Staff
Dr. Ken Bertagnolli
President, Owner, Instructor
"Aspire to be a 'learner' not a 'knower.' Be humble enough to abandon ownership of your ideas, seek input from those you don't always agree with, and then run the experiment! The world around you is always changing, and the things you thought were true may not be true anymore. "
Ken Bertagnolli is the President and Owner of Objective Experiments LLC. He has over 30 years of experience in new product development, lean manufacturing, research, and engineering. He and his team have applied the concepts of DOE, MSA, and Reliability to achieve remarkable results in performance and efficiency. Ken holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and is a named inventor of 121 US patents.
Founders
William Kappele
Retired Founder
"You may have heard the saying, 'Teach a man to fish and you feed him all his life.' I love teaching people to fish!"
Bill Kappele founded Objective Experiments in 1998.
He is a chemist with extensive experience in DOE, both as a researcher and teacher. He first encountered DOE at the beginning of his career at Hewlett‐Packard, where he was responsible for the design and development of dye‐based thermal inkjet inks. He earned numerous U.S. patents for his work. At Hach, Bill developed simplified chemical analyses for water and wastewater treatment.
From Hach, Bill went on to Lexmark International, where he invented the first lightfast black ink for their inkjet printers. He then joined DOE pioneer Dave Doehlert at The Experiment Strategies Foundation, where Bill began to teach DOE to scientists and engineers.
A lifelong learner and born teacher, Bill has seen the powerful advantage that DOE training has given each of his students, from chemists and engineers who convert theories into real‐life products, to researchers who no longer rely on luck to produce results on time and within budget.
Bill is very pleased to know that Ken Bertagnolli will carry on with the great tradition of teaching DOE started by Dave Doehlert.
Beth Heffernan
Retired Founder
"My goal is to share the many benefits of Objective Experiments with our clients."
Beth Heffernan holds a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. She began her career at Acurex Corporation, and then moved on to Hewlett‐Packard, where she was on the team responsible for developing the ink production process and other components of the inkjet pen. She holds patents for two processes used in the inkjet pen production. Beth has used DOE extensively in the development of these products.