Speakers

.

Andrew Von Ah is a Director in GAO’s Physical Infrastructure team. He is one of GAO's experts in areas including telecommunications and Veterans Administration real property management issues.

Andrew joined GAO in 2000. He holds a bachelor of arts in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Irvine and a master’s degree in Public Policy from UCLA.

https://www.gao.gov/about/contact-us/find-an-expert/andrew-von-ah

As a leader in open data, education, and civic innovation, Jeanne Holm empowers people to discover new knowledge and collaborate to improve life on Earth and beyond. Jeanne Holm is the Deputy Mayor for Budget and Innovation of the City of Los Angeles, addressing issues of technology, equity, digital inclusion, open data, and transparency. She connects public-private partners for innovations ranging from improving digital equity to using data science for environmental justice to reimagining government work. She founded the Data Science Federation partnering universities and cities to create innovative solutions such as using artificial intelligence for traffic safety and machine learning to improve air quality. She was formerly the Evangelist for open data for the White House under President Obama, the leader for Africa open data for the World Bank, and the Chief Knowledge Architect at NASA. Winner of numerous awards, she has published more than 130 publications. She is a Distinguished Instructor at UCLA, a Trustee of Claremont Graduate University, a Fellow of the United Nations International Academy of Astronautics, and an advisor to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network. She leads a startup that promotes equity, education, and social justice through technology and education programs for innovators in Africa and globally.

Brandy Reitter joined the Colorado Broadband Office (CBO) in 2022 and is responsible for providing oversight and management of the office's programs and statewide strategy for broadband deployment. Her work includes educating community and industry leaders, supporting regional collaborations, fostering relationships with partners, and mobilizing resources to improve the access and affordability of high speed internet. She works to assist with policy and legislative development, serves on various broadband boards and supports the work of the office. 

Her professional experience includes 15 years in local government management in cities and towns across the state of Colorado. As a former Town Manager, she built broadband programs in rural communities and has leveraged resources to deploy broadband in her communities. Her local government experience includes managing towns in Weld, Chaffee, Saguache and Eagle Counties. She has served in roles in public utilities, economic development and government operations in the City of Longmont, City and County of Denver and the Government of the District of Columbia. She has a Master of Public Administration from the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. In 2020, Brandy won the City Manager of the Year by the Colorado City County Managers Association and has been appointed to boards for several civic organizations. 

Brandy is originally from Colorado and grew up in the Front Range. She moved to the high country 10 years ago and has lived in Summit, Chaffee and Eagle Counties. She calls the Town of Eagle her home and has spent most of her career in rural Colorado. In her free time, Brandy enjoys skiing, camping, running, mountain/dirt biking and rafting the Colorado and Arkansas Rivers. She enjoys these activities with her husband Chris and dog Tink.

Zachary Markovits is the Vice President and Local Practice Lead at Results for America. He previously served as Vice President of Local Government and Managing Director of the What Works Cities initiative. He previously served as the Manager of Election Initiatives at The Pew Charitable Trusts where he led Pew’s elections performance portfolio–working with states, counties, and municipalities to use data to drive better decision-making and policy—as well as the Voting Information Project–an open government project partnering Google, the states, and municipalities across the U.S. to ensure that all Americans have the ability to find official voting information wherever they look. Previously, Zach worked out of the University of California’s Survey Research Center and served as a community organizer in the south side of Providence, Rhode Island.

.

.

Tommy Gardner is HP’s Chief Technology Officer for HP Federal, spanning the US Federal Agencies, Higher Education, K-12 Education, State and Local government customer segments, as well as Federal Systems Integrators. His current responsibilities include technology leadership, strategic technology plans, product and technology strategies, sales force technical support, and customer and partner relationships.

Previously, Tommy has served as the Chief Technology Officer for Jacobs Engineering, Scitor, and ManTech. Earlier in his career he was a senior technical executive at Raytheon. In the U.S. Navy he served as the Deputy for Science and Technology for the Chief of Naval Research. He oversaw the Navy’s Deep Submergence Program as well as its Advanced Technology Program. He also commanded the nuclear submarine, USS San Juan (SSN 751).

Tommy’s educational background covers multiple disciplines and fields of interest including: cybersecurity, data science, blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, high performance computing and systems integration in government markets.

Tommy holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, an M.S. in Management of Technology from MIT and a Ph. D. in Energy Economics from George Washington University. He is a Professional Engineer and serves as Chair of the ASME Industry Advisory Board. He is an ASME Fellow and serves as faculty on the Blockchain Research Institute.

Jim is currently a Deputy CTO at NetApp US Public Sector and has over 25 years of engineering and leadership experience supporting a variety of Federal and Commercial customers. Jim has held various positions during his career including Enterprise Consulting Solutions Engineer, Technical Account Manager, Manager of Solutions Engineering, Director of Solutions Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer.

Jim has focused on Storage, Data Management, and Security Technology over 20 years including On-Premises, Hybrid, and Cloud technologies. He led the Federal Civilian and US Public Sector System Integrator team of Solution Engineers for 10 years, and currently is a Deputy CTO with NetApp who thrives on helping customers architect optimal, cost-efficient, and secure data management solutions using NetApp technology.

Jim has worked at a variety of Information Technology companies including SMS Data Products, Unisys, Auspex Systems, NeoScale, Decru, and NetApp. He has a passion of teaming with customers, partners, and colleagues to drive great outcomes to win.

Chuck Greene serves as the Cloud Practice Lead for the Public Sector at World Wide Technology (WWT). In this role, Chuck is responsible for shaping Cloud strategy and enabling sales teams.

 Chuck has over 20 years of experience as a strategic, hands-on technology leader and consultant. He has garnered results through transformative IT service delivery in Public Sector (DoD, Federal Civilian, and SLED), Commercial Enterprise, and Life Sciences. Grounded in current cloud-native services, Chuck has leveraged services design & delivery experience to foster client maturity in areas of FinOps, SecOps, and CloudOps.

With 20+ years experience working with the public sector, Kevin is currently the Public Sector CTO for Micro Focus and helps drive forward the security and modernization of core mission systems by developing and executing successful digital transformation strategies with federal, state, and local government organizations.  His background in legacy systems and enterprise IT expertise spanning DevSecOps, hybrid IT architectures, cybersecurity, and predictive analytics, makes Kevin a passionate technology leader who continues to collaborate directly with government agencies on continuous modernization initiatives, enhancing cybersecurity operations, and ultimately achieving better mission outcomes.

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dan Kent oversees Red River’s expansive team of engineers and technical talent, leads solution development and innovation initiatives, and cultivates the company’s technology thought leadership and intellectual property. 

Dan has more than 25 years of experience leading technical sellers, sales engineers and product development teams. He has extensive experience and solution creation expertise in federal, state and local government as well as the education and commercial enterprise markets. Before joining Red River, Dan most recently served as the lead technologist for public sector for VMware, where he helped agencies overcome security and operational complexities to get to the cloud. He has also held CTO and technical leadership positions for Idemia and Cisco Public Sector, where he led engineering and technical sales teams. He has expertise in data center, next-generation networking, cybersecurity, cloud, IoT and SaaS applications.

Alisha Powell Gillis is the senior editor at Route Fifty where she is responsible for programming live and online events content, moderating panel discussions, soliciting, editing and writing analytical pieces and overseeing the annual Navigator Awards program. Before joining Route Fifty, Alisha was the director for community impact at the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) where she worked to connect urban public libraries to critical issues in state and local government and led event programming. Prior to ULC, Alisha served the nation's governors for nearly a decade at the National Governors Association where she specialized in homeland security, emergency management and cybersecurity issues. Alisha holds a master's degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Hofstra University.

.Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futuristfor nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere.

Aaron Boyd is an award-winning journalist currently serving as senior editor for technology and events at Nextgov. He primarily covers federal government IT contracting and cybersecurity issues affecting both civilian and defense agencies. As a lifelong nerd and policy wonk, he feels right at home covering the intersection of technology and policy in the nation’s capital.

.

.

.