Kalamazoo, MI – Landscape Forms, a designer, manufacturer and marketer of award-winning commercial outdoor furniture and accessories, announces that Dwane Baumgardner, a member of the company’s Board of Directors and former President of Magna Donnelly, has joined forces with his former colleague, Russ Scaffede, an expert on lean manufacturing, to write a book on business leadership entitled, The Leadership Roadmap; People, Lean and Innovation.

     This exceptional book integrates the big ideas of today’s organizational wisdom, which declares that the three issues key to developing a truly successful business are; People, Lean Enterprise, and Innovation, and through them creates a more concise, coherent and comprehensive framework for leadership and organizational development. The Leadership Roadmap illustrates this philosophy through the use of the Scanlon Principles, a highly regarded set of beliefs directed to successful business practices created by Joe Scanlon and developed by Carl Frost, two well-known names in the world of business management.

     Baumgardner, a resident of Holland, MI, joined Donnelly in 1969. With his technical background and a Ph.D in Engineering, Baumgardner led Donnelly’s technology team until he was named President in 1980. In 1983 he became President/CEO, and in 1985 he also began serving as Chairman of Donnelly’s Board of Directors. When Donnelly was acquired by Magna in 2002, Baumgardner continued to serve as the President of Magna Donnelly until his retirement in September, 2003. Under Baumgardner’s direction, Donnelly, and later, Magna Donnelly, experienced an extremely successful period of business growth which doubled the size of the company every five years, on average, over a 20 year period to $1.2 billion sales when he retired. 

      Baumgardner also serves on the Boards of Directors of Wescast Industries and SL Industries, on the Board of Advisors for The Strive Group, and is the Chairman of the Board of the Scanlon Leadership Foundation where he was awarded the Scanlon Stewardship Award in 1996.

     Russ Scaffede has held leadership positions with Toyota Motor Corporation and General Motors Corporation.

     Landscape Forms is based in Kalamazoo, MI and the 40 year old company’s product list includes exterior seating systems, benches, tables and chairs, umbrellas, wheelchair-accessible picnic tables, planters, litter receptacles and ash urns. Clients include such well-recognized companies as Boeing, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard, Harvard University, Disney, Chrysler, Mayo Clinic, Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, Sprint, American Airlines, LaGuardia Airport, Microsoft, Nike, United States Tennis Association and many others. www.landscapeforms.com.