About Us
Our Story
Philip Michel was one of two partners in a boutique consulting firm, St. John’s Consulting Group that dealt with mission critical data centers that were considering relocations. The initial clients included Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a predecessor firm of Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter. Their successes led to assisting over 100 major companies in diverse industries and health care providers in relocating their data centers, trading rooms and securities operations. They then branched out to related assignments including data center and business contingency planning, cybersecurity, business strategic planning, and network planning and implementation.
Twenty years ago, Phil joined the board for 7x24 Exchange Del Valley Chapter. He worked closely with Bala Consulting Engineers in helping the Chapter grow.
After moving to Florida to devote time to the Naples community and family affairs, Phil learned first-hand the challenges business and healthcare organizations faced with hurricane Ian. After attending a conference with a leading climatologist, Lawrence Kalkstein, Bala. Phil and Larry collaborated to help a major healthcare provider assess their risks to climate change.
Meet The Team
Philip Michel
Philip Michel was the owner of St. John’s Consulting Group for 20 years prior to forming our firm. He has extensive risk management experience and led the projects cited in our qualifications. He is well recognized in the industry for his leadership in mission critical operations relocations and risk management.
Thomas M. Reusche
Executive Vice President, Bala Consulting Engineers
Delivers Bala’s innovative technologies and solutions to clients, working with them from preliminary facility concepts to board room financial reviews.
Elizabeth Larson
Sustainability Engineer, Bala Consulting Engineers
Elizabeth is the first Sustainability Engineer at Bala! As a Sustainability Engineer at Bala, my work is three-fold: As we see the market transforming from energy saved to carbon as the metric, we created new services in the sustainability consultancy market such as carbon accounting/management, sustainable product selection, climate risk, resiliency plans, incentives, and more, support the current work of our team through research and education through our Sustainable Futures Initiative, and create and maintain Bala’s internal sustainability plan to become a leading consulting firm in the industry.
Brion Sargent
Brion Sargent, AIA has extensive design and risk management experience for mission critical operations. He was responsible for the risk assessment for a communications company confronted with a sudden notification of a light rail construction project adjacent to a major data center.
Steven Kershner
Steven Kershner has extensive real estate management experience having relocated offices and data centers forTop 5 financial services and telecommunications companies.
Joseph Rubin
Joseph Rubin has 40+ years of Telecom experience and skills (eg. Voice Infrastructure, Contact Center and Automation) and has dealt with the associated technology, services, consulting and staffing requirements … as a means to analyze, design, recommend and implement practical, straight forward Customer solutions that are effective day 1.
Mark Williams
Mark Williams is a Business Strategy Management Consultant for Global 1000, expert Executive Coach & former healthcare senior leader.
Janyce Katz
Janyce Katz is our manager of client support and operations. She has extensive experience in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing in technical and manufacturing representative roles.
Gary Sheehan
Gary Sheehan is a former Operations, Technology and Compliance Executive with Citigroup.
Philip Talamas
Philip Talamas is a senior information technology management consultant and has extensive experience in the relocation of data centers and migration of client technology to cloud computing in legal and healthcare companies.
Judy Gertler
Judy Gertler is a former Senior Engineering Manager at QinetiQ North America, an engineering R&D firm. She has extensive quantitative analysis experience and assisted with our risk management study for the communications company cited in our qualifications
Rolf Wetjen
Rolf Wetjen has extensive mission critical relocation and risk management experience for financial services and back-office operations in Tampa, Dallas, and New York City. He was responsible for a Morgan Stanley predecessor firms real estate ‘management group.
Marc Newman
BS, MBA-Concentration Healthcare Management, Fellow HIMSS
An innovative senior executive with multi-disciplinary management and consulting experience in non-profits, for-profits, and US government. Healthcare settings include hospitals, health systems, and academic medical centers. Supported direct patient care and clinical research protocols. Is experienced in strategic, tactical, security, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity planning methods.
He has directed significant line and staff organizations while successfully executing large complex multi-institution Information technology projects, mergers, and transformations. Has developed budgets, proposals, metrics, QA, and reporting methodologies in areas of responsibility.
Has published and presented papers in management, change management, and project management
Dennis D. Cronin, D.MCO
Having built and operated mission critical facilities across the United States, Dr. Cronin has over 45 years of mission critical experience in the design, construction, and operations.
In recent years Dr. Cronin has focused his energies on Mission Critical Education, staff certifications, training, and industry research.
These efforts include the development of university undergraduate programs, senior capstone programs, and Community College programs along with scholarship awards for educational institution studies and knowledge certification programs.