About Us

President: Galina Knopman, Associate Certified Coach

Galina Knopman has twenty-five years of Leadership and Life Coaching, management consulting, team facilitation, systems and software engineering, process improvement, training, and appraisal experience. The President of Comskil, Inc., since 1997, she is certified by the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a Associate Certified Coach (ACC), and as a CMMI Appraisal Lead and Instructor from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Melon University. Ms. Knopman conducted more CMMI appraisals worldwide than all but one other appraisal lead in 2003 and 2004. She has led benchmark teams in training and software engineering with Intel, American Airlines, and AlliedSignal Corporation. Ms. Knopman has participated on the SEI review board for the Software Capability Evaluation (SCE) course, the Software Capability Correspondence Committee, the Integrated Product Development CMM review team, and the System Security CMM Steering Group and Applications Group. Ms. Knopman's clients include professionals, non-profits, small businesses, large enterprises, government agencies and educational institutions.

Ms. Knopman was voted a top ten speaker at the Software Engineering Process Group Conference 2008, was honorary guest speaker at Brandeis University National Women's Committee, a guest speaker at the Tech Council MD— Women's IT Committee, the Mid-Atlantic Woman In Technology and many other conferences and speaking venues. Ms. Knopman also participates with Smiles On Wings, nonprofit organization, to deliver medical and humanitarian services to underpriviledged populations.

Vice-President: Mark Schilling

Mr. Schilling has over twenty years of experience in the systems/software industry as a process improvement expert, project manager, and developer. He has twelve years experience with over thirty organizations in various industries providing appraisal, training, and process implementation services using the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) CMMI and CMM models. He is an SEI authorized SCAMPI v1.2 Lead Appraiser and has led SCAMPI A, B, and C appraisals with numerous major corporations and small companies.

Mr. Schilling has worked with numerous companies in various industries in SEI CMMI/CMM process definition and implementation with a focus on requirements management, project planning and estimating, metrics, software quality assurance, configuration management, inspections, organizational process assets, Software Process Engineering Process Groups (SPEG), and organizational training. He also is an expert with over seventeen years of experience in software planning, estimating, and metrics including the use of parametric models such as Function Point Analysis and COCOMO II. Finally, he has a Master of Science in Management Information Systems from The Pennsylvania State University.

Location: is conveniently located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, servicing Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. We also provide coaching and process services throughout North America and internationally. Comskil headquarters is located at: