Syd Robenseifner,
Principal, SPR Associates, Sonoma, CA:
Mr. Crisick assisted me on two consulting
engagements involving the writing of business plans for my clients. Mr.
Crisick’s role in one engagement was to automate an existing financial
model to allow my client to test scenarios and options. Mr. Crisick’s work
was performed flawlessly and efficiently. He met my deadlines, quickly
resolved technical questions that arose during our reviews, and, most
importantly, used his extensive business and financial planning background
to note and bring to my attention numerous issues relating to the approach I
had been developing for my client. I was very appreciative of his
input. This type of business expertise was exactly what I had been seeking
in a financial modeler.
The second engagement involved developing
highly complex logic for the financial model of a business plan I was
writing. I needed to be able to vary revenue timing and type to model the
sale of a variety of new contracts plus follow-on support and maintenance
contracts for a client. Mr. Crisick effectively integrated these elements
into a user friendly and accurate model, with which my client was highly
pleased.
Mr. Crisick is a consummate professional
and very, very talented. I look forward to working with him again.
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Chris Baker, Director of
Mechanical Engineering, Zeiss-Humphrey Systems, Dublin, CA:
Mr. Crisick consulted with Zeiss-Humphrey
Systems for about six months. Among the systems he developed was
a cost estimating model for our prototype ophthalmic instrument
development program. Our engineers appreciate this model, which imports
data from both our accounting system and our bill-of-materials (bom)
processor, and develops an estimate of direct materials cost based on
vendor quotes. The system handles parts lists numbering in the thousands,
and integrates both prototype and production parts.
He also developed an Excel-based model for
manipulating and analyzing bom information to produce more useful and
flexible reports than we were getting from the bom system.
Mr. Crisick quickly gained an in-depth
understanding of our complex products and made an important contribution
to our product development efforts. His professional yet friendly approach
and his past technical and business experience allowed him to easily
interact with our engineering staff, purchasing staff, finance department
and IT professionals.
I would not hesitate to engage
Mr. Crisick again, should the need arise.
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Dwight K. Maloney,
Manager, Planning and Logistics, The Solaris Group, San Ramon, CA:
Mr. Crisick
did an outstanding job for us at Solaris [formerly a Division of
Monsanto]. Bill developed complex Excel models that allowed us to
combine and summarize large amounts of sales information in a format
that was easily understood and usable by the company's management. He
helped facilitate the monthly forecasting process using spreadsheets
sent electronically to our sales team and collected for processing and
analysis at the end of each sales period. I have never known anyone with
such a thorough understanding of what an Excel spreadsheet [model] could do in
the hands of an expert and he is an expert.
A trademark
of his work for us was accuracy, driven by a process that made sure that
the numbers always tied together properly! I couldn't recommend Bill
more highly!
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Todd White,
Vice President, Finance, The Scotts Company-Ortho Business Group,
Marysville, OH:
Mr. Crisick
consulted with The Scotts Company and (prior to our purchase of the Ortho
Brand Name) with The Solaris Group Division of Monsanto for over three
years. He was one of the two key members on the team that developed and
ran a sophisticated sales forecasting model and system that drove our
logistics and production planning activities. The model tracked over 100
products in more than 1,000 variations in packaging and sizes, and
assisted our major-account managers to forecast their customers’ needs.
Mr. Crisick
also developed a highly sophisticated and useful sales reporting model that used complex
logic to automatically rank our largest customers by sales dollars, and
the highest volume products for each customer. Each month it was necessary
only to update actual sales results and the model automatically re-ranked
all customers and products.
Several other
groups took advantage of Mr. Crisick’s talents during his work with
ScottsCo. For our marketing group he built a point-of-sale (POS) data
analysis model that consolidated, manipulated and reported sales by outlet
in certain SMSA’s to evaluate the effect of TV and radio media placements.
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Carmen
Sarracco, Vice
President and CFO, Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc., Dublin, CA:
Mr.
Crisick [was engaged by] Carl Zeiss Meditec, Inc., the world leader in
integrated diagnostic ophthalmologic instruments … to develop a financial
model of our service business, with the objective of analyzing the cost of
our service functions - warranty, contract and billable - and determining
the cost of providing each of these types of service for each of our
products. Mr. Crisick completed this engagement in a timely and effective
manner. The results of his work were used to determine the warranty cost
of sales and thereby the balance sheet warranty liability.
[During his
association with our company Mr. Crisick] also developed numerous
[other] financial models including a cost analysis model of our research and
development department, an analytical model to improve efficiency and
accuracy in the computation of deferred revenue, which included an
analysis of service revenue by field service engineer [a level of detail
which had never before been achieved,] and automated
several other models, e.g., the Service Cross Charge Journal Entry, to
improve accuracy and efficiency. Each of the models Mr. Crisick developed
was robust, technically sound, and accurate.
Mr. Crisick is
an expert in the use of Microsoft Excel, [especially in the development of
complex logic for the analysis of business activities].
[Excerpted from
Mr. Sarracco's letter dated November 30, 2004.]
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Andrew Chu,
Mortgage Pointer.com, Inc., San Mateo, CA:
Mr. Crisick
automated our loan activity reports so that data can be entered just one
time in one place and is automatically analyzed and summarized in a
variety of reports and formats. The Reporting Model that he created saves
us time and guarantees accuracy.
Mr. Crisick
completed this engagement on specification, on schedule and on budget, and
responded promptly to my questions and requests for enhancements. I
especially appreciated his follow-up communications to be sure the
reporting model was satisfying my requirements.
He is not
boasting with his claim to be a Spreadsheet Wizard. We will be using his
services again.
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