GovCon Wire
Your Direct Source for Government Contracting News
Recorded on Thursday, November 10, 2022 1:00pm-3:00pm EST Virtual, ON24
In today’s fast-paced technological landscape, IT serves as the foundation for a wide range of important decisions, mission operations, technology capabilities and more. As organizations across the public and private sectors accelerate their modernization efforts, IT environments are becoming more and more essential to transforming the U.S. government into a digitally-enabled, technologically advanced competitor that can harness emerging solutions and keep pace with the rapid speed of innovation.
GovCon Wire’s Second Annual IT Modernization and Transformation Forum invites distinguished military, government and industry officials to join in dynamic discussion focused on the nation’s top IT challenges, opportunities, initiatives and solutions — and the implications these factors will have on the future of the GovCon ecosystem.
Rear Admiral Christopher Bartz, CIO and assistant commandant for C4 and IT for the U.S. Coast Guard, will serve as the forum’s keynote speaker and will deliver timely insights into the Coast Guard’s modernization strategies, goals, plans and priorities.
Rear Admiral Bartz, currently serves as the U.S. Coast Guard’s Assistant Commandant for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Information Technology (CG-6). In this capacity, he also serves as the Coast Guard’s Chief Information Officer. Rear Admiral Bartz previously served as the Director of Training and Exercises (J7) at U.S. Cyber Command. There he developed joint training and readiness standards and orchestrated large scale exercises for active duty and reserve cyber mission forces, partner nations, government agencies, and private industry. Rear Admiral Bartz has also served as the Coast Guard’s Chief Information Security Officer, where he established policies and procedures focused on enhancing cybersecurity in the Service. During his assignment as the Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard’s Operation’s System Center, he led software development efforts for 55 enterprise software applications and oversaw the Service’s enterprise data center. He also served as the Chief of C4 and IT Capabilities where he generated and managed IT requirements for afloat, aviation and shore-based assets. Rear Admiral Bartz currently serves as the 27th Ancient Albatross, the Coast Guard’s longest serving active-duty aviator. He received his wings in 1994 and reported to Air Station North Bend, Oregon for his first aviation assignment. He was designated a Coast Guard Aeronautical Engineer in 1998 and received follow-on assignments to Aviation Training Center Mobile, Alabama; Air Station Detroit, Michigan; and Air Station New Orleans, Louisiana. During his career, he accumulated over 3,300 hours of helicopter flight time and was credited with over 120 search and rescue cases, resulting in over 60 persons saved or assisted. As a member of the Polar Operations Division, he deployed aboard Coast Guard icebreakers to support operations in Antarctica and Alaska. As well as conducting law enforcement, drug and migrant interdiction operations, he participated in the Coast Guard response to Hurricane Katrina and to the search and rescue and oil pollution response following the tragic explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon Mobile Drilling Unit in the Gulf of Mexico. Rear Admiral Bartz earned a Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture from the Coast Guard Academy in 1990; a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Alabama in 2002; and holds a certificate in Enterprise Architecture from the National Defense University. He is certified DHS Level 3 Program Manager and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (two awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (four awards), the Coast Guard Commendation Medal (three awards), and various other personal and unit awards.
Mr. Lewis serves as the Managing Director for Cyber & Data Analytics for The MITRE Corporation’s Center for Securing the Homeland (CSH) and provides expertise and technical recommendations across CSH and MITRE for multiple sponsors including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Treasury, and the Department of Commerce. Mr. Lewis oversees the work program strategy, development, integration, and delivery to DHS around data analytics including the development and research of novel algorithms and capabilities for the exploitation and fusion of open-source and government information. Mr. Lewis leads the applied research that focuses on network analysis, cyber analytics, risk assessments and predictive modeling for actionable information across a wide range of problems including violent extremism, cybersecurity, dual-use technologies, intellectual property theft, fraud, border security, disaster response and transnational organized crime. Mr. Lewis brings more than 25 years of experience and a broad background working at both the strategic and tactical levels providing technical and policy support to DHS, Intelligence Community, state, local, and private sector partners. His current focus is on various big data projects and advanced analytic technologies to support counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions across the homeland security enterprise. Mr. Lewis holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and a master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. Mr. Lewis also volunteers as a Firefighter/Medic with the Howard County Department of Fire & Rescue in Howard County, MD and serves on the Advisory Board of George Mason University’s Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis (CINA) Center
Philip Payne is the Technical Lead for the Cybersecurity and Information Systems Information Analysis Center (CSIAC), a DoD agency under the auspices of the Defense Technical Information Center. Mr. Payne (CISSP and Security+ Certified) comes from a rich background of Cyber Security with the US Army C5ISR center (formerly CERDEC) and possesses a BS and MS in Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and Polytechnic University respectively. At the C5ISR center, he led a world class Cross Domain Solution (CDS) Lab. Within the lab, he performed Cross Domain Solution (CDS) lab based security assessments on Army CDSs going through the Secret and Below Interoperability (SABI) CDS Certification and Accreditation Approval process. He was a key member of the INFOSEC Branch, which has made a myriad of contributions in the Cyber Space for the DoD at large. At SURVICE Engineering he served as a vital member of the Cyber R&D team as Senior Cyber Security Engineer supporting the Data Analysis Center (formerly AMSAA) on early acquisition Cyber Security Assessments for Army Systems.
Don Styer is the Vice President and Enterprise Technology Officer for Serco, North America. A visionary leading Serco’s digital transformation offering aligning business strategy with delivering optimal technology-enabled customer value. He is a recognized industry thought leader in helping global organizations navigate major transformations and realignments through strategic resource planning powered by data-driven analysis and technology solutions. Mr. Styer brings foundational insight from a distinguished career retiring as a United States Naval Supply Corps Officer. Mr. Styer holds a Master of Business Administration from Naval Post Graduate School.
As Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Chris Sullivan leads the corporate Information Technology (IT) department and and oversees the strategic direction, operations, and overall business management of the technology enabled solutions and shared services that are used by the Americas BUs and LoBs. He is responsible for ensuring the necessary Technology and Information Security Governance and Operating Frameworks are in place, leveraging industry best practices, for reliable and consistent delivery of enterprise solutions and services to our customers. Chris brings more than 30 years of experience in IT Operations, Architecture, Engineering, and Software Development to Serco, and possesses an effective combination of leadership, technical, and analytical skills with expertise in the areas of IT management, strategic planning, service delivery management, client transitions, infrastructure migrations, disaster recovery services, and technical & collaborative management. He is comfortable working in environments facing rapid expansion, reorganization, and cost control challenges. Prior to joining Serco, Mr. Sullivan spent 10 years at CSC. During his last four years at CSC, he was CIO for CSC’s North American Public Sector. Prior to that, his assignments included Deputy CIO, Service Delivery Director, Service Delivery Manager, and IT Transition Manager. Prior to CSC, Mr. Sullivan held various other positions in the fields of IT management, strategy & operations and software development at DynCorp, Network Access Solution, AT&T Solutions, and AT&T.
Stuart Wagner is the Chief Digital Transformation Officer for the Department of the Air Force, comprised of the U.S Air Force and U.S. Space Force. On behalf of the Chief Information Officer, Mr. Wagner promotes innovation and digital transformation to enable warfighters globally, helps build the digital workforce, and implements artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities. His areas of interest include telemetry instrumentation, collection, unification and analysis, natural language processing, and improving partnerships between the venture community and government. Mr. Wagner began his career as the Aide De Camp to the CEO and COO of Berico Technologies, a defense contractor focused on data fusion. He then enlisted in the U.S. Army, and attended Officer Candidate School. While there, he broke three ribs on an obstacle course and continued training for weeks while hurt, eventually resulting in an honorable discharged. Mr. Wagner then learned to code and became a Software Developer at Microsoft. There, he instrumented and analyzed telemetry data from Windows Devices at billion+ user scale to improve reliability and Azure subscriptions to improve revenue growth. At a Microsoft hackathon, he helped prototype a sex trafficking disruption application that won the competition and now is used by over 12 US cities to reduce the supply and demand of sex trafficking. Returning to the Department of Defense in 2019 to work as a Senior Advisor to the Chief Data Officer of the Department of Defense, Mr. Wagner built and ran a team of 50+ engineers to run Development and Engineering for Advana, an analytics platform at OUSD(C), and start Gamechanger, an opensource natural language processing and search platform that enables text analytics on policy documents, DoD contracts, and communications traffic among other use cases. Mr. Wagner is an active angel and venture investor, and serves on the board of a charitable foundation. Mr. Wagner received a Bachelor of Arts degree triple-majoring in Political Science, Arabic, and Organizational Studies from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science in Public Policy and Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. EDUCATION 2007 Bachelor of Arts, Political Science, Arabic, and Organizational Studies, University of Michigan 2009 Master of Science, Public Policy and Administration, London School of Economics and Political Science 2016 Master of Science, Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania CAREER CHRONOLOGY 2009-2011, Special Assistant to the CEO and COO, Berico Technologies 2011-2012, Officer Candidate, US Army 2013-2014, Manager of Technology and Analytics, Contractors Steel Company 2015, Technical Intern, Upthere 2015, Teaching Assistant in Distributed Systems, University of Pennsylvania 2016-2019, Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Corporation 2019-2021, Senior Data Scientist, Department of Defense 2021-Present, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Department of the Air Force (Current as of April 2021)
1:00pm - 1:05pm EST
Opening Remarks
1:05pm - 1:55pm EST
Keynote: RADM Christopher Bartz
Keynote Introducer: Chris Sullivan
1:55pm - 2:55pm EST
Paving The Way To A Cloud Based Tactical Edge Panel: Chuck Lewis, Phillip Payne, Don Styer (moderator) and Dr. Stuart Wagner
2:55pm - 3:00pm EST
Closing Comments
