Thomas J. Cissell – founder of The Cistek Group

Since 1999, Tom has been helping clients develop, quantify, and communicate the value of their technology solutions to their customers.  Although he did not realize it at the time, the company with which Tom started his career was unique in the industry insomuch as it had a value selling culture.  The company, then called Industrial Nucleonics and later renamed to AccuRay Corporation, didn’t just have a sales force trained on how to sell the value of the results produced by their process automation solutions, but an entire infrastructure was built to forecast, deliver, and document results.  When Industrial Nucleonics started business, the only way they could break into the market with their new category of products was to guarantee improvements to key process performance indicators.  To do this as a matter of routine business requires an understanding of the customer’s process, knowledge of your solutions capabilities, and people who are trained to sell and achieve results.   AccuRay was acquired by Combustion Engineering in 1987 which in turn was acquired by ABB in 1989.  The “AccuRay” business was made part of ABB’s Process Automation business unit.  These acquisitions together with the later merger of ABB with Elsag Bailey resulted in a rich set of experiences resulting from being part of companies ranging from a mid-sized international company to a mammoth multinational company.

After 26 years, Tom left ABB in 1999 and joined a consulting firm prior to founding The Cistek Group in 2003.  Tom draws on every bit of his experience in sales, sales management, field service, training, engineering, project delivery, product marketing, and consulting to help Cistek clients fully develop their value propositions.

A Master Blackbelt in process improvement, Tom was trained in Six Sigma by its architect, Dr. Mikel J. Harry and in process mapping and performance improvement by Alan Brache of The Rummler-Brache Group, renowned developers of business performance systems.