Michael R. Breitman – Background and Experience

 

 

Before forming Breitband Consulting in late 2002, Mr. Breitman was President and CEO of Brookville Corporation, one of the leading Men’s Neckwear companies in the United States, with facilities in Hempstead, New York and New York City.  During his seventeen years with Brookville, the company grew to $14MM in sales, added several brand licenses and relocated its manufacturing and distribution facilities from New York City to Hempstead.  Mr. Breitman's experience as a consultant prior to joining Brookville helped him guide the company to achieve a number of leading positions within the domestic Men’s Neckwear industry:

 

·        One of the first companies to fully embrace EDI technology.

 

·        One of the first companies to become a truly Quick Response (QR) supplier within the fashion industry.

 

·        First Neckwear Company to develop, maintain and utilize a database regarding customer preferences using data mining techniques.

 

·        Use of QR and the company’s database enabled Brookville to offer merchandise that outperformed its competitor’s products at retail.

 

Prior to joining Brookville, Mr. Breitman was a founding principal of Information Processing Directions, Inc. (IPDI) in Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. IPDI, a management consulting firm, specialized in information processing systems for manufacturers and distributors.  During his ten years with IPDI, he served clients in such diverse businesses as a manufacturer of aircraft parts, a pump manufacturer and a distributor of automotive accessories.

 

Mr. Breitman's clients at IPDI were provided with systems solutions tailor made for their operations and did not have to adapt their business to the systems.  In order to better serve IPDI’s clients, he spearheaded the development of IPDI’s MRP/II software package.  This package, called PIMS, was a closed-loop, fully integrated suite of programs, which allowed installation specific tailoring.

 

Prior to founding IPDI, Mr. Breitman was briefly employed as a database and training consultant by National CSS, one of the early computer time-sharing companies.  He started his career as an architectural designer at the Chicago office of Skidmore Owings and Merrill.

 

This diverse and eclectic set of experiences has provided Mr. Breitman with a unique point of view regarding business practice and methods.  This point of view is grounded, bottom-line oriented and slanted toward a very practical use of information technology (IT) in business.  This includes:

 

·        Understanding the ways in which IT and operations integrate with each other.

 

·        Understanding the long-term value of building and maintaining a database.

 

·        Insight into the productive use of a company’s database.

 

·        Understanding the value of fitting systems, both IT and procedural, to the business, rather than the opposite.

 

·        Understanding the necessity of having new implementations return value, either directly or indirectly, at each intermediate milestone during the implementation process.

 

Mr. Breitman holds a Bachelor of Architecture (1969) and Master of Science in Architecture (1972) from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois.