Point of Contact
Rick Roper is the Regional Vice President for HigherEchelon-West. Based out of Kansas City, he leads HE’s capture management team and maintains oversight on programs, client delivery, and business development efforts in the Western United States for government and corporate clients who are seeking to optimize organizational performance.
Rick has a diverse background with over 21 years of applied leadership and operational experience. As a former college athlete, he was an early student in West Point’s Center for Enhanced Performance, which oriented on mental skills training and optimizing human performance. In addition, he taught undergraduate studies at West Point-- one of the nation’s most renowned leadership institutions.
Subsequently, while serving as a Director of Operations and later as a Chief of Staff, he gained experience in establishing leader development programs, strategic planning, training management, process improvement, and program/project management. Rick has also served in advisory positions helping leaders overcome systemic organizational problems related to human resources, supply chain management, and operations. Later, he was an assistant professor at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, which is a graduate-level institution focused on leader development and education. There, he developed curriculum and learning solutions focused on design, critical thinking, training management, and problem solving for students now serving in executive positions world-wide.
Rick is a 1995 graduate of West Point, and earned a Master’s degree in Administration from Central Michigan University.
Quality Assurance Program
HE takes the role of providing program management, engineering services and support to the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines very seriously. The personnel that are provided by HE have a high level of competency and are thoroughly vetted prior to joining supported programs and projects. There is a process that ensures the competency and delivers consistent results. Quality in a service organization is highly dependent on communication, especially a clear understanding of the customer expectations and perceptions of work being performed. For this reason, HE places a high degree of focus on clarifying the scope and objectives of the project prior to developing a proposal. Essentially, quality begins before the proposal is even delivered. Once a project has been awarded, HE focuses on the following review sessions in order to maintain alignment with the customer and exceed expectations:
- Pre-engagement meetings to ensure full understanding of scope and expectations
- Interim progress reviews to understand project status, customer satisfaction, and required actions
- Project closeout and after action review to understand the customer’s perspective of HE performance
HE monitors and maximizes Quality. Currently, the routine reviews identified previously are held between the HE President and the customer to ensure customer satisfaction. As the business grows, these responsibilities will be shared among the other two Partners and, eventually, a management staff. Routine (daily/weekly) Quality Control is managed by the lead HE employee on the project and varies between projects. Short duration projects may not have interim reviews, but they will all have pre-engagement and project closeout meetings.