Chapter Leadership

Chapter Leadership Org Chart

2019-2020 Board of Directors

President - Penelope Luedtke, PMP

Penelope has been involved in PMI since 2013 with her first volunteer stint at the PMI Global Education Conference. She became PMP certified earlier that same year. 

An employee for the City of Portland since 2000, Penelope began in IT as an analyst and currently is a Senior Program Manager building a Facilities Asset Management Program. Her extensive volunteer involvement includes neighborhood associations and PTAs in addition to PMI. She strongly believes in the benefits and opportunities afforded with a PMI membership and strives to help all members realize the full value of participating in the PMI Portland Chapter.   

Past President - Titu Hariharan, PMP, CSM

Since 2013, Titu Hariharan has served PMI Portland Chapter Board in various capacities; starting in Registration, progressing quickly to Director of Registration, Annual Conference Lead Project Manager for Registration, VP of Programs, and Annual Conference Strategic Committee member. Titu’s decision to pursue her PMP credential led her to PMI's doorstep.

Titu has taken an active role to expand existing programs and starting new ones that bring value to PMI Portland members and the Project Management community, creating awareness and bringing in new members to grow the Chapter.

Titu has experience of over ten years in education, project management, business analysis, event management, sales & marketing, and customer service. She is a leader with strong communication and negotiation skills who can bring people together to achieve project goals and objectives. Titu’s vision is to cultivate a highly engaged culture of members who will learn, grow, inspire, connect with, and give back to the PMI community.  Additionally, volunteers are the heartbeat of PMI; a key goal is to reward and recognize volunteers for their contribution and dedication.

Titu enjoys traveling, reading, and learning about the history and culture of the places she visits. She calls PNW home and lives with her husband, soon-to-graduate daughter, college-bound teenager son and Kona, her chocolate lab. Kona looks forward to his daily walks with Titu, rain or shine. Mostly rain J, hey, it is the PNW after all!!!

Secretary - Kevin Murphy, PMP

Kevin has had an extensive career in business, the media, and publishing. As a corporate leader he was Managing Director and Vice-President of Cadence Management Corporation, an international project management training firm and a REP. Most recently he introduced project management concepts to Dexter Design and Development Co., a precision manufacturing firm, and led the team to achieve AS9100D/ISO 9001:2015 certification. Kevin has been a member of PMI since 2005 and has volunteered both at the chapter and global levels. He earned his CAPM in 2010 and his PMP in 2015.

In his off-time Kevin enjoys brewing his own beer, playing soccer and joining friends and family members for a once a week WOW night.

VP At Large - Lisa McCaffrey-Smith, PMP, MBA, CSM

Lisa is a project manager with a background in aerospace, manufacturing, and high-tech industries.

Currently writing a book entitled, "Tales from the Tech World: my Journey there and back again", Lisa enjoys volunteering at the Portland Chapter of PMI as the VP of Governance and Policy, and previously served on the Board of the Portland APICS Chapter. Lisa also enjoys mentoring young women, college students and young professionals on their chosen STEM careers. Additionally, Lisa is serving on the OTM Project Management advisory committee at the University of Portland.

Professionally, Lisa is the WW Functional Testing Manager, working on an SAP Co-Innovation project, enabling Supply Chain Digital Transformation at HP, Inc.

VP of Finance - Kyle Townsend

Kyle Townsend is CAPM certified and seeking his PMP. He has volunteered in Arizona as the assistant VP of Operations and seeks to improve his knowledge and understanding through volunteering here in Oregon, his new place of residence.

Kyle has over five years of finance experience and loves his new city. He is eager to learn and grow from those around him.

VP of Membership - Sandra Koelle, PMP

Sandra Koelle earned her PMP in 2013, a "game changer" in her project management career. She currently works in a large PMO as the NW Program Lead for a major membership system deployment at Kaiser Permanente. Sandra has been active in PMI Portland for many years and has held leadership roles since 2017 as Director of the 2019 Annual Conference and Director of PMP Certification from 2017 - 2019. Sandra holds a B.A from Penn State University and an M.B.A. from Marylhurst University. Transplanted from the East Coast in 2001, Sandra has reveled in all the Pacific Northwest has to offer. She enjoys gardening, reading, traveling and nurturing the many interests of her 16-year-old son.

VP of Marketing - Kelley Duron, M.Ed., CSM

Kelley Duron brings more than two decades’ experience managing projects for diverse industries including publishing, utilities, and education to the Marketing team. She has a deep background in communications and enjoys helping organizations “translate” broad, complex strategies and objectives into actionable tasks that employees and other stakeholders easily understand and buy into.

Kelley has led several multi-million-dollar Federal education grants, worked with local political campaigns and non-profits, and played critical roles in system updates and customer service improvement processes. She loves fiction writing, walking her dog, Jagger, and reliving her childhood through her two young grandkids.

VP of Operations - Hakan Kutgun, PMP

  Hakan is a creative developer and implementer of new ideas with an ever curious and critical mindset. Upon attaining his degree in Aerospace Engineering from Middle East Technical University, he worked as a teaching assistant at the same department. Over a diverse engineering, academic and entrepreneur background, he has more than 10 years of PM experience spanning across startup, construction and defense projects with extensive experience managing large scale technical projects. He volunteered for social fundraising projects, acted as career mentor for vocational school students and keynote speaker in various universities over the years. As a diligent professional and licensed professional, he also served as a board member in occupational safety board of his former company in addition to his PM roles. He is a certified PMP, occupational hazards expert and lifeguard as well as a photography artist. Being an ever passionate learner, he is now pursuing a graduate degree in Portland State University’s Engineering and Technology Management Department.

 VP of Outreach - Jennifer Whybra-Ucar, PMP

Since December of 2014, Jennifer Whybra-Ucar has been a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) Portland Chapter. In March of 2016, she earned her PMP certification and participated in the Portland Chapter’s Mentorship Program in Fall of 2017. She began volunteering as Assistant VP of Outreach in July 2018 and has recently been elected as VP of Outreach.

Jennifer has over 20 years of project and budget management, as well as business analysis experience at Symantec and NWEA. She is committed to PMI’s winning aspiration of, “Empowering people to make ideas a reality.” through partnering with organizations, supporting individual project managers to gain the knowledge and skills to succeed, and giving back to our communities.

VP of Professional Development - Sireesha Akula, PMP

Sireesha (Siri) Akula is currently an Engineering Manager at Intel Corporation leading a team of hand selected rock star engineers to bring flagship Ethernet products to market. She is an accomplished grateful leader in validation and customer management with 14+ years of industry experience backed by a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and PMP certification.

Siri regularly applies engineering principles for problem-solving, process design and optimization in all projects and teams. Leads with truth and transparency advocating for grateful and inclusive culture to build trust and form effective teams in the organization. Uses project management fundamentals to lead teams on complex projects to meet project goals and flex with rapidly changing environments.

Her leadership and service spans multiple non-profit organizations including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Speakeasy Toastmasters, Beaverton School District and Washington County Community Gardens. She is very involved with SWE and served on almost all the board positions and was Past President of Columbia River SWE section. She is currently helping Columbia River section as Nominating Chair to build leadership pipeline and also serving as a Leadership Coach to five professional sections in the society.

In her spare time, Siri loves to cook, garden, and spend time outdoors with family and friends. Very excited to be part of PMI leadership and looking forward to thrill PMI Portland chapter members with their most sought after professional development events.

VP of Programs - Shannon Heizenrader, PMP

Shannon is a project manager who channels her drive to impact the greater good into everything she does. She’s known for using her communication skills and compassion to build relationships and find innovative solutions. Shannon’s focus is healthcare, including senior care. In Shannon’s current position she is the project manager of strategic initiatives. In this role, she supports a variety of projects as well process improvement and standardization.

Within the chapter, Shannon has provided the name tags for many of the monthly chapter meetings as the Asst. Director of Registration from June 2017 to the present. In January 2019 she became the Assistant VP of programs. Shannon volunteers her time with the chapter as she believes it is important to give back to her professional community.