Cheryl J. Dobbins
Chief Executive Officer
Cheryl
J. Dobbins has more than twenty-five years’ experience in policy and economic
analysis; program and project development, management, and evaluation; quality
assurance; public relations and marketing; and market research, communications
and sales promotions. She is presently
in the process of transitioning from Washington,
DC to Ghana in order to become the Managing
Consultant on an initial $7M investment in APK Star Ltd, a Ghanaian-incorporated
agro-business export enterprise.
As
CEO of The BTI Companies, she specializes in quality management systems related
to transportation, energy, environment, agro-business systems, and safety
matters. These companies also make
assessments of environmental and manufacturing technologies for development
and commercialization purposes and promote financial investment in Emerging
Markets. She has recently formed two
additional companies – BTI TransAg Industries and BTI Construction and Supply
– in an attempt to fully exploit supply chain business opportunities in West
Africa that have been revealed as a result of a variety of analytic engagements
in that region.
In late 1999, Ms. Dobbins was designated the Broker-of-Record
by the Kumawu Traditional Council (Ashanti Region, Ghana) to assist in the
designation, planning, financing and transformation of pertinent areas of
the Greater Afram Plains to large-scale national mechanized farming for export
purposes. This effort is on-going and
has been officially embraced by the US leadership of the Ghana-US Consultative
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (CCARD), a series of working
groups established under a bilateral agreement between the Ghana Ministry
of Food and Agriculture and the US Department of Agriculture.
As
well, BTI has recently completed the evaluation of a customized training program
sponsored by the US Department of Transportation and US Department of State
for Nigerian
Port and Transportation
professionals. This course was conducted
by the US Merchant Marine Academy to present critical, state-of-the-art issues
of contemporary port management within a constantly changing, competitive
global environment. BTI determined
the effectiveness of the course content as well as the participants’ mastery
of those concepts included in the Nigerian Team’s end product – a Strategic
Transportation Plan that was implemented upon their return.
As a member of the Department
of Energy’s (EM-50) Manpower Research
Group, structured input from the international environmental management
industry regarding their projected near-term (3-year) and long-term (10-year)
occupational requirements. Completed
an international benchmarking study for the National HAMMER Program, a comprehensive
hazardous materials management and emergency response-training operation affiliated
with DOE-Hanford, a major US-based environmental management facility.
Contributing developer and faculty on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
sponsored course - Entrepreneurial Experience
for Technical Women.
Ms. Dobbins was a recent member
of Lt. Governor Michael Steele’s (MD) Africa Trade Mission (June 2004) to
Ghana; Prince George’s County Maryland Trade Mission
to The Gambia (February 2004); and Congressman J.C. Watts’ West Africa BIZDEL
(August 2001). Small business participant
on the 1995 Presidential Mission on
Sustainable Energy and Trade to China.
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Program Participant,
Public Administration, University
of Southern California
Masters of Public Administration, Emphasis in Urban
Finance, Howard
University
Bachelors of Arts, Criminology
and Economics, University
of Maryland, College Park
Statistics for Computer Application,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Non-Traditional Techniques
for Local Economic Development, Harvard
University
International Training in Communication
- Parliamentary Procedures
Environmental Management Systems (ISO14001), Business & The Environment