Mr. Liscouski was appointed by President George W. Bush as the first Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was founded in 2003 and served in that position until 2005. Mr. Liscouski is Managing Partner and co-founder of Convergent Risk Group LLC, an innovative enterprise risk management and cyber security firm focused on protecting companies, state & local governments, international clients and NGOs by providing complete cyber risk mitigation and transfer solutions. Mr. Liscouski is a proven security professional and entrepreneur with over 30 years of senior level security operational and company leadership experience.
Linda is a veteran of the intelligence community having served at the National Security Agency, the President's Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Her areas of expertise include weapons of mass destruction, intelligence analysis, arms control, program management and building partnerships. She has also worked in several non-profit organizations serving the national security community and recently, she was a Senior Vice President in a cyber security start-up that specialized in biometrics and access rights management.
Ron Marks is President of Intelligence Enterprises, a national security-consulting firm composed of a network of former senior national security officials. Ron spent 16 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. During that time, he occupied a number of increasingly senior positions ranging from clandestine spy to Senate Liaison for five Directors. In 2011, Ron was selected as Director of Battelle Memorial Institute's Cyber Doctrine Program where he is working to delineate a United States Government Cyber Doctrine that frames the uses and limits of America’s cyber activities both domestically and internationally. Ron is a Standing Committee Member of the CSIS Transnational Threats Project. He is also a member of: the Atlantic Council, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and The Cosmos Club and teaches as an adjunct professor on national security at GWU and the National Defense University.
Hank Glauser currently holds a matrixed position with the Global Security Directorate as Principal Investigator for the Portunus Project at LLNL under the Critical Infrastructure Protection Program. Hank received his B.S. degree in Environmental Studies from San Jose State University and earned his MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. A US Navy veteran, Hank served in Operations Earnest Will and Desert Storm. He joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1992 and has over 25 years of experience with various national security efforts. Hank also is a member of the Northern California Maritime Security Committee.
Dr. Erroll G. Southers is an internationally recognized expert on counterterrorism, public safety, infrastructure protection, and homeland security. He is the Director of the Safe Communities Institute at the University of Southern California, where he is also a Professor of the Practice of Governance. Dr. Southers is also the Managing Director for Counter-Terrorism & Infrastructure Protection at TAL Global, an international security consulting firm. Previously, Dr. Southers served as the Associate Director of the National Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE). He has also served as: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Deputy Director in the California Office of Homeland Security; Chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence for the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department (the nation’s largest airport police department); and President Barack Obama’s first nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration.
Kevin Learned is a Partner with the law firm of McMahon, Welch and Learned, PLLC. Kevin has nearly twenty years of experience as a corporate and M&A attorney and has extensive experience working with emerging growth companies, particularly information technology and other professional service providers in both the commercial and federal spaces. Kevin’s practice focuses on advising clients on general corporate and securities matters, including company formation and governance, buy-sell agreements, operating and stockholder agreements, mergers and acquisitions, private offerings of debt and equity securities (including friends and family, angel, venture capital and private equity investments), corporate divorces and other reorganizations, joint ventures, small business certifications (including 8(a), SDVO, WOSB, HUB Zone and MBE/DBE certifications), executive employment and equity matters, deferred compensation plans, franchise agreements, trademarks, and other commercial contracts and agreements.
Johana "Jody" Reed is a Counsel with the law firm of McMahon, Welch and Learned, PLLC. Jody has over twenty years of experience as an attorney with over fifteen years of combined experience as a Business Finance Manager, a Contracts Manager at several defense contractors, and as a contracts management support person for the FAA under a contract. Jody's practice focuses on advising domestic and international clients on all aspects of government contracting law, including prime contracts, subcontracts and other related agreements, drafting requests for equitable adjustments and claims; drafting Contractor Performance Assessment Report System responses; reviewing, drafting, evaluating and revising ethics compliance programs; evaluation and submission of Mandatory Disclosures, Cost Accounting Standards and accounting systems/cost principles, contract and solicitation review and risk assessment, protection of intellectual property rights related to government contracts, Organizational Conflicts of Interests issues and mitigation plans, Freedom of Information Act requests and defenses, export controls compliance and training programs, and cyber security issues. She is experienced and skilled in negotiating both international and domestic contracts including subcontracts, teaming agreements, intellectual property licenses, agent agreements, and proprietary information agreements for numerous million- and billion-dollar programs.
Patton served as the eighth Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard from May 1998 to October 2002. As the service's top senior enlisted leader and ombudsman, he was the principal advisor to the Commandant of the Coast Guard, his directorates, and the Secretaries of Transportation and Defense, with primary focus on quality of life issues, career development, work environment and personnel matters affecting over 40,000 active duty, reserve enlisted, and civilian personnel servicewide. He routinely addressed these specific issues before appropriate United States Senateand House committees in the United States Congress, as well as with the Commander-in-Chief, along with his senior enlisted counterparts of the other four military services.
His numerous military awards include the Coast Guard Distinguished Service Medal, two Meritorious Service Medals, three Coast Guard Commendation Medals, three Coast Guard Achievement Medals, the Commandant's Letter of Commendation Ribbon, eight Meritorious Team awards and nine Coast Guard Good Conduct awards. He also earned the Cutterman Insignia (sea duty recognition) and is one of a few Coast Guardsmen to have earned the coveted "Parachutist Wings" specialty badge during his assignment with Joint Task Force 160.
Mr. Charles R. Armstrong was the Assistant Commissioner (AC) and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Office of Information and Technology (OIT), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As the AC and CIO, Mr. Armstrong was responsible for managing and integrating all of CBP’s information technology (IT) solutions in alignment with overarching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) IT strategies.
Mr. Armstrong’s responsibilities included application development, maintaining an efficient IT infrastructure that enables enforcement technology services and support, tactical communications, laboratory services, and modernization initiatives for improving the service delivery in support of CBP’s core business processes. Mr. Armstrong led OIT as the AC since June 2008. He oversaw and executed a budget of nearly 1.3 billion dollars and a workforce of about 6000 Federal employees and contractors throughout the world.
