Michigan Wine Industry Annual Meeting
Speakers
Elena Amboyan
Wine Analytics - What Sells and Why
Elena Amboyan is the Senior Vice President at Information Resources, Inc. as a beverage industry vertical leader in innovation and thought leadership. As part of the acquisition of Secant, she will guide the company's post-acquisition and integration activities. Elena works with industry leaders and industry trade associations to provide insights to its members through consumer and product analyses.
Prior to joining IRI, Ms. Amboyan founded and built Secant, Inc., a technology firm whose products and services differentiated itself within the alcohol beverage industry. She was responsible for growing the technical consulting practice, overseeing major client projects and relationships as well as the development of the patents and intellectual property which would later be identified as the saleable asset and delivered as part of the acquisition and exit strategy. She specializes in consumer product, high tech, distribution and manufacturing companies with a specialty in international projects.
Elena previously held a position as the Vice President of Information Systems and Technology for a domestic-based joint venture of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy and Diageo in New York City where she was responsible for the daily domestic operations and driving global initiatives on behalf of the partners.
Prior to this position, Elena worked with the Chief Information Officer at the corporate headquarters of General Electric and with the GE companies performing pre-acquisition due diligence and post-acquisition integration activities. These activities combined her previous experience gained while working internationally with global brand powerhouse companies, Gillette and Duracell. Internationally, Ms. Amboyan has experience working in six continents and the culture and business acumen differences required. Ms. Amboyan began her career in systems engineering and technology consulting with IBM where she supported manufacturing and distribution industry vertical clients.
Ms. Amboyan has a joy of learning, and added successful completion of executive 'boot camp' with the British Royal Navy to her Six Sigma blackbelt. She received her degree in international business from Western Illinois University in 1987, and studied abroad at the Universidad de Extremadura in Caceres, Spain. In addition to her business acumen, Elena is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, has studied basic French comprehension and conversational Mandarin Chinese.
Charlie Edwards
Wine microbes and management and
New understanding about Brettanomyces
Dr. Charles G. Edwards was raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California where he worked on his family's vineyard near Acampo. He received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in food science from Oregon State University (1982), Cornell University (1985), and The Pennsylvania State University (1989), respectively.
Currently, he is a professor (enology) with the School of Food Science at Washington State University. His enological research focuses on problem alcoholic fermentations, the malolactic fermentation, and spoilage issues such as Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus. As part of the on-going research effort, his laboratory discovered two novel species of Lactobacillus implicated in wine spoilage, Lactobacillus kunkeei and Lactobacillus nagelii. Dr. Edwards is the sole author of Illustrated Guide to Microbes and Sediments in Wine, Beer, and Juice and co-author of Wine Microbiology (2nd edition), the later of which won top honors awarded by L'Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin (O.I.V.) for the best written work in enology in 2007.
Besides research, Dr. Edwards teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in food chemistry and in wine microbiology/processing. He completed a year-long sabbatical leave in 2002 working at Chr Hansen (Hørsholm, Denmark) and won the Excellence in Research award from the College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resources in 2006.
Murli Dharmadhikari
Rational use of sulfur dioxide in winemaking and
The role of sulfur dioxide in wine production
Dr. Murli Dharmadhikari is the Extension Enologist and Director of the Midwest Grape and Wine Industry Institute at Iowa State University. He has 30 years of experience in the Midwest grape and wine industry. He is a graduate of Ohio State University and worked as a commercial winemaker for 10 years at a 25,000 gallons winery in Indiana. During his tenure in Indiana, he produced many award winning wines from French hybrids and native American grapes, served as wine judge in the Eastern wine competition, handled marketing and promotion of wines, and managed winery business with on-premise restaurant.
Murli joined Missouri State University as Enology Advisor in 1986 and later served as Director of the Mid-America Grape and Wine Center. In Missouri, he was involved in establishing research vineyards, an experimental winery, a commercial winery, a commercial distillary, and a distance education workforce training program. As an advisor, he offered wine diagnostic services, organized technical meetings, workshops and international symposia. He has also given numerous enology presentations at industry meetings in AR, CO, KS, IA, IN, IL, MN, MO, NJ, NM, NE, OH, PA, TN, TX and internationally in Mexico. He conducted research on the evaluation of grape wine cultivars for Midwest climatic conditions and on the vinification of high acid, high pH grapes.
He has authored a book "Microvinification" and published numerous articles in industry publications. He was elected and served twice as the Chair of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture-Eastern Section. He is also a professional member of American Society for Enology and Viticulture, and Australian Society of Viticulture and Enology. In his current position, he is conducting research on resveratrol, developing undergraduate courses in enology, offering outreach enology classes, and developing a Wine Quality Certification program for the Iowa wine industry.
