David Conley

David Conley is a Subject Matter Resource for Leath Group, LLC—a dynamic curriculum development and intellectual property greenhouse that grows leaders and shapes cultures. His expertise is TRIZ, described here:

“Innovation is fast becoming an imperative for ensuring the survival of any organization and, while everyone is talking about innovation, few are seriously pursuing a repeatable methodology for innovating. However, there is a formidable science of innovation known as TRIZ (Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch, which translates to the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). This science, predicated on empirical observations of the worldwide patent database, is the study of how technical systems evolve and how technical system limiters—present throughout all industries and disciplines—are eliminated by elegant and surprisingly few methods. Understanding the technical evolutionary trends (and the engineering contradiction resolution methods mastered by TRIZ practitioners) allows for the significant acceleration of product development efforts and vast improvement in problem resolution success rates. TRIZ is used in industry to accelerate innovation in R&D, product advancement and development, manufacturing process improvements, as well as business process improvement and strategic planning. The discipline, which can be used alone or to accelerate the results of lean and six sigma, is currently utilized by a wide variety of organizations including Johnson & Johnson, GE, Proctor & Gamble, Intel, Boeing, Samsung, and the U.S. Navy.”

David’s private sector experience includes working with Johnson & Johnson, Philips Semiconductor and Intel Corporation. A leader at Intel since 1995, David has held a variety of engineering and management roles. He is one of 88 Level 4 International TRIZ Association certified engineers worldwide (and one of only three whom are US born) and has been recognized as being in the top 5% of Intel trainers worldwide, with 88% of his students passing their International TRIZ Association certification exams. He is also the Principal of Innomation, LLC.

As an Air Force officer, David performed plasma physics and space nuclear propulsion research, serving at Los Alamos and Brookhaven National Laboratories and on NASA’s Nuclear Safety Panel.

He earned his BS of Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University and his Master of Finance from the University of New Mexico. Certified by Russia’s St. Petersburg school of the International TRIZ Association, David’s contributions to the field of systematic innovation include technical and business problem solving, methodology training, program integration, and serving on the Board of the U.S.-based Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies. He has taught well over 50 TRIZ classes in the last five years, consulted on hundreds of projects, published several papers on TRIZ topics, presented at multiple conferences, and served as a Guest Lecturer at the University of New Mexico’s Mechanical Engineering Department and Anderson School of Management. David currently lives in New Mexico with his wife and their three sons.