntary layoff to Rocketdyne's management.  Rocketdyne accepted that proposal and Diane returned to work for Gillette. 

Sadly, Gillette experienced a massive economic crisis just a few years after Diane's return and closed the Santa Monica manufacturing operations, so, using generous separation funds provided by Gillette, Diane started her own vitamin development and manufacturing company, Gulp!, Inc., a California C corporation.  She worked as a temporary acting Director of Quality for the aerospace and defense division of a local ordnance manufacturing company while serving as President and Chairman of the Board for her own start-up.  Sadly, despite best efforts to ensure the venture was adequately funded, secure necessary patents and protect the company's trademarks, GULP!, Inc. failed.  The failure was due to an ill-founded legal challenge of the company's trademark by a large and powerful corporation.  Gulp!, Inc's attorneys won the suit on Gulp's behalf but fatal economic damage had been done and the company could not be saved.  Diane moved on and accepted a regular role as Director for the ordnance company.  While there, she earned her professional certification as a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt from Six Sigma, Inc.

Thereafter, Diane resumed her career as a senior quality assurance professional and leader, taking on directorships and a vice presidency for mid-sized computer, filtration, process control and medical device companies until, at the pinnacle of her career, in 2005, the massive emergence of what would become known as the 2008 economic recession became undeniable and she was asked by her employer and a key client to work as a part time consultant for the first time, with each organization splitting her fee because neither could afford to retain her as a salaried executive.

During her work as a Vice President of Quality, Diane had simultaneously founded CAPAtrak, LLC, to develop and make available a 'pay-as-you-go', internet-based, Corrective and Preventive Action tracking system for smaller organizations who could not afford the pricey server-based applications available at that time.   This was perhaps one of the first conceptualizations of a cloud-based technology (Google did not coin the term 'cloud technology' until 2006).  Unfortunately, under the pressures of the failing economy, CAPAtrak was unable to become profitable and, in order for Diane to accept a regular full time management position offered by a huge medical device company in 2011, the start-up had to be dissolved.  Although it was revived briefly in 2013, it was dissolved again in 2015.  Now, only the CAPAtrak website remains today and redirects visitors to the MyQACoach website.

Diane has continued to work as a quality assurance consultant since 2005 with only a few regular full time management roles having been accepted from time to time.  Her most recent work has been within the medical device and IVDR industries, however, her heart has always been with manned space flight programs and endeavors that strive to protect or restore the earth's natural ecosystems. She is a scientist and an engineer, an entrepreneur and inventor... and an artist by nature.  Diane is also a 'systems thinker'.  

Today

Over the span of a nearly 50-year career in Quality Assurance Diane Kulisek has created a massive number of solutions and tools for her employers and clients.  Although happy to share, she has always worked to ensure she retained ownership of the items she created.  

Currently, Diane is devoting part of her time to curating a large library of Quality Assurance and Quality-related templates to make them available for purchase on an 'as needed' and very affordable basis.  It is a slow process but a work of love for Diane. 

Meanwhile, if you're still curious, you can learn more about Diane Kulisek below... or follow her on the LinkedIn site for which a direct link is also provided below.

Some Freebies and More about Diane Kulisek, Founder, MyQACoach.com

• Key Skills: Quality Assurance Leadership, Quality Management Systems (QMS), Metrics, Quality Cost Analysis, Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA)
• Industry Experience: Medical Devices, Aerospace, Consumer Products, Filtration, Plastics, Metal Fabrication, Electronics, Assembly, Packaging.
• Credentials: MS Engineering, BA Biology, Grad. Cert. Program Management, American Society for Quality Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence, Quality Engineer (ASQ CMQ/OE, ASQ QE), Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB) Institute of Certified Professional Managers Certified Manager (ICPM CM). 
• Examples of Diane's Work:  To learn a bit more about Diane and for free examples of her work (including templates), CLICK HERE.
• Connect: To follow Diane Kulisek, directly, on LinkedIn, CLICK HERE.