Lea Patterson

Lea is an electronics and computer engineer and former Australian Navy Officer. While in the Australian Navy, Lea was engaged in his first Activity-Based Cost model as part of a project to build a large enterprise-wide model covering the entire Australian Navy. After leaving the navy, Lea was a foundation employee of what would become Pilbara Group, with clients primarily in the Australian defence force. The U.S. Navy saw the model completed for the Australian Navy and requested the same. This took Lea and the team to Pearl Harbor, HI and eventually Norfolk, VA. About 10 years ago, during this time in the U.S., the company began receiving requests from Australian universities to build ABC models, which kick started the higher education practice. Now, higher education is a primary focus for Pilbara Group in Australia and the U.S. and Lea is currently heading up both companies servicing clients in Australia, the U.S., Mexico, and the United Kingdom. His recent initiatives include working closely with public, private, and community colleges in the United States on designing and implementing activity-based costing.