Speakers

Ms. Taiwanna Smith serves as Director, Benefits, Wage and Nonappropriated Fund (NAF) Policy Line of Business, Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service (DCPAS). In this capacity, she supports more than 900,000 Department of Defense Appropriated and NAF employees worldwide by facilitating the development and oversight of Human Resources benefits, work life, wage, and NAF employment policy and programs that are vital to our customers. Ms. Smith has extensive Federal experience and has held a multitude of Human Resource leadership positions within Department of Defense.

Ms. Smith currently serves as the Department of Defense Benefits Officer, and works closely with the Office of Personnel Management, Department of State, and Department of Labor on benefits and work life related issues.

Prior to that, she served as the Benefits & Entitlements Branch Chief, Human Resource Operations, DCPAS; Department of Army Benefits Officer and Benefits & Entitlements Program Chief; and Staffing and Classification Branch Chief, Army National Capital Region, Civilian Personnel Operations Center. Throughout her career, Ms. Smith has worked diligently to improve the benefits and entitlements of the Department’s civilian employees who provide enduring support to our nation’s dedicated warfighters.

Stephanie Baker is an accomplished leader with over 20 years of service operations experience in the insurance industry. She supports WAEPA by leading the Member Services staff, the largest department in the organization.

Since joining in 2018, Stephanie has implemented a member-first approach in all the services WAEPA provides and played a pivotal role in monitoring and optimizing the overall experience of both our new and existing members and staff.

In her free time, Stephanie serves as Vice Chair for the Maryland Consumer Council, serves as Chair-Elect for Executive Alliance, serves on the Board of the Y of Central Maryland, is a LIMRA LOMA Insurance Fellow (LLIF), and a founding member of Chief, a network connecting women in leadership

Erich Wagner is a senior correspondent covering pay, benefits, organized labor and other federal workforce issues. He joined Government Executive in the spring of 2017 after extensive experience writing about state and local issues in Maryland and Virginia, most recently as editor-in-chief of the Alexandria Times. He holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

Frank Konkel is vice president of editorial and an editor at large for Nextgov/FCW. He writes about the intersection of government and technology. Frank began covering tech in 2013 upon moving to the Washington, D.C., area after getting his start in journalism covering local and state issues at daily newspapers in his home state of Michigan. Frank was born and raised on a dairy farm and graduated from Michigan State University.