Speakers

Casey Cook serves as the Acting Director of Strategy Management & Complex Solutions (SMCS) as well as the USDA's Senior Cloud Architect within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, Digital Infrastructure Service Center (OCIO-DISC). In this capacity, Mr. Cook leads enterprise-wide modernization initiatives that span cloud transformation, Zero Trust implementation, and digital service delivery across USDA mission areas and federal partners.

With a distinguished career in federal IT strategy and operations, Mr. Cook oversees the strategic direction and execution of three critical branches: Architecture & Enablement, Delivery & Engineering, and Cloud Broker Services. Under his leadership, the SMCS division has become a central force in advancing USDA’s digital modernization agenda, aligning technical innovation with mission-critical outcomes.

Mr. Cook is the principal architect and sponsor for STRATUS, USDA’s next-generation cloud acquisition vehicle. STRATUS streamlines procurement through a unified framework of Basic Ordering Agreements (BOAs), enabling agile access to cloud service providers, SaaS platforms, and integration partners. This initiative has significantly accelerated USDA’s ability to adopt secure, scalable, and cost-effective cloud solutions with USDA Enterprise buying power.

A recognized leader in Zero Trust Architecture and DevSecOps, Mr. Cook has championed the adoption of immutable infrastructure and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) as foundational principles in USDA’s cloud governance. His efforts have shaped enterprise standards, including the AgCloud readiness framework, DNS Resolver policy, and the USDA Digital Operating Model (DOM), ensuring alignment between policy, architecture, and implementation.

Mr. Cook chairs the USDA Cloud Working Group, a cross-functional body of cloud subject matter experts, where he leads the development of reusable technical patterns, acquisition strategies, and governance models that support mission agility and cybersecurity resilience.

He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a trusted advisor to senior leadership across USDA and interagency partners. Mr. Cook is widely regarded for his ability to translate complex technical challenges into actionable strategies, foster

As a Senior Executive on GAO’s Information Technology and Cybersecurity team, Dave Hinchman oversees government-wide reviews of critical infrastructure cybersecurity, the federal cyber workforce, and cloud computing security. His multi-disciplinary teams primarily focus on emerging cybersecurity issues and how new technologies, including artificial intelligence, are being used by the federal government to better secure the resources vital to the delivery of citizen services.

In addition, Dave leads work on IRS’s business systems modernization program, as well as other government-wide IT management and operations issues. He previously managed GAO’s reviews of federal data center optimization and border security technology. Prior to joining GAO in 2002, Dave worked for several private sector firms, including PricewaterhouseCoopers, and served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy. Dave has a master’s degree in business administration from the Eller School of Management at the University of Arizona, and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Vassar College. 

Dr. Michaela Iorga is a supervisory computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST/ITL). She serves as the Strategic Outreach Director for the Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) program, and as the senior security technical lead for cloud computing, chairing the NIST Cloud Security and Forensics Working Groups.

Dr. Iorga, a subject matter expert in cybersecurity, risk assessment, and information assurance, collaborates with industry, academia, and other government stakeholders on developing and disseminating high-level, vendor-neutral cybersecurity and forensics guidelines that meet national priorities and promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. Dr. Iorga received her Ph.D. from the Duke University/ Pratt School of Engineering, in North Carolina, USA.

Dr. Orgeron has extensive information technology experience in the private, federal, and state levels of the public sector. Currently, Dr. Orgeron serves as the Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) and Chief Information Officer for the State of Mississippi, a role he held previously for nearly a decade. Dr. Orgeron began his career as a communications-computer systems officer in the United States Air Force. He has served as an Executive Government Advisor with Amazon Web Services (AWS), President of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), and on the Executive Committee of the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). Dr. Orgeron holds a bachelor’s degree in MIS, a master’s degree, and a doctorate in public policy and administration from Mississippi State University and is a graduate of the Harvard University Business Analytics Program (HBAP).

David Pascarella is the Director of the Cloud Center of Excellence with the State of Maine, where he leads cloud digital transformation strategy and modernization of the enterprise architecture program for the Executive Branch.  With over 20 years in both Public and Private sector experience, he thrives in pushing innovation from conceptual strategy to actionable implementation across the organization.

Birgit Smeltzer serves as the Acting Director of the Office of IT Products within the Office of Information Technology Category (ITC), in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.

The Federal Acquisition Service provides buying platforms and acquisition services to federal, state and local governments for a broad range of items, from office supplies to motor vehicles, to information technology and telecommunications products and services. ITC provides access to a wide range of commercial and custom IT products, services and solutions.

In this role, Birgit is responsible for a portfolio of contracts and programs that offer government agencies a diverse set of IT software, cloud, hardware, and service solutions valued at $9 billion annually. Some of these offerings include Multiple Award Schedule Special Item Numbers for IT Software, IT Hardware, and Cloud Computing and Cloud-Related IT Professional Services; Defense Enterprise Office Solution (DEOS); 2nd Generation IT (2GIT) Blanket Purchase Agreements; and Government-wide Strategic Solutions (GSS) Desktop and Laptop Program. Birgit serves as a core member of the OneGov IT Strategy team. 

Since joining GSA in 2016, Birgit has served in other impactful roles as well. As a Management and Program Analyst that led the Category Mission Support Division, she was responsible for providing mission support to all of the IT Subcategories within ITC, streamlining processes, and ensuring common communication across the portfolios, as well as overseeing the development and management of an online training tool available governmentwide.

As a Program Manager in the IT Security subcategory, she led various projects that aimed to promote and highlight ITC’s IT Security Solutions, such as Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services and Continuous Diagnostics & Mitigation Tools, for both agencies and industry. During this time, she was responsible for aligning FAS IT products and services with federal security standards and mandates. She served as IT Security Subcategory liaison for both customer agencies and vendors, helped agencies find the right cybersecurity solutions, and provided guidance to vendors interested in selling their cybersecurity solutions through the GSA Multiple Award Schedule.

Birgit graduated from the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

David Robinson is a global technology executive with more than 25 years’ experience in delivering innovation strategy, new product development, go to market, and disruptive and transitional operating business models to technology organizations from startups to the largest enterprises. Appointed to President of Cloud ERP in July 2023, David has been responsible for orchestrating cross company collaboration to drive customers’ transformation journeys to the cloud through adoption of the SAP Business Suite, he is currently serving as Acting Head of SAP US Public Services.

With an IT career spanning more than 40 years, Mr. Ryan has spent the last 20 years leading efforts to transform the way in which our federal government does IT.   His experience provides a uniquely integrated perspective, having led successful initiatives around Cloud, Containerization, Automation, Security, ITSM, Application Lifecycle Management and Networking.