Speakers

Gerald Caron is the Chief Information Officer for the International Trade Administration. In this role, he implements information technology services, solutions, and strategy for an agency of 2,200 employees across 100 U.S. cities and 80 international markets.

Caron has two decades of experience leading global teams in IT operations and cybersecurity. Prior to joining ITA, he was the Chief Information Officer and Assistant Inspector General of Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also served at the State Department in various technical roles, including as Director of Enterprise Network Management oversaw the Department’s infrastructure and operations (network, perimeter security, active directory and much more) and was extensively involved in mitigating cybersecurity attacks. He began public service in the U.S. Army for seven years. 

Caron is a tri-chair on the interagency U.S. Chief Information Officers Council’s E-Ops Committee for Zero Trust, whose aim is to drive efficiency and effectiveness of government cybersecurity effectiveness. He also chairs the Zero Trust Working Group for the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC), a non-profit that bridges the gap between government, industry, and academia on emergent technologies. Previously, he chaired ATARC’s Trusted Internet Connection 3.0 Working Group.

Caron is a recipient of the FedHealthIT 100 2022 and 2023 award. He was named GovCIO’s 2022 and 2023 GovCIO Zero Trust Advocate Flywheel Award, ATARC’s 2022 Government Member of the Year, and FedScoop’s Best Bosses in Federal IT 2022. He is a graduate of Northern Virginia Community College and holds certifications from Forrester as a Zero Trust Strategist and Federal IT Security Manager.

Steven Hernandez is an information assurance executive serving the past twenty years in a variety of contexts and missions. His rich background includes law enforcement, financial, education, healthcare, credentialing, heavy manufacturing, non-profits, and governments at the federal, state, and local levels.  Steven’s experience ranges from the board room to leading tactical, day-to-day security operations as well as guiding and leading broad security initiatives such as the US government's Zero Trust Architecture approach across large and complex organizations. Presently he is the Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Information Assurance Services at the U.S. Department of Education.  Steven also serves as the co-chair of the US Government Federal CISO Council and Government Chair of the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Community of Interest. Prior to his position at Education, he held a variety of roles at the Office of Inspector General, US Department of Health and Human Services including CTO, CIO, CISO, Senior Official for Privacy and Chief Services Engineering Officer.  He is an inaugural member of the United States Scholarship of Service Hall of Fame and an ardent supporter of the next generation of cybersecurity professionals through his teaching work as an Honorary Professor, Affiliate Faculty and guest lecturer at over a dozen Institutions of higher education.

Matt Singleton is an Executive Strategist at Crowdstrike and currently teaches as a Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, he was the chief information security officer for the state of Oklahoma where he led all cybersecurity defensive efforts, offensive operations and compliance/privacy practices. During that time, he completely rebuilt Oklahoma Cyber Command into a world-class program, oversaw the state’s efforts to push more than 32,000 state employees to work securely and effectively from home during the global pandemic, established the state’s first enterprise fraud prevention, detection and investigation program, and launched the Oklahoma Information Sharing and Analysis Center. 

Prior to Oklahoma’s CISO, he served as chief operations officer for Oklahoma’s information services division. In that role, he oversaw the technology operations for 189 executive branch agencies/affiliates and executed the unification of 110 IT organizations across the state, realizing more than $875 million in cost savings. His work was highlighted in Chris Fussell’s Wall Street Journal best-seller, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams.

Matt’s prior work history includes leading IT at the University of Oklahoma. Most notably, he played a central role in establishing OU’s cybersecurity program, the OU Cyber-Forensics Lab and OU’s highly popular technology retail store, which ranked as the No. 1 institutionally managed Apple reseller in the Southeast. He also provided critical leadership for the development of OU2GO, one of the first iPhone apps in Higher Education.

Matt earned a master’s degree in applied intelligence from Georgetown University with specializations in cyber-intelligence, homeland security and counterterrorism. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from OU, a master’s certificate in IT service management and numerous other industry certifications.

George Jackson is VP of events at GovExec – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. He joined the company in 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences. In 2021, George launched GovExec TV (streaming video content) and received the company’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, part of their first-annual Icon Awards.

George graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. – beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary The Dawn of Generation AI.

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in Northern Virginia.

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dan Kent oversees Red River’s expansive team of engineers and technical talent, leads solution development and innovation initiatives, and cultivates the company’s technology thought leadership and intellectual property. 

Dan has more than 25 years of experience leading technical sellers, sales engineers and product development teams. He has extensive experience and solution creation expertise in federal, state and local government as well as the education and commercial enterprise markets. Before joining Red River, Dan most recently served as the lead technologist for public sector for VMware, where he helped agencies overcome security and operational complexities to get to the cloud. He has also held CTO and technical leadership positions for Idemia and Cisco Public Sector, where he led engineering and technical sales teams. He has expertise in data center, next-generation networking, cybersecurity, cloud, IoT and SaaS applications.

Steven Hernandez is an information assurance executive serving the past twenty years in a variety of contexts and missions. His rich background includes law enforcement, financial, education, healthcare, credentialing, heavy manufacturing, non-profits, and governments at the federal, state, and local levels.  Steven’s experience ranges from the board room to leading tactical, day-to-day security operations as well as guiding and leading broad security initiatives such as the US government's Zero Trust Architecture approach across large and complex organizations. Presently he is the Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Information Assurance Services at the U.S. Department of Education.  Steven also serves as the co-chair of the US Government Federal CISO Council and Government Chair of the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Community of Interest. Prior to his position at Education, he held a variety of roles at the Office of Inspector General, US Department of Health and Human Services including CTO, CIO, CISO, Senior Official for Privacy and Chief Services Engineering Officer.  He is an inaugural member of the United States Scholarship of Service Hall of Fame and an ardent supporter of the next generation of cybersecurity professionals through his teaching work as an Honorary Professor, Affiliate Faculty and guest lecturer at over a dozen Institutions of higher education.

Matt Singleton is an Executive Strategist at Crowdstrike and currently teaches as a Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining CrowdStrike, he was the chief information security officer for the state of Oklahoma where he led all cybersecurity defensive efforts, offensive operations and compliance/privacy practices. During that time, he completely rebuilt Oklahoma Cyber Command into a world-class program, oversaw the state’s efforts to push more than 32,000 state employees to work securely and effectively from home during the global pandemic, established the state’s first enterprise fraud prevention, detection and investigation program, and launched the Oklahoma Information Sharing and Analysis Center. 

Prior to Oklahoma’s CISO, he served as chief operations officer for Oklahoma’s information services division. In that role, he oversaw the technology operations for 189 executive branch agencies/affiliates and executed the unification of 110 IT organizations across the state, realizing more than $875 million in cost savings. His work was highlighted in Chris Fussell’s Wall Street Journal best-seller, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams.

Matt’s prior work history includes leading IT at the University of Oklahoma. Most notably, he played a central role in establishing OU’s cybersecurity program, the OU Cyber-Forensics Lab and OU’s highly popular technology retail store, which ranked as the No. 1 institutionally managed Apple reseller in the Southeast. He also provided critical leadership for the development of OU2GO, one of the first iPhone apps in Higher Education.

Matt earned a master’s degree in applied intelligence from Georgetown University with specializations in cyber-intelligence, homeland security and counterterrorism. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from OU, a master’s certificate in IT service management and numerous other industry certifications.

George Jackson is VP of events at GovExec – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. He joined the company in 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences. In 2021, George launched GovExec TV (streaming video content) and received the company’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, part of their first-annual Icon Awards.

George graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. – beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary The Dawn of Generation AI.

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in Northern Virginia.

Gerald Caron is the Chief Information Officer for the International Trade Administration. In this role, he implements information technology services, solutions, and strategy for an agency of 2,200 employees across 100 U.S. cities and 80 international markets.

Caron has two decades of experience leading global teams in IT operations and cybersecurity. Prior to joining ITA, he was the Chief Information Officer and Assistant Inspector General of Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also served at the State Department in various technical roles, including as Director of Enterprise Network Management oversaw the Department’s infrastructure and operations (network, perimeter security, active directory and much more) and was extensively involved in mitigating cybersecurity attacks. He began public service in the U.S. Army for seven years. 

Caron is a tri-chair on the interagency U.S. Chief Information Officers Council’s E-Ops Committee for Zero Trust, whose aim is to drive efficiency and effectiveness of government cybersecurity effectiveness. He also chairs the Zero Trust Working Group for the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC), a non-profit that bridges the gap between government, industry, and academia on emergent technologies. Previously, he chaired ATARC’s Trusted Internet Connection 3.0 Working Group.

Caron is a recipient of the FedHealthIT 100 2022 and 2023 award. He was named GovCIO’s 2022 and 2023 GovCIO Zero Trust Advocate Flywheel Award, ATARC’s 2022 Government Member of the Year, and FedScoop’s Best Bosses in Federal IT 2022. He is a graduate of Northern Virginia Community College and holds certifications from Forrester as a Zero Trust Strategist and Federal IT Security Manager.

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dan Kent oversees Red River’s expansive team of engineers and technical talent, leads solution development and innovation initiatives, and cultivates the company’s technology thought leadership and intellectual property. 

Dan has more than 25 years of experience leading technical sellers, sales engineers and product development teams. He has extensive experience and solution creation expertise in federal, state and local government as well as the education and commercial enterprise markets. Before joining Red River, Dan most recently served as the lead technologist for public sector for VMware, where he helped agencies overcome security and operational complexities to get to the cloud. He has also held CTO and technical leadership positions for Idemia and Cisco Public Sector, where he led engineering and technical sales teams. He has expertise in data center, next-generation networking, cybersecurity, cloud, IoT and SaaS applications.