Dale Christensen

Advisory Board Member

Owner of Welch Enterprise Consulting
Retired Caterpillar, Inc.

Dale joined Caterpillar in 1962 as an hourly employee after attending Rockford School of Business.  From 1965-67 he served in the US Army.  Upon returning to Caterpillar he was in the first class of the NSST (New Supervisor Training Program) while taking additional course work in Business and Psychology at Joliet Junior College.

In 1969 he obtained his first management position in the Material Distribution area of Caterpillar.  From 1969-1980 he held a number of management positions in the Transportation, Distribution and Requirements groups before accepting a Buying position in Purchasing.  From 1980 until his retirement in 1999 Dale was responsible for the sourcing of Joliet purchased finished production material with responsibility for supplier selection, supplier development, pricing, quality and delivery.

From 2000-2005 Dale has performed consulting work for two multi-national companies, working on the improvement of efficiency, throughput and cost reduction through the use of Strategic Planning, Organizational Structure, Team Building and Six Sigma concepts.  From 2004 to the present Dale continues to do pre ISO 9001 Audits for a multi-national company. 

From 2005-2009 Dale returned to Caterpillar as a retired/rehired management employee working on a variety of jobs to include Purchasing, Pull Implementation and Warranty Recovery for Corporate Hydraulics by utilizing Root Cause Analysis.

Dale previously completed the CPM program and was a member of SME.  He has always been active in community affairs, having served in his community on the Planning and Zoning Board, Past President of the School Board, founding board member of the Unit One Educational Foundation and presently is a board member at Morris Country Club.