Dr. Ben Amaba -

Federal Business Development, Sonatype

Dr. Ben Amaba holds a PhD. degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering, a M.B.A./M.S. degree in Engineering and Operations, and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. His expertise is in industrial, systems, and software engineering. Dr. Amaba is a Distinguished Fellow with the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. He holds board positions at the University of Central Florida and National Society of Professional Engineers. He is a registered and licensed Professional Engineer in several states with International Registry; certified in Production, Operations, and Inventory Management by APICS ®; LEED® Accredited Professional (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design); and certified in Corporate Strategy by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Amaba’s focus is in industrial & systems engineering, software engineering, artificial intelligence, and data sciences. Dr. Amaba holds a copyright for Process Activity Flow Framework®, framework for requirements, design, architecture, simulation, and application development techniques and other patents. Dr. Amaba is prominently featured in “Giving 2.0,” by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen with Stanford Business School, which details contributions to bolster and promote STEM education and careers, and is an Alexis de Tocqueville Society/United Way Member, which recognizes local philanthropic leaders. Dr. Ben Amaba leads Federal Business Development for Sonatype, the Software Supply Chain Company.

Lauren Pavlik -

Chief, Data and Software Services, ECMA, U.S. Department of the Army

Lauren Pavlik, Chief, Data and Software Services for the US Army, Enterprise Cloud Management Agency. Currently, Ms. Pavlik serves as the Chief for Data and Software Services within the Enterprise Cloud Management Agency under the Army CIO’s Office. In this position she supports the CReATE DevSecOps software environment for the Army, Cloud Cybersecurity modernization and automation, and cData efforts. Previously, Ms. Pavlik served as the Chief Information Officer for PEO Soldier. In this position she supported the workforce and the Soldier with cloud technologies, cybersecurity innovation and modernization, enterprise data management strategy and analytics, and network operations. She also served as the Lead CIO for ASA ALT’s CIO Council. Ms. Pavlik also held acquisition positions at PEO Enterprise Information Systems to include Deputy Technical Director for Army Leader Dashboard (now known as Army Vantage), Project Manager for the Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud Migration (GFEBS and AESIP), Deputy Knowledge Management Team Lead and Knowledge Management Specialist. Ms. Pavlik successfully led diverse teams to deliver enterprise process automations, data visualization capabilities, multiple cloud migrations to unclassified and classified environments and unified knowledge management in multiple areas. In 2012, Ms. Pavlik earned her Master's degree in Information Systems Management from Strayer University. She also earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University. Ms. Pavlik is a graduate of the Department of the Army’s Emerging Enterprise Leader program at University of Alabama Huntsville. She is also a member of the U.S. Army Acquisition Core. Ms. Pavlik began her career in private industry producing national print, radio, and television campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and non-profits with an average audience of 60 to 180 million.

Lt Col. Jachin Sakamoto -

Agile Space Operations Software Branch Chief, AFRL/RVSX, U.S. Department of the Air Force

Jennifer Swanson -

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Data, Engineering & Software (DASA (DES)), U.S. Department of the Army

As a member of the Senior Executive Service since April 16, 2017, Ms. Swanson currently serves as the Chief Systems Engineer for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)). In this position, Ms. Swanson leads digital engineering across ASA(ALT), with a focus on implementation of agile software development, DevSecOps, and data centricity. Ms. Jennifer Swanson previously served as the Director of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) Software Engineering Center (SEC) headquartered in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. Ms. Swanson provided state of the art software engineering products and services throughout the Army. The SEC supports C5ISR systems with a portfolio that includes tactical, business and logistics systems. As Director, she oversaw a global mission, running an organization of approximately 3,000 military, civilian and industry employees, with an annual budget in excess of $600 million. Her previous assignment was Deputy Program Manager (DPM), Mission Command, Program Executive Office for Command Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), where she oversaw development and fielding of the Army’s mission command suite of software, including Command Post Computing Environment (CPCE). Prior to DPM, she was also Director of Technical Management Division, PEO C3T where she managed the integration of tactical network packages providing mobile voice and data communications across the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) down to the dismounted Soldier with mission command software to provide complete capability to deploying BCTs. Former assignments include Chief, Technical Management Division of PEO C3T’s former Project Manager, Tactical Radio Communications Systems (PM TRCS), Product Director of PM WIN-T’s Tactical Network Architectures and Configurations-Current, Evaluator with the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity and developer and division chief with the CECOM Software Engineering Center. Ms. Swanson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Florida, and a Master of Science degree in Software Engineering from Monmouth University. She is Level III certified in Systems Engineering and Program Management.

Kevin Twibell -

Chief Information Security Officer, DoD Platform One

Rob Vietmeyer -

Chief Software Officer for DCIO Information Enterprise, U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)

Mr. Rob Vietmeyer is the Department of Defense Chief Software Officer for the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Information Enterprise (DCIO(IE)). In this position, he is the principal advisor to the DoD CIO for the implementation and evolution of the Department’s Software Modernization Strategy. Mr. Vietmeyer will drive strategy implementation, establishing the foundation to deliver resilient software at speed and scale advocating for the latest software development approaches, cloud services, and process transformation. Through collaboration with other DoD Components, government, industry, and academia partners, he is responsible for advancing the Department’s adoption of DevSecOps practices, agile software development, and cloud native modernization. Prior to his current position, Mr. Vietmeyer served as the Director of Cloud and Software Modernization for the DCIO(IE), leading a diverse team to modernize the way DoD develops software. In that role and in partnership with DoD Components, he led the development of the Department’s DevSecOps guidance, OCONUS Cloud Strategy, cloud Infrastructure as Code (IaC) implementation, and the DoD Software Modernization Strategy and Implementation Plan. He established the DoD Software Modernization Senior Steering Group (SSG) to guide software modernization initiatives and the Department-wide DevSecOps Community of Practice, which brings together stakeholders and subject matter experts across DoD and industry to further modernization progress. He functioned as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) Tri-Chair for the DoD Software Modernization Action Officers Working Group (AOWG), the group responsible for leading implementation of guidance from DoD leadership and the SSG. Prior to joining the Office of the DoD CIO, Mr. Vietmeyer was a SME and lead for agile software development efforts at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). He led delivery of the enterprise collaborative software development environment - Forge.mil and implementation of DISA’s initial cloud computing solutions. Under his leadership, Forge.mil grew to enable 27,000 DoD software developers working on over 1,000 development projects supporting DoD mission critical programs. Additionally, Mr. Vietmeyer led the definition and technical design of the Department’s Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) program, served as Chief Engineer for the Global Combat Support System (GCSS), and Lead Engineer for the Global Command and Control System (GCCS). In his early career, he developed software for DoD command and control data integration, DISA’s acquisition career management systems, and data processing systems for mainframe and minicomputer infrastructure. Mr. Vietmeyer holds an M.S. in Information and Telecommunications Systems from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in Physics from Randolph Macon College. He has received numerous recognitions for his work including the Federal CIO Council Leadership Award, the American Council for Technology/Industry Advisory Council Excellence.gov Award, and the Federal 100. Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Vietmeyer currently lives in Northern Virginia where he and his wife continue to support their three kids with two in college and one soon to be.