John Vidmar — Ph.D., Global Director, Performance Tracking, Synovate Customer Experience

As Global Director of Performance Tracking, and as Business Head Public Sector & Healthcare Research Services Practice in North America, John draws on 30 years of both academic and commercial research experience to guide clients and Synovators on complex design, analytic and best-practice challenges in tracking studies. In these roles, John has been involved in the design and execution of some of the largest surveys completed not only at Synovate but within the US Federal Government. His particular expertise is in integrating developing technologies to improve sampling frames, data collection and processing, and his latest ventures have involved integrating data across various sources. John was a key part of the developmental teams for a number of Synovate products, including the TeleNation Omnibus product, a continuous sampling and data collection methodology, the databasing of tens of millions of records for the ongoing Patient Satisfaction tracking studies, and NADA-24, the day-after sales or service product now realizing over 10,000 telephone completes per night. John also served on a committee for the US Census Bureau that provided review and counsel on all census operations, including data collection and processing procedures, to prepare for the 2000 Decennial Census.

John joined Synovate's Public Sector Group in 1989 as an account group manager with responsibility for Survey Operations; with progressive promotions, he took over the business direction of the group in 2004. Prior to Synovate, John was the Assistant Head of Data Analysis, Survey Research Laboratory, University of Illinois, with an appointment as a Lecturer in the Political Science Department. He also taught statistics and research methodology courses in Criminal Justice. John started his career with Market Facts, Inc., as a research analyst in the Public Sector Research Group.

John has a B.A. from Cleveland State University (Magna Cum Laude, Political Science & Sociology with a minor in Urban Planning and English), M.A. from the University of Chicago (Political Science), and Ph.D. (Public Policy Analysis) from the University of Illinois.

Curiosity is a hallmark of John's personality. He has always been curious about how we know what we know and how we assign value to the things we care about. Secretly, he is a very good carpenter and probably one of the few people at Synovate who can operate a metal lathe and a Bridgeport milling machine. (In fact, he was first exposed to confidence intervals and tolerance levels making cutting tools used to produce cars.) John can often be found cruising on top of a motorcycle on back roads. Stranded on a desert island, John would want—what else?—a multi-function Swiss Army knife.