Linda is the President and CEO of Demarche Consulting Group, founded in 1986. She has worked with more than 50 cities, municipalities, and Public Districts, as well as private organizations, offering business process improvement consulting services across an array of industries, including Building and Land Use Permitting and Regulatory Management, Utility (water, waste water, solid waste and electric) Performance Management, Community Services (Housing, Rate Assistance), Education Program Design and Deployment, Public Sector governance and organizational design, Project management (including software implementation with process improvement), and Performance Management and Measures.

Dr. Paralez has been a lead contributor in the merger of five small agencies into one large, $1B conglomerate City Public works organization with four major lines of business, and a multiagency customer service function. Process redesign, collaborative service-level agreements, and funding and billing mechanisms evolved over 4 years, resulting in defined levels of service, clear program development and delivery, and project portfolio and CIP stage gates project management system.

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She has also completed numerous cost-of-service studies for public sector service organizations, combined with value stream process improvements, resulting in a combination of streamlined improvements and fee adjustments, creating citizen savings up to 12% per year for one jurisdiction and 10% per biennium for another.

Prior to forming Demarche Consulting Group, Linda’s experience in her career at NASA’s Space Operations rocket manufacturing facility near Brigham City, Utah, was critical to determining the reasons for the Challenger disaster, and solutions to avoid another similar disaster. Her contributions there as a Project, and then Program manager, provided introduction to the Deming concepts of Total Quality Management, work-center design and statistical process control. Additionally, while working at the Thiokol plant, Linda worked under the tutelage of Dr. Goldratt applying Theory of Constraints principles to operations in the final assembly work center. Using these techniques in a highly constrained manufacturing facility, resumption of flight was accomplished in 22 months, post-Challenger accident.

Dr. Paralez was also Interim Deputy Director of Planning and Development Services for Snohomish County, where she agreed to fill an interim leadership role for the County, building a new financial plan, implementing streamlines process improvements with a work center concept and customer-focused service-level agreements. Under her leadership, Snohomish County accomplished implementation of field technology for inspectors, enhancing their productivity and quality five-fold. The County also stabilized service levels for all plan review, intake, and customer service-level agreements, and passed all financial audits that year under her leadership.

In addition to her executive career, Linda has served on several advisory boards and boards of directors. She has been a member of the Executive Board of the West Sound Technology Council, assisting primarily with membership growth and education development. She has also served over six years on the State of Washington Ferry Advisory Council, in the Kitsap region, specifically as a financial analyst supporting citizens’ view of fares, fees, and funding. Linda’s past work includes support of the Utah’s Child Abuse Prevention Center, and The Shaken Baby Syndrome Board, where Linda designed, conducted, and published an early report (1980s) on the Incidence of Shaken Baby Syndrome in Northern Utah and Idaho. Finally, Linda has served for eight years as a member and chair of the Planning Commission for Kitsap County Washington, considering and recommending changes to the zoning and land use code for the county, population 260,000.

Throughout her career, Linda has published more than 25 articles and books on asset management, benchmarking methodology, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, performance measures, business process management and design, education strategy, and other management strategies.

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Linda obtained her PhD in Business Administration from Century University. She also holds an MBA with a minor in Economics, and a BS in Engineering.