Speakers

James “Aaron” Bishop, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Department of the Air Force, comprised of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force. As CISO, he is responsible for advising the Chief Information Officer and senior officials on cybersecurity policy, cybersecurity programs and cyber force development in the department. He leads a Directorate comprised of military, civilian and contractor personnel responsible for developing cybersecurity policy and strategy for over 5,000 Air Force information technology systems. He oversees risk management and cybersecurity accountability for information systems, weapon systems and operational technology supporting military cyberspace operations. His portfolio includes policy and governance of the defense industrial base, cyber supply chain risk management, compliance and cybersecurity capabilities. He has oversight for the Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act laws and cryptographic modernization supporting cyber operations for the department.

Mr. Jason Bonci is the Department of the Air Force Chief Technology Officer at Office of the Chief Information Officer. His responsibilities are to drive the adoption, resilience, and strategic technical vision of the Enterprise IT portfolio.

Prior to his current position, he was the Senior Director of Public Sector Engineering at Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he led a team of 60 engineering, operations, and consulting professionals in designing and operating Akamai’s public sector portfolio. This included being the technology provider behind the Department of Defense’s Global Content Delivery Service program that powered delivery, security, and optimizations for over 2,000 capabilities. Under his architectural guidance, this service became part of the technical underpinning of the DoD’s internet access delivery system, the Air Force enterprise cloud program (CloudOne) and the Army’s identity and credential access management system. Mr. Bonci also designed and fielded the Shepherd protective domain name service program in conjunction with Defense Digital Service which helped protect Defense Industrial Base companies and national critical infrastructure. Over this 14 year tenure, he had numerous roles in the public sector, including engineering management and as an individual contributor in systems engineering and web applications.

Prior to Akamai, Mr. Bonci was involved in the Open Source community as an engineer at VA Linux and as a contributor to the Debian Linux Distribution. Having worked as an independent security researcher, he is a contributor to the DoD Vulnerability Disclosure Program. He is also an Eagle Scout.

Tommy Gardner is HP’s Chief Technology Officer for HP Federal, spanning the US Federal Agencies, Higher Education, K-12 Education, State and Local government customer segments, as well as Federal Systems Integrators. His current responsibilities include technology leadership, strategic technology plans, product and technology strategies, sales force technical support, and customer and partner relationships. 

Previously, Tommy has served as the Chief Technology Officer for Jacobs Engineering, Scitor, and ManTech. Earlier in his career he was a senior technical executive at Raytheon. In the U.S. Navy he served as the Deputy for Science and Technology for the Chief of Naval Research. He oversaw the Navy’s Deep Submergence Program as well as its Advanced Technology Program. He also commanded the nuclear submarine, USS San Juan (SSN 751). 

Tommy’s educational background covers multiple disciplines and fields of interest including: cybersecurity, data science, blockchain, quantum information science, artificial intelligence, high performance computing and systems integration.

Tommy holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, an M.S. in Management of Technology from MIT and a Ph. D. in Energy Economics from George Washington University. He is a Professional Engineer, an ASME Fellow, and serves on the ASME Board of Governors, the ANSI Board of Directors and the U. S. Council on Competitiveness as the Co-chair of the Advanced Computer Roundtable.

User Experience Officer, U.S. Air Force

Executive Producer, GovExec TV