Speakers

Angela Smith is an Information Security Specialist and serves as the technical lead for the Cybersecurity Supply Chain Risk Management program in the Computer Security Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  She also represents NIST on the Federal Acquisition Security Council’s Working Group and Task Force, co-leads the public-private Software and Supply Chain Assurance Forum as well as the Federal C-SCRM Forum and has contributed to numerous White House-led initiatives and public-private sector efforts focused on strengthening cybersecurity, improving resiliency, and reducing risk.  Ms. Smith has several decades of federal service with broad experience and capabilities across a spectrum of disciplines, spanning information technology, asset management, cybersecurity, financial and acquisition management.  She is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, holds a Masters in Public Administration with a concentration in Information Technology policy from George Mason University, and is a veteran of the US Air Force.

Barbara C. Morton assumed her current duties in July 2016 when she joined the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) as Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer.  In this role Barbara is responsible for building a lasting customer experience capability at VA and sharing best practices across sister Federal Agencies.  She was a recipient for the Gears of Government President’s Award (2019) and the Service to the Citizen Award (2019) for her role in transforming VA’s capabilities to provide Veterans with an excellent customer experience.

Barbara joined the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2006 as a Staff Attorney at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board).  She served the Board in a variety of other capacities, to include Special Counsel to the Appellate Group, Special Assistant to the Vice Chairman, Executive Assistant to the Chairman, and Executive Director for the Office of Management, Planning & Analysis.  While at the Board, Barbara stood up and led the Board’s Appeals Modernization OIT efforts, which included securing industry technologists from United States Digital Service to develop and launch new appeals platforms.  

A native of Rockport, Massachusetts, Barbara attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, earning a degree in psychology and philosophy.  After receiving her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School, Barbara completed two clerkships in the New England area and thereafter pursued an LL.M. in constitutional law at Georgetown Law.  She has published a variety of law review articles, including two pieces relating to posttraumatic stress disorder.  Barbara dabbles in the arts, to include painting, photography, ceramics, and stained glass, and she loves following professional tennis and basketball. She also enjoys volunteering for various Veteran-centered causes, to include events at Arlington National Cemetery and the annual Toys-for-Tots campaign.

Deputy Office Director for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Mission Support (OMS)/ Office of Administration and Resources Management-RTP (OARM-RTP). In his 18 years with the agency, BJ has served in many key roles across OMS. He has served as the Deputy Office Director of OMS/OARM-RTP since January of 2017, which is responsible for managing the facility and information technology infrastructure for the Agency’s largest owned facility (1.2 million sq. ft.) and providing human resources support to over half of the Agency. He began his career with EPA in 2003 working for 8 years in the OARM-RTP Immediate Office as a Program and Management Analyst and as Deputy Office Director temporarily in 2010. In 2011, BJ left OMS/OARM-RTP to work for the OMS Office of Policy and Resources Management in Region 3 (Philadelphia, PA), which gave him valuable experience in a Regional office. BJ returned to OMS/OARM-RTP in 2014 where he served as a Labor and Employee Relations (LER) Specialist and later as Branch Chief of the Management Services Branch (MSB). Before being selected as the Deputy Office Director for OARM-RTP, BJ served as Acting Deputy Director of the Human Resources Management Division within OARM-RTP. BJ has brought his keen knowledge of analytics, his effective communication skills, and ability to lead across organizations to each of his positions at the EPA. BJ received his Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Charles Thomas is the Customer Experience Administrator for Trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The Trademark CX team’s goal is to make the trademark filing experience easier and more efficient, so that customers have more time to focus on building their brand and growing their business. The CX team is working to expand its CX research capabilities and integrate customer feedback data into the organization’s decision-making and business models, particularly with the product teams who design and develop Trademarks’ digital services. Prior to joining USPTO, Charlie worked in digital communications, technical writing, and customer service, primarily in the federal grants space. He has a Master of Public Administration from George Mason University, a Bachelor of Arts in Professional and Technical Writing from Saginaw Valley State University, UX Certification from Nielsen Norman Group, and Mastering CX Certification from Forrester.

Ms. Danielle Metz is a member of the Senior Executive Service and currently serves as
the Chief IT Strategist leading an assessment of the OSD IT landscape on behalf of the
Director of Administration & Management. In this capacity, she will assess the quality
and management of IT to determine if the highest levels of DoD leadership have access
to a modern user experience to execute their mission, which will result in a set of
recommendations for significant and enduring improvements.

Prior to this, Ms. Metz served as the Deputy DoD CIO for the Information Enterprise
where she provided oversight, policy guidance, and digital expertise for DoD enterprise
infrastructure initiatives driving toward the objectives of digital modernization. She led
Department-wide execution of strategic guidance and capabilities that included IT
reform initiatives, consolidating common IT across Defense Agencies and DoD Field
Activities; the successful transition of the temporary collaboration capability adopted
during COVID-19 to the enduring DoD365 cloud solution; and software modernization,
transforming the Department toward the faster and more secure delivery of quality
software.

In her previous experience, Ms. Metz served as a policy advisor to the Office of Science
and Technology Policy under the Executive Office of the President leading
implementation of IT modernization efforts across the Federal Government. She was
the Deputy Director for DoD Information Network Modernization under the Office of the
DoD CIO leading implementation of DoD’s enterprise mid-point cybersecurity solution.
As a senior manager and IT specialist with the Defense Information Systems Agency,
Ms. Metz spearheaded initiatives to improve DoD’s ability to protect and defend the
network. Her experience includes budget planning, acquisition, policy development, and
program management for large enterprise efforts such as the IT reform initiatives under
the National Defense Strategy reform line of effort (i.e., cloud migration, network
optimization, and office productivity and collaboration implementation for Defense
Agencies and DoD Field Activities); DoD’s Single Security Architecture and Joint
Regional Security Stack; and DoD’s perimeter network defense.

Ms. Metz holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and
a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Georgia. In addition to her
numerous awards, she was recently named the 2021 FedScoop 50 Federal Leadership
recipient and an FCW 2020 Federal 100 awardee.

Mr. Dovarius L. Peoples was selected for the Senior Executive Service in January of 2016.
He assumed the position of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)/ G6 in April of 2019 with the
US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE). In this role, he serves as the principal advisor to the
Commanding General on information technology issues. He is responsible for all aspects of
information resource management and information technology for USACE. Prior to his current
assignment, Mr. Peoples served as the Deputy to the Commanding General, U.S. Army
NETCOM. In this capacity, Mr. Peoples provided senior technical leadership to ensure Army
Theater level networks were integrated into the Army's portion of the Department of Defense
Information Network (DoDIN) and enterprise constructs. The command employed over 14,000
military, civilian and contractor personnel located in every theater in 20 countries around the
world and with an annual budget of in excess of $1.4 billion.

Previous Assignments include: September 2009 - April 2010: Information Systems Security
Engineer, National Security Agency (NSA), Washington, D.C.; April 2010 - February 2013:
Information Assurance Division Chief (IAM), USCYBERCOM J6, Fort Meade, Md.; February
2013 – November 2013: Lead Architecture Engineer, Mobility PMO, Defense Information
Systems Agency (DISA), Fort Meade, Md.; November 2013 – August 2015: Deputy Director
Operations, US Army Information Technology Agency (ITA), Pentagon, Washington, D.C.;
August 2015 – January 2016: Deputy Director Cyber Solutions, Joint Service Provider
Pentagon (JSP), Washington, D.C.; January 2016 – July 2018: Associate Chief Information
Officer, Office of Personnel Management, Washington, D.C.; July 2018 - April 2019: Deputy to
the Commanding General, US Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM).

Mr. Peoples’ education includes a Master of Science in Information Technology, with an
emphasis in Information Assurance, from the University of Maryland, University College,
College Park, Md., awarded in 2012. Mr. Peoples’ also has a Bachelor of Science in
Computer Science, from Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Va., awarded in 2009.

Significant Training taken by Mr. Peoples includes the Advanced Program Manager Course,
Defense Acquisition University. His certifications include: Program Management, Acquisition
Professional Development Program; ITIL Foundations V.3.

Awards and Honors include the Air Force Meritorious Civilian Service Award.

Mr. Peoples is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and the Association for Computer
Machinery (ACM).

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Jennifer Ewbank is the Deputy Director of CIA for Digital Innovation, responsible for accelerating the development and integration of digital and cyber capabilities across all of CIA’s mission areas, to include enterprise information technology, cyber security, cyber operations and analysis, data strategy and artificial intelligence, open source collection and reporting, as well as building the digital acumen of the CIA workforce through training and education. As the Agency’s de facto Chief Digital Officer, Ms. Ewbank oversees the Digital C-Suite roles of Chief Information Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, and Chief Data Officer. 

A career federal government official, Ms. Ewbank has 35 years of experience, initially as a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, and more recently with CIA, primarily in the Directorate of Operations, where she has held key leadership positions and served the bulk of her career in the field, to include four tours as Chief of Station. In one of Ms. Ewbank’s previous leadership roles, she was responsible for CIA’s engagement with the US private sector and academia. 

Ms. Kelley Artz serves as the Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) Technical Expert in the Office of Policy and Compliance, an office within the U.S. General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS). Kelley joined GSA in 2019.

In her 23-year career, Ms. Artz has led Enterprise Risk Management programs in the Intelligence and DoD communities. She has both public and private sector experience in supply chain risk management, including leveraging tools to identify and solve root cause problems. She specializes in change management, as well as evaluation of enterprise processes for ongoing risk mitigation and systematic improvements to future outcomes.

She has held positions of increasing responsibility supporting IT programs for the federal government, moving from project manager, to program manager, and to account executive. As the Business Area Director for a major defense contractor, Ms. Artz led a $55M account for the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency supporting secure software development and cloud migration activities. She served as Senior Vice President for National Security at a defense contracting company focused on cybersecurity before returning to government service last year.
In addition to her MBA, she has earned the following certifications: Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT), and Security +ce.

Jason Parman serves as the Deputy Associate Director for the Office of Personnel
Management’s (OPM) HR Strategy and Evaluation Solutions organization.

In this role, Jason serves 115 HR consultants, personnel research psychologists, and program
analysts nationwide, leading programs that help make the best human capital management
ideas work in real life. His offerings include Transformation IQ, the Federal Supervisory
Assessment, Leadership 4 Inclusion, the OPM Leadership 360TM, the Federal Workforce
Competency Initiative, and USA Performance® the only fully federalized, automated
performance management solution on the market.

Jason has spoken in over 44 states on diverse topics like organizational design, leadership
development, succession planning, employee engagement, and federal hiring flexibilities. He
also starred in OPM’s blockbuster release of “What Vets Need to Know about Vet’s Preference,”
which resulted in over 100,000 views (but not even one autograph request).

Jason received his Bachelors in Psychology from Missouri State University and his Masters of
Business Administration in Information Technology Management from Touro University.

When not at work, Jason enjoys spending time with his most important human resources—wife
Lynn and 18-year-old daughter Riley. He previously held 1/1683rd of a Guinness World Record,
has released a country music album (he hopes for a gold record one day, but probably will never
even make it to aluminum), and is the daily caretaker to a 10 1⁄2 lb. poodle named Tiberius (who
may be a ninja.)

Mr. Davis is the Senior Vice President, Federal Civilian. He has nearly 20 years of experience in government contracting, with a specialization in connecting government to its constituents. He has overseen the contact centers for 1-800-MEDICARE, the federal exchange of the Affordable Care Act, and the 2020 Decennial Census.  He focuses on bringing practical technical innovation to streamline and improve massive operations while increasing constituent service.

Mr. Terrance Westerfield serves as JADC2 and Army Strategy lead at
Amazon Web Services (AWS) where he helps the Army and Joint Forces
increase their operational effectiveness and efficacy through the adoption
of cloud technologies.

Prior to joining AWS, Terrance served as Technical Director and Senior Scientific Technical
Manager (SSTM) with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineer Research and
Development Center where he focused on solving Army and Joint Service capability gaps
through the research, development, and deployment of geospatially-enabled Command and
Control (C2) systems. While serving as a Technical Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff J5, Mr.
Westerfield led enterprise information technology (IT) development in order to modernize the
Joint Operations Planning Process across the DOD.

Mr. Westerfield holds a Master of Science in Human Factors & Systems and a Master of
Science in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

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George Jackson is the VP of events at GovExec Media – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. George joined GovExec in October of 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences.

He 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.

Anne Armstrong is VP, Strategic Alliances of GovExec.