AI Copilot for Accounting

Patrick Toohey is a Senior Software Engineer at Mettler-Toledo, where he is celebrating his 20th year with the company. He currently works on the Safeline Metal Detection R&D team, having previously spent nearly 16 years on the Checkweigher team, where he continues to serve as a subject matter expert. Patrick holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction, with graduate work focused on research statistics, data visualization, and usability. He applied this expertise to the packaging industry as Chair of the OMAC PackML HMI Working Group, where he led the development of the PackML HMI Guidance — a set of best practices for industrial HMI design in packaging equipment. This work led to a pair of articles in Packaging Strategies, keynote speaking engagements at the Automation Conference and PackExpo, and recognition with OMAC's Past Chairman's Award. His background in research statistics and data visualization led him to reproducible research with R, and more recently to Python and Jupyter Notebooks. Today, Patrick is focused on agentic AI — using tools like Claude to build skills that capture domain knowledge for natural language querying and automating complex manual processes. Having spent years accumulating deep expertise in checkweighing, he sees both sides of the knowledge equation: packaging institutional knowledge so others can access it, and leveraging AI as an accelerator when onboarding into new domains. Outside of work, Patrick is an avid hockey player and coach. He genuinely enjoys digging into technology — whether it's classic computer hardware or the latest AI tools. He's at his happiest when learning something new and finding a way to put it to use.

Lana is a CPA with a Master of Accounting and currently serves as Controller at SDII Global, a multi-entity forensic engineering and consulting firm operating in the U.S. and Canada. 

She began her career in public accounting as an auditor at Deloitte, where she learned discipline, structure, and the importance of getting the details right. She then spent nine years with S&P 500 company Mettler Toledo, supporting large capital investments, factory transformations, reorganizations, and the consolidation of four business units. Lana was also involved in a major SAP migration that reshaped processes across the organization. Working through those large-scale changes taught her how to think about systems, efficiencies, and compliance in a very real way. That experience shaped how she approaches leadership today. Strong fundamentals matter. Teamwork matters. Compliance matters — especially in a complex, modern business environment.