Data & Analytics Summit

Anne Dalton is a Solutions Specialist for Red Hat focused on clients within the United States Federal Government. She is an open source evangelist with a focus in cloud migration, DevSecOps, data science, and edge computing. With a passion for communication, Anne helps organizations uncover the new art of the possible when taking their unique workloads to the edge. You can follow Anne on Twitter at @annekdalton.

As the Chief Data Officer for the Department of the Navy (DON), Mr. Sasala leads the Department’s efforts on data management, information resources management, data governance, and Naval data policies. Mr. Sasala is responsible for implementing the OPEN Government Data Act, training the Naval workforce on data and data analytics, and making high quality, timely data available to decision-makers and warfighters. He advises and assists the SECNAV and UNSECNAV in the execution of their statutory responsibilities, establishes data priorities for the DON in support of the National Defense Strategy, and drives change through the Business Operations Plan and Data Strategy Implementation Plan. Mr. Sasala leads data transformation for the Department and works closely with the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) on DoD-wide data policies, tactics, and techniques to improve DON decision-making.

Mr. Sasala previously led data management activities in the business mission area at the Office of the Chief Management Officer (OCMO). In that capacity, he focused on optimizing business operations, streamlining defense business systems, and establishing enterprise-wide interoperability standards for Naval business systems.

Prior to joining the Department of the Navy, Mr. Sasala served as Director of Operations and Architecture for U.S. Army CIO/G-6 and the Chief Data Officer for the U.S. Army. He led data governance and analytics across the Army, was responsible for the implementation and migration to cloud computing solutions, and developed segment and systems architectures for the Army. Mr. Sasala was also the Chief Technology Officer for the Joint Service Provider and the U.S. Army Information Technology Agency (ITA) where he was responsible for the modernization of Pentagon information technology solutions.

Mr. Sasala began his career as a student trainee at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). After graduating from the Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, he returned to NRL and pursued his Master of Science in Telecommunication and Computers. While serving at NRL, Mr. Sasala led a variety of mission critical projects including advance research and development in public key cryptography, software-defined agile cryptography and key management, and the modernization of strategic communication solutions for nuclear command and control systems.

After leaving NRL, Mr. Sasala joined the private sector where he supported a number of clients as a government consultant. His many roles include Chief Architect for the All-Source Analytics Environment, Chief Architect and technical advisor for the Analytic Transformation (AT) program, and Program Manager for various initiatives within the defense and intelligence spaces. Additionally, Mr. Sasala spent almost two years developing cutting-edge data and training solutions at the Internet startup targeting the public educational market.

In 2014 Mr. Sasala received the Bold Award for Innovation, recognizing his creative problem-solving, technical acumen, ambition, and persistence. In 2015, Mr. Sasala was named a “Fed 100” honoring the top 100 contributors across Federal, state, and local governments.

Michael has served in a variety of Information Security leadership roles, most recently as a Sr. Manager and Project Leader in the Architecture, Consulting, and Engineering Services team (ACES) at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Past responsibilities include BCG Federal, the Source.ai platform (later acquired by DataRobot), custom software development, and information security initiatives and client delivery across the Data Science and Analytics practice (GAMMA).
Prior to BCG, Michael served as the Business Information Security Officer for Dell-EMC's Marketing, Enterprise Sales, Chief Customer Organization, and Global Services business units, and was the Lead Security Architect on EMC's Secure Remote Services (ESRS) platform supporting the top 3500 Enterprise customers globally.

Michael joined Snowflake in February 2021, and currently resides in Denver, CO.

Certified: CISSP, CISM, CEH, ITIL & vendor specific certifications

Frank Romano is based in Annapolis, MD where he works as a Senior Solutions Engineer at Cloudera. He has a degree in Computer Engineering and has spent over 30 years designing hardware, firmware and software for various technology sectors. He started his career as a Radar Engineer for Raytheon where he architected and implemented the world’s first digital waveform generator used in Phased Array radars. He went on to work in other industries such as Gaming (GTECH), Consumer Electronics (BOSE) and Data Storage (MAXTOR, EMC) In 2008, he shifted his technology focus to a new technology from Yahoo called “Hadoop” which lead him to join the National Security Agency as a Technology Director reporting directly to the CTO of the agency to start a new lab called the "Cloud Computing Laboratory (CCL). The CCL was responsible for the development work in Hadoop, Openstack, NiFi and Accumulo. He joined Hortonworks in 2014 and was the 231st employee supporting their new focus in the Public Sector. He has architected Big Data platforms for various agencies within the DoD and Federal Civilian sectors and spoken at various conferences. He considers this the best technology and job he has ever had helping customers harness the immense power of the Big Data technologies.

Troy K. Schneider is the Editor-in-Chief of both FCW and GCN, two of the oldest and most influential publications in public-sector IT. Both publications (originally known as Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News, respectively) are owned by GovExec. Mr. Schneider also serves GovExec's General Manager for Government Technology Brands.

Mr. Schneider previously served as New America Foundation’s Director of Media & Technology, and before that was Managing Director for Electronic Publishing at the Atlantic Media Company, where he oversaw the online operations of The Atlantic Monthly, National Journal, The Hotline and The Almanac of American Politics, among other publications. The founding editor of NationalJournal.com, Mr. Schneider also helped launch the political site PoliticsNow.com in the mid-1990s, and worked on the earliest online efforts of the Los Angeles Times and Newsday. He began his career in print journalism, and has written for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, Slate, Politico, Governing, and many of the other titles listed above.

Mr. Schneider is a graduate of Indiana University, where his emphases were journalism, business and religious studies.

With 8-years at Tableau, Gerard Valerio currently leads a team of solution engineers evangelizing Tableau to the U.S. Federal Government and helping customers see and understand their data. Mr. Valerio teaches Tableau to aspiring data storytellers through a DC Meet-Up group and helps enable other groups and individuals on Tableau inside and outside of Salesforce. He has built a 20-year data career working for Accenture, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, MicroStrategy, Asurion, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Informatica, Vertica, and Tableau. Mr. Valerio holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Illinois.

Erik Ekwurzel is the Chief Technology Officer, Dun & Bradstreet Government Solutions. Erik is responsible for all aspects of technology and services provided by Dun & Bradstreet to ensure the secure, compliant, data and analytics solutions to the Government. Erik oversees the development and implementation of government solutions, and complex implementations for Dun & Bradstreet’s largest government customers including GSA, FDA, SBA, TSA, DHS, DoD, and Intel. Earlier in his career at Dun & Bradstreet, Erik designed, implemented, and managed products for Dun & Bradstreet’s global customer base. Erik joined Dun & Bradstreet in 2001 when Dun & Bradstreet acquired an internet data distribution startup where Erik led a professional services team responsible for a multimillion-dollar portfolio. Erik attended Columbia College and University of Pittsburgh and holds a BA in Philosophy of Science.

Ms. Elizabeth Puchek, Chief Data Officer, joined USCIS in 2018 to help design the Office of the Chief Data Officer (OCDO), which was established earlier that year. Beth led the development of the first-ever USCIS Data Strategy. In just under 90 days, Beth established and chaired a cross-directorate working group to develop the strategy’s four goals, launched an agency-wide communication campaign, and completed the formal review and approval process to gain the Director’s concurrence. The strategy formed the foundation for the new organizational design for the OCDO, which is responsible for managing our data assets and fostering a data-driven culture at USCIS. Beth has led the OCDO to publish enterprise-wide dashboards—the Director’s Snapshot, the Domestic Receipts Dashboard, the USCIS Strategic Performance Measures Dashboard, and the Electronic Filing Dashboard--to help facilitate leadership decisions; to launch the Data Management Council, and to complete several data sharing agreements with the Department of Labor and Department of State that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of benefit adjudications.

Prior to joining USCIS, Ms. Puchek spent 8 years at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) where she held several roles, including Advisor to the Commissioner, Chief of Staff for Enterprise Services, and Director of Systems Engineering.

Prior to CBP, she worked in the private sector with a consulting engineering firm for 5 years. She led teams to design the structures for commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings. She also has extensive experience investigating building failures where she used non-destructive testing equipment including ground-penetrating radar (GPR), impulse response, and impact echo. Ms. Puchek is a registered Structural Engineer in the state of Maryland.

Ms. Puchek is a graduate of the DHS Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program, earning her OPM certification in May 2019. Beth earned a Bachelor and Master’s degree in Architectural Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. She received CBP’s FY13 Commissioner’s Award for Leadership for her collaborations within CBP and with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and DHS Science & Technology Directorate.

Troy K. Schneider is the Editor-in-Chief of both FCW and GCN, two of the oldest and most influential publications in public-sector IT. Both publications (originally known as Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News, respectively) are owned by GovExec. Mr. Schneider also serves GovExec's General Manager for Government Technology Brands.

Mr. Schneider previously served as New America Foundation’s Director of Media & Technology, and before that was Managing Director for Electronic Publishing at the Atlantic Media Company, where he oversaw the online operations of The Atlantic Monthly, National Journal, The Hotline and The Almanac of American Politics, among other publications. The founding editor of NationalJournal.com, Mr. Schneider also helped launch the political site PoliticsNow.com in the mid-1990s, and worked on the earliest online efforts of the Los Angeles Times and Newsday. He began his career in print journalism, and has written for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, Slate, Politico, Governing, and many of the other titles listed above.

Mr. Schneider is a graduate of Indiana University, where his emphases were journalism, business and religious studies.

Taka is the first Chief Data Scientist appointed by the Comptroller General of the United States for the Government Accountability Office. He also leads GAO’s newly established Innovation Lab in driving problem-centric experiments across audit and operational teams through novel use of advanced analytics and emerging technologies. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, Taka is also responsible for working with GAO stakeholders to adopt prospective views on oversight impacts of emerging capabilities such as AI, cloud services, blockchains, RPA, 5G, and IoT.

Bringing 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Alex leads the Delphix customer success team and works with all business units to deliver on a customer-centric strategy. Over the course of his career, Alex has been responsible for scaling professional services, technical support, sales/pre-sales, channel, and customer success organizations at rapidly growing technology companies. Prior to Delphix, Alex held executive and go-to-market leadership roles at Turbonomic, Pure Storage, Riverbed Technology, and Symantec during their years of hyper-growth. Alex holds a BA from Georgetown University and resides in the Boston area.

Howard Levenson has over 30 years of experience solving challenging information technology problems for the intelligence community and other federal customers. He started the Databricks Federal business 5 years ago and has grown Databricks Federal into one of the leading providers of big data and machine learning analytical solutions for the Federal Government. Today, he serves as the General Manager and Regional Vice President of Databricks Federal, LLC.

Howard has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University and has spent his career solving challenging, big data, and high-performance computing problems for the Federal Government. He’s performed in leadership roles for companies including IBM and Silicon Graphics/Cray, and has extensive experience leveraging open source technology and big data to solve the world’s most challenging problems.

He lives with his wife of 33 years in Rockville, MD and together they have 3 daughters.

Ron has more than 30 years of experience in leadership roles spanning the federal government and public sectors. Throughout his career, he has been responsible for organization transformation, data design, innovation, engineering, operational management and governance of complex IT solutions. Ron’s breadth of hands-on experience in organizational design and transformation will bring valuable perspectives in partnerships and creative problem solving.

Currently Ron is serving as the Agency Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Deputy Digital Transformation Officer (DDTO), reporting to the Deputy Associate Administrator at NASA Headquarters.

Ron previously served Associate Chief Information Officer (ACIO) Transformation and Data Division (TDD) & for the NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Ron served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service where he provided executive leadership and oversight to protect the Agency’s data and provided IT services to multiple divisions. Prior to USDA, Ron was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and was responsible for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of program operations and assisting the Administration across the department. At the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Ron served as the Executive Director for Engineering, Design and Operations in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, responsible for transforming the organization’s services to an IT service management model that increased service levels, ensured reliance and agility, and lowered overall costs. Previous positions include the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) where he managed finance, employee and labor relations and talent management and as the Chief Enterprise Architect for the U.S. Census Bureau and Program Manager for the Data Access and Dissemination System Office and the Department of Treasury, Financial Management Service, where he was the Director of Treasury’s Web Application Infrastructure.

In the private sector, Ron served as both a Senior Account Manager and a Consulting Manager for Hewlett Packard and Compaq Computer corporations where he led software development and system design and program execution.

He is a fellow in the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). In addition, is a U.S. Army Veteran. He has an Executive Masters of Business Administration M.B.A. and a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Management, both from the University of Maryland. He resides in Maryland with his wife and two sons, and is active in Boy Scouts of America where he serves as a Scoutmaster.

Anne Armstrong is Chief Content and Alliance Officer of Public Sector 360.

Preston serves as the Chief Data Officer for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In this role he guides CISA-wide data management and governance efforts. Preston ensures data is treated as a shared asset, is ready for consumption closer to demand, and decisions in support of CISA’s mission to protect the Nation’s critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats are data-informed.

Preston joined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2009 as a Senior Cybersecurity Strategist for Analysis and Operations. Most recently, he led the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center’s (NCCIC) Technology Services Section where he managed the NCCIC’s technology roadmap and developed new datasets, tools, and systems. He was also the lead for the Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) initiative enabling near-real-time machine-to-machine sharing of cyber threat indicators between the private sector and Federal government.

Prior to joining the Federal civil service, Preston co-founded Newbrook Solutions to deliver software engineering and project management services to DHS, the Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Community. Preston is a graduate of Rutgers University and lives in Ashburn, VA with his wife and children. Fly, Eagles, fly.

Debbie Brodt-Giles is the D.A.T.A. Group Manager in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center. For more than 20 years, Debbie has been leading web-based data management and visualization projects with the goal of making open data accessible and reusable for the benefit of the energy community. Debbie initiated and leads the Open Energy Information platform called OpenEI.org, which is a platform that uses a collaborative approach for linking and sharing energy data with the world. Debbie also leads several projects in DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office including the SunShot Catalyst Program, the Orange Button Data Exchange, and the Solar Data and Tools project, which enables fully-accessible utility rate data and created a Data Ambassador Program that enables innovation for entrepreneurs, developers, and industry at a local-level. NREL’s cloud computing strategy and resources are managed and administered by Debbie’s team, which enables enterprise-level web development and data management/computation support. Debbie also leads the business development efforts for the Strategic Energy Analysis Center by working closely with internal staff and engaging with industry partners on leading-edge research and analysis projects.

Jeff has spent his entire career focused on empowering people who serve the public and improving government performance. He is currently a Vice President for Data & Insights at Tyler Technologies, the largest software company in the world focused on providing integrated software and technology services exclusively to the public sector. Jeff also serves as the Chair of the Data Coalition Advisory Board at the Data Foundation. Jeff was the Practice Leader for Government Performance at Socrata prior to the company being acquired by Tyler in 2018. Prior to Socrata, Jeff served as the Deputy Director of Performance Strategy at the U.S. Department of Commerce and as a Senior Advisor on the U.S. Performance Improvement Council working with the White House Office of Management and Budget on the President’s Management Agenda.

Dr. Zach Whitman joined the U.S. Census Bureau as the Chief Data Officer in July 2016 to promote the use of Census data in the public and commercial sectors. He is currently leading the development of the U.S. Census Bureau’s enterprise data dissemination strategy and platform, accessible at data.census.gov. His prior experience at the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, and Transportation included developing data dissemination platforms, civic data engagement events for federal agencies, and public-private partnerships. His mission is to promote the utility and interoperability of governmental open data through improved data discovery and accessibility.