Born into an American military family, Cris made her arrival at a U.S. Field Army Hospital near Baumholder, West Germany. Her father’s career required frequent relocation so “hometowns” included Leavenworth, Kansas; Lawton, Oklahoma; Arlington, Virginia; Covina, California; Murray, Kentucky; Daegu, South Korea, and Morehead, Kentucky. Colonel Birdsong retired after 33 years of service to our country at Brentwood, Tennessee, where Cris graduated high school.
With substantial exposure to Europe, all fifty United States, and much of Asia, Cris developed a lifelong interest in natural and built environments. Cris attended Purdue University, where she survived the Blizzard of ’78, and earned a professional degree in Landscape Architecture. She then earned a Master of Architecture in Texas and began her career in 1983.
Cris has a track record of successful community planning initiatives. In her architectural training, she learned a proven step-by-step collaborative problem solving process that she employs when solving complex challenges. Utilizing this process, Cris led the team creating the first Zoning Plan for Keller, Texas just north of Fort Worth, in the early eighties, a rural community of 4,200. Development plans for nearby Alliance Airport and the Texas Motor Speedway threatened to overwhelm Keller’s unique identity unless careful attention provided guidance for practical and desirable growth. The Zoning Plan process Cris spear-headed encouraged input from all community groups, and today Keller is an outstanding place to work and 45,000 residents enjoy a well-managed environment as a result of early planning.
Cris has a proven ability to work together toward a common goal and secure the big wins. In the late 1980's, Cris joined General Dynamics as a Logistics, and then Senior Product Development Engineer. Initially responsible for the design of facilities for the F-16, Cris was chosen as a select member of the three-company partnership “Fly-off Team” that won sole award of contract to develop the F-22 Tactical Fighter. This career-highlight found Cris collaborating with a geographically dispersed, multi-functional team to define aircraft design, logistics, and support facilities for this Department of Defense classified project.
Cris has a passion for identifying profitable business opportunities based in the needs and desires of the customer. Her exposure to statistical processes and measurement metrics such as “SIGMA” used in designing the F-22 led Cris to a new career in New Product Development. She focused many years of her career on indentifying new revenue streams and expanding a company's customer base by targeting markets most likely to become long-term customers.
Her New Product Development experience reached its pinnacle success when Cris led an extremely successful initiative at GTE to address the mandated move from a regulated environment to a deregulated industry. The company faced the challenge of overcoming years of monopolistic practices, which had degraded customers' goodwill. Cris led a Customer Satisfaction Measurement Program (CSMP) that guided the company's strategy for improvement. This culminated in winning the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, a congressional honor established under the presidency of Ronald Reagan to recognize exemplary American companies and encourage improved quality of goods and services. This effort specifically identified areas that required change, as well as the relative importance of each measure to the customer. Cris continues to employ this “Voice of the Customer” approach to this day.
Cris’ dream had always been to be “hands-on” in construction, and, suddenly single in 2016, Cris decided to “go for it” and, at the age of 59, earned a Master of Engineering – Construction Management (GPA 4.0). Her only child, a daughter, had met her future husband at the University of Alabama and she followed him back to his beloved West Michigan after they graduated. The couple invited Cris to consider Grand Rapids as her final hometown. After an Art Prize Weekend trip, the character of Grand Rapids and the sight of the multitude of construction cranes easily won Cris’ heart. After moving to Grand Rapids in 2018, Cris joined Sobie Company as Construction Project Manager. Projects include the Hilton by Canopy at Studio Park, REI at Woodland Mall and the “busiest restaurant in West Michigan” the Michigan St. Market at Spectrum Health. Cris is a member of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church and is a member of the Grand Rapids Inventor Network.