The TPC Team
Keith Parker, PMP - President and Managing Director
Keith is a seasoned proposal manager with over 20 years of dedicated experience in all aspects of proposal preparation and solution design. Since 2005, Keith has focused on helping small and medium-sized enterprises win more government business. In 2006 Keith founded The Proposal Centre, which helps companies compete for and win government and public sector contracts, standing offers, supply arrangements, vendor of record arrangements and other contract vehicles.
An expert in responding to Canadian public sector bids, Keith advises clients in a diverse range of industries, and has adapted proposal management best practices to suit the needs of small and medium-sized companies looking to maintain and/or increase their share of government business. Clients value Keith’s hands-on approach and his ability to deliver proposals on-time to an exceptional standard of quality. In the past seven years, Keith and his team has achieved a proposal win rate of over 85%.
Prior to founding The Proposal Centre, Keith worked as a proposal manager, federal sector, for IBM Canada Ltd., where he managed the development of responses to large and complex Requests for Proposal (RFPs) and other RFx solicitations across all lines of business.
Keith is a sought-after speaker for events hosted by industry associations, professional associations, and organizations that support and promote doing business with the public sector. In addition to tailored presentations, he runs a monthly workshop on successful proposal writing at Invest Ottawa “Is it an Art or a Science? The secrets of successful proposals revealed” and has delivered “Beyond the Secrets: The crash course in how to create successful public sector proposals” to several groups.
Keith is also a speaker, lecturer and mentor on entrepreneurship. For the past two years he has served as a live-in faculty member/entrepreneur-in-residence for the Carleton University Shad Valley program and he assisted in 2012 by delivering lectures on business planning and acting as a Design/Entrepreneurship Project judge.
Keith was a Member of the Board of Directors for the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce from 2010 to 2014 and has served as a mentor for Invest Ottawa. He has also previously served as President of the Riverside South Community Association and as the Chair of the City of Ottawa Roads and Cycling Advisory Committee. In 2009, Keith was recognized as one of Ottawa’s “Forty Under 40” business leaders by the Ottawa Business Journal.
Gayle von Pentz – Senior Proposal Consultant and Writer
With over 20 years of experience in delivering winning proposals at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, Gayle joined The Proposal Centre in 2014.
Gayle’s expertise includes business development, business planning, and business writing including proposals, RFP/RFx responses, business plans, organizational reviews, annual reports, presentations, training materials and operating and quality manuals. She has successfully worked with a wide variety of public and private organizations to secure funding and deliver programs in the fields of agriculture, food services, health care, capacity building and quality management.
As a Proposal Consultant and Senior Writer, Gayle assists in the creation of compliant and highly-rated proposal responses to bid solicitations (RFP, RFSA, RFSO, RFQ, RFSQ, etc.) on-time, on-budget, and with the extreme attention to detail and quality that is required for writing, finalizing and submitting successful proposals. Gayle also develops a range of other organizational and business development materials for clients including websites, promotional materials, organizational reviews, annual reports, presentations, training materials and manuals.
Scott Kelland – Senior Proposal Consultant and Writer
Scott Kelland joined The Proposal Centre team in 2020, bringing over 25 years of experience in management consulting in the public sector, entrepreneurial expertise, and a track record of winning proposals. With a background in industrial engineering, and a talent for understanding the end-to-end business and priorities of technical, support and service industries, Scott has been involved in numerous enterprise-level change initiatives for public sector organizations at the federal and municipal levels. He has led over a dozen performance measurement and business process reengineering projects, and has developed tools, as well as created and delivered training in performance measurement, performance improvement, process mapping and analysis, proposal management and team building.
Before joining The Proposal Centre, Scott was the Proposal Manager for QMR Consulting and Professional Staffing, where his experience in process analysis and performance measurement and improvement contributed significantly to the proposal win rate.
Scott’s broad business expertise, combined with an insider’s knowledge of the staffing industry, have allowed The Proposal Centre to expand capacity, enhance quality assurance processes, and serve more clients at a time of increased demand for proposal and business services.
Scott is the author of Practical Performance Measurement, the Manager's Guide to Understanding and Implementing Performance Measurement in the Public Sector. A former Director of Rare Breeds Canada (Eastern Ontario), Scott has also authored several books on entrepreneurship and sustainable small farming.
TPC Associates
The Proposal Centre has a carefully selected network of trusted proposal professionals who can be called upon as needed to satisfy client requirements during peak periods, or to handle special requests.