Speakers

Lieutenant Colonel Maximilien H. Reele is a Materiel Leader within the Program Executive Office, Digital Directorate. He is currently the Chief of Kessel Run’s (AFLCMC/HBB) All Domain Common Platform (ADCP) Branch. He manages the daily operations and associated business lines of effort for hosting and servicing command and control mission systems, encompassing over 60 internal and external application teams. Kessel Run’s mission is to deliver and operate war-winning software that enables operation of a truly continuous air campaign via dynamic tasking integrated across the base, wing, and operation center levels. The acquisition, product, and technology innovation that emerges from Kessel Run is used to set new baselines and policy for the Department of Defense’s digital transformation.

Lt Col Reele received his commission from the United States Air Force Academy. He has served as a weapons and tactics analyst, space & cyber system technology manager, segment lead for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) and as the Product Owner for Kessel Run’s original cloud-architecture and scaling. He has also served in the Pentagon on the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Staff for a variety of space technology portfolios. Most recently, he was as a founder and Chief of Delivery for the Business and Enterprise System Product Innovation (BESPIN) organization and software lab.

Lt Col Reele has deployment experience as a precision guided munitions expert and government quality assurance evaluator in Southwest Asia in Operations IRAQI FREEDOM and ENDURING FREEDOM.

Jeremiah Sanders is a DoD-certified Executive Program Manager who served in both the Navy and Air Force. He joined VMware after co-founding the DoD’s premiere software startup, Kessel Run, and growing it to 1,300 members. Jeremiah’s diverse background includes Joint, operational, and Navy nuclear power plant engineering, maintenance and operations coupled with PM experience in all acquisition phases; particularly IT, software intensive systems, C4ISR, and satellite development and sustainment.

Jeremiah leverages government procurement system, mission operations, technology landscape and entrepreneurial management experience to bridge the gap between government and the technology industry. He guides industry to understand the applicability of commercial technologies and practices to government use-cases while advising government organizations through people, process and technology transformations to deliver mission/business outcomes.

Brian McConnell is the Practice Manager at CDW Government, for any Application-Related initiatives; from DevOps, Custom Development, Performance, and Modernization. With 30 years as an experienced IT professional he is currently responsible for driving Application Modernization efforts at CDW-G. Brian has decades of development experience with what are now known as the “Legacy” application technologies; COBOL, RPG, FORTRAN, etc. Having this technical background places Brian in an advantageous position to help our Federal Government with tactical and strategic Application Modernization efforts.

Aaron Swain is the Director of Digital Transformation within VMware’s Modern Apps Business. In this role he crafts and leads digital transformation efforts with our most forward leaning government clients.

Aaron served our Nation for 21-years and left military service shortly after earning the rank of Colonel in the US Army. He is a veteran with multiple combat deployments. His final tour was with the Joint Special Operations Command whereas a senior Army Data Scientist he was one of the founders of the Global Analytics Platform, a government-led tech unit which focused on delivering intelligence and operations outcomes with software. He has held numerous leadership roles throughout the Army most notably as a Mathematics Instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Deputy Director of the Afghanistan Assessment Group.

Aaron earned a B.A in Engineering Management from the United States Military Academy and a M.S. in Operations Research from Northeastern University. He now works at VMware where he is transforming organizations within the Government to be great at modern software. He lives in Cape Cod, M.A. with his wife and 3 children.