Darin Richardson is the Claims Manager of the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust (LMCIT), working in this capacity since January 2014. Darin currently oversees both the property casualty and the workers’ compensation claims staff at the LMCIT. Prior to becoming the Claims Manager, Darin spent twenty-three years as a property casualty claims professional dedicated to the LMCIT while working for Berkley Risk Administrators and GAB.

B. J. is the Risk and Homeland Security Manager for Dakota County.  B.J. is responsible for the oversite of several programs at the County including: health and safety, insurance and claims, continuity of operations planning, emergency management and implementation of enterprise risk management.  Dakota County began actively pursuing cyber insurance coverage in 2018.  The County has leveraged its relationship with AIG insurance to help develop a comprehensive framework to mitigate, respond and recover from cyber security events. 

Ryan Donovan has been in the insurance industry for 15+ years as a commercial P&C, Group Health, and Life insurance producer.  In his current role, Ryan serves as the Manager of the Insurance and Risk Management department for Sourcewell. 

Annie is a broker in Aon’s Professional Risk Solutions Team located in Chicago, and has been with Aon since 2012.  She works with organizations across all industries and sizes in assessing Errors & Omissions, Network Security and Privacy, and Media Risks. 

Sean Sweeney is Senior Director & Chief Security Advisor, Americas, in Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions Group.  In this role, he is primarily responsible for aligning and mobilizing his team of Cybersecurity Advisors and Architects across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America to deliver thought leadership and deep customer engagement.  He is also responsible for regularly engaging with the security industry through public speaking, standards development, and advanced research, as well as providing strategic direction on products and services, and advising customer CxOs on security and compliance issues. 

Prior to joining Microsoft, Sean served as a Chief Information Security Officer of the University of Pittsburgh, principal and co-founder of a Pittsburgh-based eDiscovery startup, Chief Information Officer for a national law firm based in Pittsburgh, and Litigation Support Applications Manager for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

A frequent author and speaker on security and compliance, Sean is also a steadfast champion of cybersecurity workforce development.  Originally from Northern Virginia, and an avid boater; Sean has resided in Pittsburgh, PA for the last 13 years.

John Israel currently manages the State of Minnesota’s Security Operations Center (SOC) and Enterprise Forensics teams overseeing the state’s efforts to improve cybersecurity monitoring, incident detection, and incident investigations. This role includes building and maintaining key cyber resources related to security monitoring and cybersecurity analysis for Minnesota government – including direct roles partnering with the Minnesota Secretary of State, Minnesota Fusion Center, and Minnesota county IT teams.

Robert Biestman is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Mission Center Sector Outreach Lead. His role is to build customer relationships with critical infrastructure cyber leaders with the goal of securing the nation’s critical infrastructure by furthering DHS’ understanding of cyber activity targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and delivering valuable intelligence back to sectors so they can better defend against cyber threats facing the Homeland. Mr. Biestman provides cyber leaders a direct contact into the intelligence community and facilitates information sharing, joint analysis partnerships, and in-depth cyber threat briefings.

Prior to his role as Sector Outreach Lead, he worked as a financial sector technical cyber threat analyst for the DHS Cyber Mission Center, and in addition has worked as a homeland security legislative advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Biestman graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in Business Economics and received his Master’s Degree in Cyber Leadership from National Defense University’s College of Information and Cyberspace.

David Maeda is the Director of Elections for the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office. David’s team interfaces directly with election officials in every Minnesota county.

Terry is a Senior Engineer with Collier IT where he works to ensure clients are successful with database, big data, and cloud initiatives.  Terry has 30 years of software development and implementation experience as a developer, architect, support, and sales team member. He brings extensive experience in enterprise software design, development, consulting, training, and sales with both government and commercial clients.  Prior to joining Collier IT, Terry was a Solution Architect at Cloudera and a Principal Systems Engineer at Oracle.

Scott is a Director of Product Management for GraalVM at Oracle.  He has over 25 years experience in the industry as a developer and product manager. Scott joined Oracle in 2003 as a developer and was one of the architects of SecureFiles in the Oracle Database. In 2011, Scott joined the Oracle Solaris Kernel team as an engineering manager and took over product management for Oracle Solaris in 2013. Scott has been working with the GraalVM team for the last 2+ years.

Jason Moldan is a Solutions Architect with Amazon Web Services where he works to ensure customers are successful on their cloud journey. Jason has over 20 years if IT experience and prior to joining Amazon, he was the Technical Architect for the University of St. Thomas where he developed and led the universities cloud initiative.

Tarek Tomes serves as the Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) and the State of Minnesota’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), leading state efforts to provide the best possible IT solutions and customer service to the people of Minnesota and our business partners.

As a recognized industry leader, Tomes brings over 25 years of experience in managing technology innovation across diverse industries, both in national, international, and public and private sector operations. Throughout his career, he has facilitated data-driven decision making, implemented many critical enterprise projects, and improved workforce diversity and inclusion.

Before becoming Commissioner, Tomes served as the Chief Innovation Officer and former Chief Information Officer at the City of St. Paul, where he was responsible for managing ongoing process improvements, supporting human-centered design, and increasing the overall effectiveness of city services and resources. While in St. Paul, Tomes facilitated a digital transformation at the city level, pioneering the use of mobile applications to improve resident opportunities. This work allowed the city to leverage deep data insights while promoting and supporting equitable service delivery. During his time as St. Paul’s Chief Information Officer, Tomes oversaw the launch of St. Paul’s Open Information Portal, which serves to promote and encourage innovative uses of data and transparency in government services.

Tomes’ prior work experience also includes six years as an Assistant Commissioner of Minnesota IT Services, where he created several nation-leading Information Technology sourcing agreements for 33,000+ user utility services statewide – including the first cloud-based public sector statewide service offering in the nation. While Tomes was serving in this role, Minnesota became the first state in the country to manage all Information Technology through service level agreements, a model that was recognized with a national award. Before joining state service, Tomes spent 13 years working for British Telecom.

Tomes received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and attended Graduate School for Business Management at Boston University.

Mark Lanterman is the Chief Technology Officer of Computer Forensic Services. Mark is a current member of the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Taskforce. Mark has 28 years of security and forensic experience and has testified in over 2000 cases.
He is faculty at the University of Minnesota, the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Mitchell Hamline Law School, the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada and the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC. Mark is a member of the Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board.
Mark provides regular commentary on national print and broadcast media.

As MNIT’s Strategic Planning Director Kirsten brings together stakeholders from across the executive branch to develop, implement, and evaluate MNIT’s strategic plan. She engages with breadth and depth in her work so that stakeholders – from senior leadership to customers to front line staff – have an opportunity to shape the agency’s path. She has Master’s degrees in Public Health and Public Policy and has a background in program evaluation.

Coming Soon!

Dan works with the DHS commissioner team and other senior leaders to coordinate an agency-wide approach to strategic planning, leadership development, change management, and organizational effectiveness. He earned a Master’s in Human Resource and Change Leadership (concentration in Organization Development) and a Doctor of Education in Leadership (concentration in Public Policy) from the University of St. Thomas.

Duy Nguyen– Quality Assurance Analyst for Minnesota IT Services at Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB). He performs accessibility testing with manual and assistive technology tools to ensure that MMB’s digital systems are usable by people with or without disabilities and that the Minnesota accessibility standards are maintained.

Mike Mahurin is an experienced Security Solutions architect at ConvergeOne. He has been in the information technology field for 20 years with 18 of those focused-on enterprise information security for the government, manufacturing, and financial services sectors. He currently supports advanced security consulting services across the United State with ConvergeOne.

Washington County Information Technology Collaboration and Data Integration Manager. I have a Degree in Computer Science from Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD. I started my career as a developer for private business. My husband and I moved to Stillwater and I was hired by Washington County as a data processing coordinator. I transitioned into application development and business analyst for several years, then a Senior Lead. I have been in the IT Manager role for the Collaboration and Data Integration Division for the last 10 years.

Earl Carter has always had a passion for solving puzzles and understanding how things operate. Mr Carter quickly learned that identifying security weaknesses is just like solving puzzles. Over 20 years ago, he was introduced to network security when he accepted a position at the Airforce Information Warfare center in San Antonio, Texas. In 1998, Mr Carter starting working Cisco and became one of the founding members on the Security Technology Assessment Team (STAT). After spending 15 years identifying new security threats and assisting product teams in hardening their devices and software to mitigate those identified security threats, Mr Carter became a Threat Researcher for Cisco Talos. Now he spends his time hunting for new threats against live customer networks by examining various intelligence feeds and data sources. Among Mr Carter’s significant contributions to Cisco are multiple security patents and authoring three Cisco Press Security Books.

Dan is a co-founder of Lifescale Analytics. As the Chief Insight Officer, he oversees all aspects of delivering services and results for clients. Dan began his career in application development and has managed and directed development organizations consisting of up to 100 people. He has 27 years of IT leadership and consulting experience and has implemented successful IT practices in data security, business intelligence, data architecture, agile IT management and enterprise architecture.
Dan’s experience with implementing strategic technology spans a variety of vertical segments including the life sciences, insurance, banking, database marketing, mortgage and medical industries. Dan has served in technology leadership positions with UNUM Life, Carlson Companies, Wells Fargo and GMAC-RFC and he has provided strategic IT consulting services to many notable organizations including The Federal Reserve Bank, Syngenta Seeds, National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match, Bayer CropScience and Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Dan earned a bachelor’s degree in geographic information systems from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree in geography and computer science from the University of Iowa.

Mike Beddow is the IBM Hybrid Cloud and Analytics Solutions Leader for the Public Sector and Healthcare industries. Mike graduated from Lehigh University with a dual major in Computer Science Engineering and Business. He has technical experience solving complex business challenges leveraging a variety of IBM and open source solutions. Mike focuses on advising clients at various stages of their cloud and AI journey.

Jacob seeks to improve community vitality by promoting the use of data and community indicators to better understand trends in different quality-of-life measures. At Wilder, he generates and curates content for the Minnesota Compass website and manages a portfolio of related research projects. He brings experience in research, geospatial analysis, writing, and outreach from previous positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, among others.

He holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in English from James Madison University in Virginia.

Outside of work, he enjoys bicycling around the Twin Cities and getting lost in the woods as he forages for mushrooms. In his opinion, a perfect day would somehow combine the two.

Jacob is also a contributor to the Minnesota Compass blog:

Ellen serves as a research scientist for Minnesota Compass where she tracks indicators for the project which provides community-level trends for Minnesota residents. Ellen analyzes community-level data trends by working collaboratively with Minnesota organizations to identify data indicators that are relevant to their everyday work.

Before joining Wilder Research, Ellen worked for the University of Iowa’s Center for Evaluation and Assessment and University of Minnesota’s Office of Community Engagement for Health conducting research and evaluation related to education, health, and social services. She has worked with community-based organizations, state and local government, and higher education institutions for the past 15 years to develop indicators that support informed decision-making.

Ellen holds dual master’s degrees in public health and public policy from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in English from Grinnell College.

Ellen enjoys cooking for her family, visiting the mountains in her native home of Montana, and reading a good book.

Shawn Kammerud is the Chief Information Security Officer \ IT Director at Minnesota IT Services partnering with Minnesota Department of Health. He is a nationally recognized healthcare technology leader that is a catalyst for security while knowing how to balance usability.
Kammerud has a MHA, B.S. in Healthcare Administration and Management with an Information Technology specialization from Colorado State University and an associate’s degree in computer science from WITC New Richmond.

Joseph Pugh is an Operations and Development Systems Supervisor with MNIT partnering with Minnesota Department of Health. He has over 25 years of IT experience in development and his career includes mainframe, client server, fat client servlets and now “the cloud”. His perspective and experience aligns with a significant number of development and operational government staff that will be tasked with this important transition.

Joseph has a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from Miami University in Oxford Ohio.

Brenda Gabriel Paul the Director of IT Projects and Applications for MNIT partnering with the Minnesota Department of Health. Brenda has over 25 years of IT experience; she has seen many infrastructure and application development changes throughout her career.
Brenda is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) holding Masters of Science in Information Technology, Assurance and Security from Capella University, and a BA in Finance and Computer Science from College of St. Catherine.
Brenda Gabriel Paul the Director of IT Projects and Applications for MNIT partnering with the Minnesota Department of Health. Brenda has over 25 years of IT experience; she has seen many infrastructure and application development changes throughout her career.
Brenda is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) holding Masters of Science in Information Technology, Assurance and Security from Capella University, and a BA in Finance and Computer Science from College of St. Catherine.

Andrew Will-Holmberg is the Cloud Operations Supervisor at Minnesota IT Services partnering with the Minnesota Department of Health. He has over a decade of public and private Cloud experience. Prior to joining MNIT, he was a business owner and Director of Operations overseeing teams responsible for Cloud operations for clients ranging from tech startups to Fortune 100 companies.

Gail Toussaint, CBAP, has a wealth of experience as a Business Analysis over many years in both public and private sector organizations. Gail attained IIBA Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP) certification in 2008. She served four years on the IIBA Board of Directors for the Minneapolis/St. Paul chapter

Mel is the Chief Information Officer at the League of Minnesota Cities where she oversees the League’s internal technology services and assists Minnesota cities with their technology initiatives. Prior to the League, Mel worked in technology leadership roles in both municipal and county government.

Ken is the statewide Disability Programs Coordinator for MnDOT. He has expertise in applying the American’s with Disabilities Act, with emphasis in the application of Employment-related activities, including access to digital content. Ken is blind and uses a screen reader.

Jennie Delisi is the Accessibility Analyst in the State of Minnesota’s Office of Accessibility. She is an invited expert on the W3C’s Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force, a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), and member of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals’ Competencies Development and Recommendation Committee.io.

Peter has been helping government agencies securely accomplish their missions with a focus on mitigating cyberthreats for over 30 years.
Peter helps the broader IT community understand the very latest cyber capabilities and risk mitigation methods to effectively address cyber threats. His has a unique combination of a technical background and a passion to clearly convey high-tech topics to audiences of all levels. He works with NIST and the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and has contributed their 1800-Series Special Publications.
With a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University, Peter has held leadership positions at Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and Panasonic.

Andy Zimney is a Senior Culture and Advisor and Team Performance Coach at Employee Strategies, Inc.—a boutique firm in Minneapolis that partners with leaders to create highly effective work cultures. For more than 20 years, Andy has lead learning seminars and coached teams from a wide variety of industries, including government agencies, all over the country to help them create more productive, innovative, and meaningful work.

David Andrews has over 39 years of experience working in the assistive technology, web accessibility and access to information fields. He is Chief Technology officer of Minnesota State Services for the Blind where he has worked for the past 25 years. In this position he supervises SSB’s Engineering Unit, and works on a variety of accessibility and technology-related issues with SSB and DEED staff as well as other state agencies and SSB partners. He was a part of the group of people who worked together on web and software accessibility issues, whose work ultimately led to the passage of accessibility legislation in Minnesota in 2009. While at SSB he has also directed its Communication Center and Assistive Technology Unit. Prior to coming to Minnesota he worked for the National Federation of the Blind, NFB, as the first Director of the International Braille and Technology Center. The IBTC is the world’s largest demonstration and evaluation center for assistive technology used by blind persons. Andrews continues to work for the NFB as a contractor, administering a system that supports over 350 Internet Mailing Lists, and over 40 web sites used by NFB Affiliates, Chapters, and Divisions throughout the country. Andrews has a Master’s Degree in Broadcast Management and has also worked for a variety of radio reading services and telephone-accessed dial-up newspaper reading services.

Ken is an experienced security and audit professional with a strong understanding of complex computing environments, security frameworks, legislative and regulatory requirements and accepted practices with security solutions. Having presented to state, regional and national workshops, and conferences; Ken offers a highly rated presentation style.
A founding member and past President of Western Wisconsin InfraGard Chapter, past President of ISSA-Milwaukee (International Systems Security Association), past President and founding member of ISSA-Madison, past chairman MATC Milwaukee Security Specialist Curriculum Advisory Committee, past member of Herzing University’s Department of Homeland Security Degree Program, ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) and member Western Wisconsin Association of Computer Crime Investigators (WWACCI).
Ken has security information published in several books and trade magazines. As Director IT Services for FIPCO® a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Bankers Association; Ken has coordinated and performed information security/IT Audits and risk assessments in over 100 financial institutions in the past few years. If you’d like to contact Ken, he can be reached via email at; kshaurette@fipco.com.

Renee Heinbuch, Currently the Washington County Information Technology Director for the past 2.5 years with 25 years of Information Technology experience in the private sector including the following companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of MN, US Bank, Land O’Lakes and 3M. She is participating on the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Committee and chairing the Cybersecurity sub-committee.

David has worked on technology solutions for social programs for over 12 years, and is currently the Lead Offering Manager for the IBM Social Program Management Platform. In this role, David seeks to understand the needs of organizations managing Health and Human Services programs, and translate those requirements into generic, reusable software components for the Platform that can help deliver improved outcomes for vulnerable populations worldwide.

A specialized quality assurance analyst who uses WCAG 2.0 guidelines to create test cases’ expectations. Using QA best practices and assistive technology tools, she executes accessibility tests, reports violations, retests, and ensures our assistive technology end users can successfully access and use State products.

EAQAT’s automation engineer whose talents created the Assistive Technology Tool (AST) that produces a system-generated report showing scanned screenshots of each page with violations, explanation of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines that weren’t met, and possible resolutions that assist the technical team.

Damien is a Sr. Solutions Architect for Public Sector at Red Hat. Worked as lead developer, dev manager and enterprise architect in public and private sectors for 20 years. Having worked on projects from desktop-based widgets to major multi-tiered applications with web API’s, he developed an acumen for application architecture. Current focus is on Containerization; Data Center Modernization & The road to DevOps. Presenting the Evolution of IT and progression to Containerization.

Varsha Chetlur is the Social Program Data and Analytics Offering Manager for Government Health and Human Services with IBM Watson Health. Varsha focuses on developing analytics that help social program agencies meet their reporting needs. She enjoys working with clients, understanding market needs and developing innovative offerings addressing client challenges.

Phillip Yeich is the Director, Emerging Solutions for the Office of the CTO at ConvergeOne. For the past 18 years, Phillip has been involved with innovation in the Software arena in the Financial Services, Pharmaceutical, Federal & State Government and Business Intelligence industries on behalf of numerous Fortune 500 companies. Phillip has specialized in validating ideas & concepts through the software lifecycle to realize full monetization.
Today, Phillip is responsible for driving ConvergeOne intellectual property Software Solutions to market ensuring customer satisfaction and providing an exceptional customer experience.
Phillip holds a B.A. from the University of Texas San Antonio, and a MBA from Bellevue University, Omaha Nebraska.

Mikki Desque is the Strategic Survey & Evaluation Coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Previously, Mikki spent 14 years managing the Metropolitan State University psychology lab and, prior to that, supervised the Wilder Research survey center. She is also an experienced data analyst, database administrator and project manager.

Karen leads the developers and support specialists that deliver Teams, SharePoint, Forms, Power BI, and other collaboration/productivity tools within Office 365. Her team develops the processes and management practices necessary to keep Office 365 running smoothly for over 35,000 users.

Jill leads the Customer Service Management (CSM) area of MNIT Enterprise Services. CSM includes business relationship management, service portfolio management and Experience IT. The focus of CSM is to ensure MNIT services meet the IT needs of the state agencies, boards and commissions we serve. Jill has been with the State of MN for 20 years this year, starting with the Department of Human Services prior to joining the MNIT Team.

Ted is an Application Architect for MNIT Services. At work he participates in and leads teams that implement enterprise-level IT solutions, services, and platforms. Outside work he coaches Ultimate Frisbee, walks, rides, juggles, travels, reads, and helps with his sons’ Boy Scout Troop.

Wendy and a small group of colleagues at the Department of Human Services were the first among the Minnesota executive branch to implement SharePoint when it was released to market in 2001. Over the years Wendy has maintained a direct connection with SharePoint and passion for enabling collaboration and transforming the way people work. Today Wendy leads the MNIT Enterprise O365 teams responsible for developing, deploying, and supporting tools like SharePoint and Teams.

Irene is the intergovernmental relations counsel at the League of Minnesota Cities, where she advocates on behalf of cities at the state Legislature and serves as legal counsel for the lobbying department.

Jennifer is the Director of Government Relations at Ramsey County where her responsibilities include leading staff and working with external partners to develop and advance Ramsey’s legislative platforms at the state and federal level.

Susie Crowell is a Business Analyst with MNIT partnering with the Department of Employment and Economic Development on the Workforce One application. Prior to working at MNIT, she was a consultant in the public and private sectors for over 20 years.

Jenkins Nelsen is an internationally recognized diversity consultant, trainer, planner, researcher, lecturer. Co-president, the Diversity Institute, Inc.; adjunct professor, consultant for Luther Seminary. Corporate clients include UnitedHealth Group, The St. Paul Companies, The Federal Reserve Bank, The Mayo Clinic and Children’s Hospitals. She is co-founder, INTER-RACE, a diversity think tank at Augsburg College.

Corey Blommel has 20 years of IT experience that stretches across several fields. Currently, Corey is a security instructor at Anoka Ramsey Community College, and manages the Cybersecurity, Computer Networking and Computer Science academic programs. Corey is also a community faculty member at Metropolitan State University, and an instructor at the MNCyber Cyber Range.

Corey holds a Bachelors degree in IT management from Concordia University and Masters degrees in MIS from Metropolitan State University. When not teaching, Corey continues to work as an IT consultant.

Karie is a HueLife Facilitator and Trainer. Previously, she was the Director for Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition (A.S.A.P.). While at A.S.A.P., she facilitated a countywide coalition of volunteers to assess, plan, and implement environmental strategies to change the culture around underage drug and alcohol abuse. By using the action planning and accelerated action planning methods, Karie led the coalition to successfully pass ordinances and policies that have created sustainability in their efforts.

Stephanie is the Chief Operating Officer (COO), consultant, facilitator and trainer at HueLife, an organizational development and facilitation company that focuses on Human Understanding and Engagement as a strategy for change. She is dedicated to helping organizations align activities with mission and values, strengthen processes and increase engagement by building a culture of innovation, equity and empowerment. Her unique ability to motivate and inspire groups through participatory processes consistently delivers great results. She has 20 plus years of leadership experience in local government as well as experience and expertise working with for profit and nonprofit organizations. She specializes in leadership and organizational development, change and project management, and strategic planning.

Stephanie is a Technology of Participation (ToP®) Certified Facilitator and Mentor Trainer. She has a baccalaureate degree in Psychology and Social Work from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Hamline University in St. Paul Minnesota.

Robert partners with Public Sector entities across the US to provide thought leadership and market leading expertise in addition to conducting keynote presentations, strategy workshops and consulting engagements along with driving programmatic initiatives across business and technology domains.

Kris leads the Experience IT program where she works to improve user experience for 35,000 state employees. Prior to this, as Innovation Analyst for MNIT’s Innovation Program and Tech Connections Initiative Manager for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, she helped drive IT innovation to foster collaboration and greater productivity.

Shawn Riley was born to a broken and abusive home. Shawn overcame the challenges of his youth and adopted a growth mindset and “we can make the world a better place” attitude.  At the age of 16 he started a technology company. Later in his career he entered the private sector and worked as a thought leader for companies like IBM and the Mayo Clinic. His career has included massive change and transformation initiatives spanning multi billion-dollar organizations. In 2017 Shawn was appointed by Governor Doug Burgum to lead the state of North Dakota’s technology services as the Chief Information Officer. He is always looking to connect with others who have a “we can change the world” attitude as he strives to be a servant leader and improve lives, empower people, and inspire success.

Brad Morse has 10 years’ experience working in State government, and is currently the Program Manager at MN. DLI overseeing the delivery of the Workers’ Compensation Moderation Project. Before this role, Brad was the Deputy Director of the Workers’ Compensation division at the UT. Labor Commission, where he oversaw the implementation of the departments EDI claims reporting system, and online waiver application program.

Ravi Subramaniam is the U.S. Public Markets Leader for Blockchain at IBM. In his role, he shares information about IBM’s Blockchain offerings and solutions with customers and prospects and consults with clients on their Blockchain solution requirements. In a long and distinguished technology consulting career of more than 20 years, he has worked with clients on both their technology strategy planning and roadmap requirements as well as large Business transformation implementation projects.

Kristina’s deep expertise in both hospitality management and operations lends a unique human-centered and service-oriented perspective to her consulting and design work with clients in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and government. She is passionate about delivering the experience her clients expect and want, and helps them do the same for their customers. In addition to her role at Azul Seven, Kristina serves as an industry consultant at the University of Minnesota College of Design.

Rohit Saxena currently supervises IT staff of the Environmental Health (EH) division at MDH to ensure service delivery meets the needs of the division. Recently, Rohit oversaw his team in migrating applications to the cloud. He is part of the architecture team in developing EH’s cloud based architecture applications.

Bree Basham has 20 years in the brand and marketing space at agencies large and small in Charlotte, New York, and Los Angeles. As Creative Director of CapTech’s CX group, her team is focused on driving strategic approaches for enterprise-level business, brand, and marketing objectives. Her team of UI and UX designers create customer-centered products that bridge physical and digital experiences, making the journey through a product or service as seamless as possible.

Jacquelynn Mol Sletten is a Financial Aid Administrator with the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. Jacquelynn administers the Dual Training Grant along with several other financial aid programs. She received her graduate degree from Bethel University and has nearly 10 years of experience in working with financial aid.

JoAnn is a lead web accessibility tester and trainer with MN.IT Services. She has over twenty years of experience working on government IT projects. JoAnn is a recipient of the 2015 Project Opportunity Award and a member of the WorkForce One Rewrite team that received the 2015 NASCIO – Information Communications Technology Innovations Award.

Lea Dooley, MNIT Services. Lea Dooley is the digital accessibility coordinator from the User Experience Design Team at the Minnesota IT Services Partnering with Human Services and MNsure. Lea is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC).

Lolly Lijewski is the digital accessibility coordinator at the Minnesota Department of Human Services. She has over thirty-nine years of experience in advocacy, accessibility, and service delivery on behalf of the disability community. She is a certified JAWS tester of hundreds of documents, web sites and applications for digital accessibility and usability design. She developed and teaches a JAWS Screen Reader course and has been a screen reader user for more than 43 years.

Coming Soon. 

Jim Hall is an innovative, high-achieving Senior IT Leader with over twenty years’ experience in IT Leadership. Jim believes in developing the next generation of IT Leadership, to help IT organizations better respond to the changing technology landscape.

After serving more than eight years as Chief Information Officer in government and higher education, Jim founded IT Mentor Group to provide coaching, advising, and mentoring to CIOs and IT Directors, Leadership Development training to emerging IT Leaders, and Essential Management training to new managers and supervisors.

Jim is a featured speaker on IT Leadership and Technology Innovation at conferences and venues including Government IT Symposium, SINC Midwest IT Forum, International Institute of Business Analysis, Premier CIO Forum, Minnesota e-Learning Summit, CIC CIO TechForum, and UBTech.

Jim is a published author on IT Leadership, and has written Coaching Buttons, a collection of essays about leadership and vision in information technology: how to be a leader, how to lead through change, how to do strategic planning. Jim has also contributed chapters to several professionally published books on IT Leadership, including The Open Organization Leaders Manual (2nd Ed.), The Open Organization Workbook, and Cultivating Change.

Jim regularly contributes feature articles about IT Leadership and Technology Innovation in magazines and journals including Government CIO Outlook, CIO Review, University Business, and The Open Organization. Jim has also been interviewed as an expert on IT Leadership and Technology Innovation for publications including University Business Magazine, and MinnPost.

Jim has a master’s degree in Scientific and Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota, and a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.

Richard Matson-Daley has spent his career at the intersection of mission and technology, with approximately 15 years of experience in the nonprofit, higher education and government technology sectors.He is a stronger believer in collaboration, conversation and participatory leadership, and draws from a number of frameworks in his work, including the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter and Human Centered Design.

Abby is a Principal at Azul Seven, where she works closely with nonprofit, healthcare, financial services, education, and government clients to
understand business challenges, uncover user needs, guide strategy, and achieve
strong, successful outcomes. She serves as a trusted advocate for Azul Seven’s clients
and a champion for the power of human-centered design to influence lasting change.

A born public speaker and trainer, Kit Welchlin began public speaking at the age of 9 in 4-H. By 16, he was organizing and facilitating presentations on leadership, citizenship, community service and motivation for the 4-H and Future Farmers of America.
Kit Welchlin purchased his first manufacturing company at age 21, and by 26 was CEO and Chairman of the Board of three manufacturing companies in three states. He’s been an instructor with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, where he has been repeatedly nominated Outstanding Faculty. He is a Professional Member of the National Speakers Association.
Kit has a B.S. Degree in Speech Communication, Business Administration and Political Science. He earned an M.A. Degree in Speech Communication and Business Administration.
In 2014, Kit was inducted into the Minnesota Speakers Association Hall of Fame.
He has delivered more than 3,000 speeches and seminars to more than 500,000 people over the past 26 years.

Prior to its acquisition by ConvergeOne, Craig worked for AOS for 10 years as a Design Architect and Systems Consultant in Omaha, NE. As a Design Architect, Craig meets with clients to understand the business needs for technology (such as SD-WAN, Security, etc), create topology designs, PowerPoint proposals, and Statements of Work for professional services teams to implement the solution. He supports multiple accounts throughout Nebraska, Iowa, and the Dakotas and covers technology solutions including Route/Switch, Security, Wireless, Data Center, and Unified Communications.

Desi Klimesh is an e-RYT 1500+ hours (experienced, registered yoga teacher).
Desi has shared with, and educated others about the practice, and benefits of yoga, on the mat, and off of the yoga mat. Residing in Roseau, MN,
Desi welcomes all, to her Yoga Tree Yoga Studio, believing yoga is for everybody, and is for every BODY.
Desi’s 20 years of teaching and educating others about the practice of yoga include, kids yoga, adults, pre-natal yoga, chair yoga, mindfulness, and meditation.
Desi shares the yoga practice locally as well as internationally, leading Women’s Circles of Yoga and Self Discovery in Ubud, Bali.

Jay is Minnesota’s first Chief Information Accessibility Officer, or CIAO. He leads the Office of Accessibility which works with Minnesota state agencies to develop policies and implement processes and best practices that helps ensure that digital government operations and services are accessible and usable for all.

Jennifer Wells, State Bridge Inspection Engineer, Minnesota Department of Transportation – Bridge Office has been an engineer with MnDOT for the past 18 years, the last 13 in fracture critical bridge inspection and 5 years in bridge design and bridge standards. Jennifer has a BSCE from Michigan Tech University and an MSCE from the University of Minnesota. She is a licensed civil engineer, NBIS Team Leader, FAA Certified Small Unmanned Aircraft System pilot, and lead investigator on MnDOT drone research for bridges. The MnDOT Bridge Office Inspection Unit is responsible for managing the Minnesota bridge inspection program and conducting fracture critical inspections statewide on both the state and local system.

Kim Wee is the Digital Accessibility Coordinator and Webmaster for Minnesota IT Services partnering with Education and is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA). She has over 20 years of web experience in design, development, and administration with a focus on web accessibility.

As Executive Director, National Workforce Solutions, Sue Wallace is responsible for Creating IT Futures’ adult workforce program including program enhancements, expansion to new markets and overseeing ongoing operations nationally. Ms. Wallace started her professional career in the IT industry and moved on to spend nearly 14 years in nonprofit workforce development before joining Creating IT Futures. She holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees from Ball State University.

John Sundberg is the founder of Kinetic Data and architect of Kinetic solutions. He spent time in enterprise IT across large multinational and fortune 500 and government organizations prior to founding Kinetic Data. He has been a leader of hundreds of projects with extensive work in improving systems architecture for complex, distributed systems. John’s passion is in improving the world by building distributed, maintainable, and high performing systems to provide business agility. He is married, has four kids and lives in Minnesota.

Alison Slaats has worked in the GIS field for over 20 years in the government, private, non-profit and academic sectors. She currently works at the Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) as a project portfolio manager.

Damani Short is a seasoned and highly sought-after business and technology leader. Damani founded Lexico – a Transformation Services Consultancy – after recognizing a gap in technology and broader transformation initiative planning approaches that effectively enable and drive mid-market companies’ improved economic sustainability and growth. As a GE Lean/Six Sigma Master Blackbelt, Damani’s distinguished change leadership track record underpins an innovative strategy and roadmapping approach resulting in differentiated business outcomes. Damani’s vast experience in technology leadership, including information security and compliance, global leadership, general management/P&L ownership, and overall company growth strategy development (most recently a 38% CAGR) has placed him in global leadership roles for some of the most iconic brands, including GE, Newell Rubbermaid, United States Olympic Committee, Johnson Controls, and Shutterfly. For the past 20 years, he’s held a variety of CIO, CTO, and Compliance Officer roles for companies ranging from $40M to $45B n annual revenue.

Enterprise Data Architect and Sr. Data Governance for the State of Minnesota’ MNIT Services. She has over 25 years of experience in leadership roles in public and private sector.
Currently working with National Governors Association (NGA), 7 other states on cross-sector data sharing initiative to inform policy https://www.govtech.com/analytics/NGA-Initiative-Could-Enable-Data-Sharing-On-Policy-Between-Agencies.html. She works with technology and business leaders in Data Governance and Data Management, including, data security and privacy, integration, analytics, and data migration strategies. Ellena has also implemented data governance and data stewardship programs and processes throughout her career. She has delivered on large projects and received several leadership awards. Ellena previously presented work at IT Government Symposiums, Digital Summit, and she has contributed to several white papers published by National Chief Information Officers (NASCIO).

Andrew Schmitt is an Information Security professional with a passion for Incident Response and Digital Forensics. Currently, Schmitt is a member of the Cyber Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) at Medtronic where he focuses on hunt teaming and tier 3 incident response. Additionally, Schmitt is an adjunct professor at Metropolitan State University where he has authored and taught classes in Network Protocols and Analysis, Cyber Incident Response, and Penetration Testing. Schmitt holds a Master’s of Science from the University of Minnesota and currently holds multiple certifications including GCIH and GCFA. Outside of teaching, Schmitt spends time working on the open source project, Power-Response, and he coaches the Metro State Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition team.

Stevie Peterson, CCMP, PMP, CBAP, PMI-ACP, CSM, PMI-PBA, LSSGB, IIBA-AAC, ITIL® v2 Manager with a mark of Distinction, ITIL® v3 Expert
Stevie Peterson is a consultant, trainer, and speaker with over 25 years’ experience specializing in the areas of organizational change, program leadership, business analysis, process design/improvement, service management (ITIL®), and Agile.

Jerine has more than 20 years in public sector, with a primary focus on business relationships and project management for IT projects; many security and grant-funded. As the Principal IS Liaison for Ramsey County, Jerine focuses on bringing the business and technology staff together to find agreeable resolutions. Jerine is a certified Project Manager and Black Belt in Six Sigma, so process is at the forefront of her thoughts, and a Public Participation Facilitator, guiding many contentious discussions.
Previously, Jerine worked at the Port of San Diego as Senior Manager, Policy & Planning.

Karen Ray is a recognized authority in building and sustaining collaborative ventures. Her experiences in the 1970’s as executive director of literacy-focused agency mandated to collaborate by state and federal funders led to seminal research in collaboration. She has combined this collaborative experience with her training expertise to problem-solve with agencies involved in joint ventures. She has earned a reputation for group facilitation that results in decisions, highly interactive training sessions, and effective consultation for collaborations. Karen has help to found dozens of collaborations and consulted with hundreds of others across the United States during the last 28 years.
Karen’s most recent book , “The Nimble Collaboration,” is an award-winning collection of wisdom and best practices based on years of consultation with collaborations in many sectors in many states. Karen Ray co-authored the
book “Collaboration, Creating, Sustaining and Enjoying the Journey” in 1995. This award-winning handbook guides non-profit staff through partnership ventures.
She has taught teambuilding and leadership courses in the College of St. Catherine Master’s program in Organization Leadership and Ethics, and undergraduate courses for Metropolitan State University. She holds a Masters degree in Applied Behavioral Sciences from Whitworth College, Spokane, Washington with a specialty in organization and human development. Karen is a certified consultant in Whole Systems Technology.
Check out Karen’s web site on collaboration at KarenRayCollaboration.com

Danwood (Woody) Rasmussen is an Integration Architect working for MNIT at the Dept of Human Services. Responsibilities include reviewing and implementing service bus patterns to share information between internal/external systems. Prior to this he worked at IBM as an Application Architect responsible for the Entitlements and Management system as well as web services to share business partner data with other IBM applications.

Joe Perzel has been leading projects of all sizes and managing staffs since 1982 in both a corporate and vendor capacity. He has a background in including government, non-profit, K12 and higher education, healthcare, insurance, finance, audit and compliance. Presently Joe is Partner JPerzel Inc. as well as Program Manager at Surescripts LLC. He has also held leadership positions at Cargill, MN Workers Compensation Insurers Agency, Thomson Reuters and International Multifoods.
Joe has been presenting since 2002 on topics ranging from project management, leadership, strategy, negotiations/sales. Most recently he has been the keynote at the Manitoba PMI PDD, Central Arkansas PDD, Rochester CTC Leadership conference, as well as presented to PMI-MN, PMI International, PMI (Atlanta, Delaware Valley, Dallas, Heartland, MileHigh, Silver Springs), IIBA, MN State Symposium, St Cloud State University and the University of St Thomas.

George F. Paulik has a Ph.D. in Mathematics and a Masters in Electrical Engineering and over 20 years of work experience at IBM in chip design and circuit technology. He currently works as a logic designer at IBM in Rochester, MN and is an IBM Q Ambassador.

Dan Oehmke, Director, Enterprise Service Desk, MN.IT Services
Dan Oehmke is Director of MNIT’s Enterprise Service Desk and leads ITIL / ITSM initiatives in support of 45,000 end-users. With almost 40 years public service in the United State Army and at the State of Minnesota, Dan has also has taught graduate level operations management courses at St. Mary’s University. Dan’s credentials include accredited ITIL instructor, ITIL Expert, Distinguished Professional in Service Management, and ISO / IEC 20000 Consultant/Manager. Dan is a past president of the National Association of State Technology Directors and holds Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas.

John Nerge is the GIS Coordinator for the City of Brooklyn Park. He uses modern, human-centered design to build and publish engaging and intuitive public GIS apps. A big part of that is knowing how to work with people and build relationships. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking, reading, and martial arts.

Co-author of The Art of Convening: Authentic Engagement in Meetings, Gatherings, and Conversations; Art of Convening© Certified Convening Leader
Patricia works at the intersection of individual and organizational change, where she collaborates with individuals, teams and organizations organizations to increase their positive impact in the world in a way that feels inspired and alive. She does this through lovingly curated, high-impact experiences; workshops, retreats, and courses; and speaking.
Patricia’s focus is inspiring CPL’s growth through program development and execution of CPL’s signature programs: The Art of Convening Trainings, The Art of Purpose Trainings, Collaborative Leadership model and toolkit, and consulting and coaching programs. All CPL programs are dedicated to creating a world that works for all.
Through her experience she found a passion for convening with those of all ages but her interests flourished in working with organizations and companies around her. With 25+ years of working with entrepreneurial start-ups and community organizing, Patricia has had a broad experience in convening, marketing and organizational operations. Patricia held positions at Telemedia Communications, successfully launching two national magazines, Garden Way Mfg. Inc, and DeepRock Mfg. Patricia, co-author of The Art of Convening: Authentic Engagement in Meetings, Gatherings and Conversations, has coached and prepared executives for the Thought Leader Gatherings and Transformational Leaders Collaboratory for 16 years.
Patricia is trained in and utilizes a variety of convening, facilitation and community management methods. These include The Art of Convening Practicum Trainings and Certifications, Six Initiatives of Transformation, Coaching for ROI, C-IQ Conversational Intelligence for Coaches, True North Groups Institute, Twin Cities Rise Personal Empowerment Facilitator Training, World Café, ToP Core Competencies, Open Space, and Presencing/Theory U.
Patricia believes in the value of giving back to the community and serving as a leader to all around her. Patricia is co-founder of the Conscious Business Alliance and serves as a Founding Board member, now an Advisory Council member of Honoring Women Worldwide, served as a Founding Board member of Women’s Congress for Future Generations Conferences and the Positive Coaching Alliance MN Chapter. She is a continuing active member of the National Association of Professional Women and National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation. She has also been an instrumental influence in the development and progression of three Waldorf Schools.
In Patricia’s free time she enjoys being the mother of three children, grandmother of three amazing human beings, reading and competing as a sprint triathlete. The YWCA Sprint Triathlon for Women is an annual goal–this is year 7!

Denise Moreland has spent most of her career working in state and county government, managing IT. She is a defender of public service, a champion for democratizing the workplace and a shameless optimist. In her book, Management Culture: Innovative & Bold Strategies to Engage Employees (Two Harbors Press, 2012), Ms. Moreland challenges leaders and employees to abandon the culture of command and control in favor of democracy and collaboration. Having worked in the public sector, Ms. Moreland understands the pressure and frustrations, as well as the rewards and opportunities presented in public service.

Michael Sable is a graduate of Augsburg (BA) and the University of St. Thomas (MBA) and brings 20 years of local government management experience. He’s currently an adjunct faculty member at the University of Virginia, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, and managing partner for the consulting firm The Work of Leadership. Michael consults for the local governments across the country helping them proactively respond to the changing demands of the 21st century. Prior to starting the firm, Sable worked for Hennepin County, managing a department staff of 270 with a combined operating and capital budget of $180m. He’s also worked for the cities of Brooklyn Park (pop. 78,000) and Cedar Rapids, IA (pop. 125,000) as the Assistant City Manager, including serving as Interim City Manager for Brooklyn Park in 2015. Sable currently serves on the board of directors for the Alliance for Innovation, a member-based organization promoting innovation in local government nationally, GTS Educational Events, providing training and event services to local governments in the region, and an advisor to the Drucker Institute Public Sector Playbook at Claremont Graduate College.

Charlie has +17 years experience working in technology. Finding himself consistently working in that space right between technology and business (and now district and government) leadership. Charlie has worked with agile methodologies for the past 7 years at both fortune 50, 500 and now in government organizations.

Charlyne Lefebvre-Paillé is a French Canadian design research lead at IBM Watson Health. She has a Master’s degree in service design from the Royal College of Art in London.
Based in Cambridge, MA, she leads design research across the Government sector, engaging with government agencies and the people they serve around the globe, translating their needs into actionable insights for her teams.

As CTO, Mark spearheads ConvergeOne’s innovations in technology solutions and services. He spent 25 years as the COO at Spanlink Communications, which was acquired by ConvergeOne in 2014. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Mark has been an instructor there since 1996 and in 2014 assumed the role of Associate Program Director.

J. Kim is a lawyer turned BA! She began her career as a large law firm lawyer and gradually shifted into the BA realm. She has worked as a Director of a MN Non-Profit, Managed BAs in the Corporate setting, and was a Strategic BA for the State of MN. She currently works at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for the State of MN. She is also President of the Minneapolis | St. Paul Chapter of the International Institute for Business Analysis, the 2018 IIBA International Chapter of the Year. She earned degrees from the University of Chicago and Mitchell Hamline College of Law. Kim is an international speaker, most recently having spoken at Vodacom Corporation and the Durban Business Analysis Conference, both in South Africa.

Dr. Mike Monroe Kiefer, PhD. behavioral psychology
Professional speaker and author of 9 books. Most recent book publication: Surviving an Active Shooter, 100 plus ideas to protect yourself and kids. More than 20 years experience speaking on a wide variety of Management and personal development topics.

Hassan Kassih leads a team of highly skilled data center solution architects. Hassan has more than 20 years of experience in building data center infrastructure and aligning IT with business outcomes. His expertise expands across all data center layers, including power, cooling, compute, storage, networking, virtualization, and cloud technologies.

Professor department of computer science and cybersecurity at Metropolitan State University and Executive Director MN Cyber Institute.

Phil has extensive experience across the broad spectrum of desktop and server operating systems, virtualization, and open source products with an emphasis on security operations. His role as Security Architect for Works Computing, a PDS Company, is to assist clients in positioning the best security solutions for their environment. Phil joined Works Computing in March 2018 after spending over 30 years as a State of Minnesota employee.

Brian Johnson is the president of 7 Minute Security, which specializes in security assessments, penetration testing and training. He is especially passionate about teaching others about security and hosts a weekly blog/podcast to help consumers and businesses strengthen their security posture. When he isn’t camped out behind a keyboard, he enjoys outdoor activities with his family, as well as singing and playing guitar in an acoustic duo.

Timothy has worked as an Application Developer for going on 11 years. He currently works with the Minnesota Department of Health Environmental Health Division to create conditions that support the health of all Minnesotans. He believes that quality software applications help MDH effectively and efficiently serve the public’s health and wellbeing. He is interested in Cloud computing and has enjoyed helping the MDH migrate its IT infrastructure to AWS. He knows that government IT is a balancing act between keeping legacy applications running and providing modern cost effective solutions. He previously worked in the marketing automation and digital asset management realms. He resides in Minneapolis and enjoys cycling, skiing, tinkering, and gardening.

Dr. Susan Heidorn is the Director of Business Solutions for Watermark Learning in Minneapolis. Susan is an experienced consultant, facilitator, speaker, and trainer, with over 25 years of business experience. Susan directs programs in business analysis, business relationship management, and leadership, including developing and delivering courses and providing consulting. She has been a speaker at a number of IIBA® and PMI® conferences as well as local and regional organizations, boards, and private clients. She is a lifelong learner whose passion it is to guide people into achieving excellence in their personal and professional lives and works on creating positive impacts to the organization.

An award-winning author and speaker, Tom Guetzke has engaged and entertained audiences around the globe. Traveling to over 65 countries, Tom has studied the psychological similarities and differences of happiness. Today Tom is on a mission to change minds, hearts and lives by helping others to discover how they can create more happiness in their own lives.
Recognized with the highest designation awarded by Toastmasters International, Tom holds the distinguished Toastmaster Award (DTM) and was named Toastmaster of the Year. Tom achieved membership as a professional speaker in the National Speakers Association (NSA) in 2003 and was President of NSA-MN. Tom is featured in Who’s Who in Professional Speaking and is the honored recipient of the prestigious Mark LeBlanc Award.
Tom is a featured author in the newest book released in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Think Positive, Live Happy.

Kathleen Gordon is a Program Consultant with the Minnesota PIPELINE program focusing on health care and information technology. Kathleen has extensive experience with project management, higher education, supervision and partnership building. She has worked for the Minnesota State system and before that with Northwest Airlines. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.

Irina Fursman is a lead consultant, trainer and facilitator, as well as HueLife’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. She is a Certified ToP Facilitator and Mentor Trainer specializing in Organizational Development, adult learning and development, conflict resolution and strategic planning. She trains individuals and groups in the art and science of human engagement and facilitation.
Irina earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Taurida ‘V. I. Vernadskiy’ National University, and Master of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Simferopol State University, both in Ukraine. She is currently completing her doctorate in Organizational Development at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, focusing her research on leadership and change. She develops curriculum for leadership and engagement needs.

Susan Frost, holds a MA in Modern Studies from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She has been the president of Frost Marketing Communications since 1984 and teaches at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. Her specialty is the “applied humanities”, seeking its relevance for leadership and critical thinking. She will be teaching in the UWGB Impact MBA program in 2020. In addition to teaching, her workshops are presented for public servants, IT professionals, business and healthcare professionals.

As the director of marketing at CivicPlus, Mark focuses on the citizen engagement and marketing communication trends that impact local governments. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Kansas State University and has over ten years of experience in B2C and B2B marketing. During this time, he has developed numerous websites using a broad selection of content management systems. Mark is certified in both Inbound Marketing and website UX and Usability.

Teresa Friedsam has been managing Office 365 projects since 2010. During this time, she has established Office 365 Services at her clients., while managing resources, timeline, trainings, and most importantly shifting technologies from Microsoft, to deliver a successful migration/service rollout project.

Evan B. Francen, Co-founder and CEO of FRSecure LLC/Co-founder and CEO of SecurityStudio.

Tim Femister leads the national Cybersecurity and Multicloud Practices spanning ConvergeOne’s coast-to-coast footprint. Tim is charged with managing teams of elite industry experts and developing the overall go-to-market, partnerships, solutions and strategy for ConvergeOne Cybersecurity and Multicloud. He is fiercely passionate about helping clients achieve their key business and technical goals and is a recognized industry authority, thought leader and presenter. Before this role, Tim reported directly to the President and CEO of the ConvergeOne Solutions division where he held responsibility for solutions, offer development, assessment and inside engineering and a customer lifecycle practice with strategic alignment to Cybersecurity. Prior to this role, Tim led the Public Sector engineering organization and was instrumental in the development of one of the fastest growing public sector technology providers in the nation. Tim has earned CCNP and multiple CCNA certifications in addition to being one of the first six people globally certified in the CMNP program. Tim is also the author and proprietor of numerous reference architectures, structured assessments and engagement methodologies that have been proven to accelerate a client’s “time to outcome.”

Andrea Douglas is the founder and CEO of Nighthawk Marketing. Andrea has extensive experience in user experience (UX) research and conducting user-centered design sprints for State of Minnesota government agencies. Her focus is delivering extraordinary online marketing solutions that support marketing goals and reinforce user needs and brand identity. She manages both a highly technical and creative team where many members have worked on the client and agency side of the table.

Colin DePree, Director of Sales at Pro-Tec Design, has led the sales and marketing department for the past three years. His core responsibilities have been refreshing the sales process, improving scalability and refocusing the organizations marketing efforts. With Colin’s guidance Pro-Tec has become a leader in cloud-based physical security, expanded service offerings and developed a proven process to ensure client satisfaction. As a member of the leadership team Colin has partnered with the operations and finance teams to improve forecasting methodology and deliver a consistent brand message throughout the organization. Colin is a leader focused on defining clear expectations and using agreed upon data to hold himself and his team accountable. Colin came to Pro-Tec with over seven years of industry experience and a multitude of operational responsibilities including project management, customer experience and software support. He carries a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Albion College and a Master of Science in Management Information Systems from Florida State University.

Lynette Crane, MA, author of the upcoming “Quiet Brilliance: Solving America’s Corporate Leadership Crisis with ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ Talent,” is a Minneapolis-based mentor to introvert CEOs, an acclaimed national speaker, corporate trainer, executive coach and author, and Founder of Quiet Brilliance Consulting LLC. Trained in psychology, she has more than 30 years’ experience in her field.
Quiet Brilliance Consulting helps smart companies who are looking everywhere for leadership and innovation recognize the treasure they may already have within their workforce, and unlock the full revenue-boosting potential of these SMEs (subject matter experts) to drive innovation, turbocharge collaboration and retain top talent in an increasingly competitive market.

I am an information security professional with over 12 years of experience, including over five years working special intelligence and special security for the US Marine Corps. I have a master’s degree in Security Technologies from the University of Minnesota’s Technological Leadership Institute. I have experience and expertise in development of policy, risk management, and information security strategy.

Hayley Cohen is a member of X-Force Command at IBM Security, where she leads companies, intelligence agencies and governments through simulated cyber attacks. Hayley builds one-of-a-kind threat and attack scenarios for custom client experiences. Aside from sharing best practices from a business perspective, Hayley also demonstrates hacking techniques and tools to provide insight into how cyber criminals conduct attacks.
Prior to joining X-Force Command, Hayley was a software engineer for various IBM Security teams, where she worked with leading technologists to develop world class security products. Hayley holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the Tufts University School of Engineering where she focused her studies on cybersecurity and international policy.
Hayley has run simulations and demonstrations for business and technical leaders from around the world.

Ryan Cloutier, is a seasoned IT Security professional with over 15 years of experience and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional CISSP® he has held a variety of IT roles during his career including multiple architect and security roles, Ryan has worked on cloud security, Dev-Ops / Sec-Ops methodology, policy, process, audit and compliance, network and application security architecture for several fortune 500’s in the health care, financial, and agriculture sectors and has been working with K-12 and SLED for the last 2 years. Ryan can be reached at ryan.cloutier@sourcewelltech.org

I have worked at the State of MN since coming in as a contractor in May of 2000 and was the lead web designer for Department of Human Services (DHS) first Intranet. In 2001, after becoming a State employee, I was charged with creating DHS’s first web surveys. By 2004, I was the Survey Admin for DHS and had purchased Survey Monkey for the State but within a year we found a better multi-modal, multilingual accessible system called Snap Surveys.
For the last three years, I have been the State’s Enterprise Survey Admin, supporting and training over 350 survey developers across the State and am 3rd level tech support and am the “go to” person for survey design and security issues for all the State Agencies.

Erik has been with ConvergeOne for 4 years developing relationships with financial institutions and clients to determine how best to finance IT projects. Prior to joining ConvergeOne, Erik was the Executive Director-Cloud & IT Finance at Hitachi Capital America Corp. The 7 years prior to Hitachi, Erik worked at Winthrop Resources in New York City which focused on assisting clientele in funding large technology acquisitions. His experience from 2003-2005 at Lloyd’s of London provided Erik with an excellent background in assessing risk for all types of organizations.

Gus is a communication consultant who brings clarity, levity and professionalism to complex organizational changes. His experience spans various industries: IT, Health-Care, and Education. His client base is broad and includes Mayo Clinic, Starkey Hearing Technologies, Tennant, Regis Corp., and Express Scripts. Education: Adjunct Professor, Bethel University, PMP Certified, MBA, University of St. Thomas; BA in Communication, Bethel University.

Jen has been helping leaders develop their teams for over 12 years. She is known for her engaging style and has a natural talent for asking tough questions that get straight to the heart of an issue. By helping leaders create work environments that others thrive in, she helps businesses grow profits without sacrificing the personal lives of everyone involved.In her online course, LeadWell, she trains leaders to integrate coaching skills so they can truly empower others to take charge and make the change that drive the results they seek, both professionally and personally.She speaks to organizations about creating cultures that foster independence, innovation and increases in the bottom-line.She launched one of Minnesota’s first young professionals organizations in 2005 while working at the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce, earning her the Duluth News Tribune’s 20 Under 40 Award in 2008.

I found my home as a Recruiter after working in Retail Management for 10+ years. I quickly realized how much I love this work. There is nothing better than satisfying the needs of the candidate and the hiring manager – so rewarding!

Jean supervises the EAQA Team, including Greg and Tatiana. This QA team tests products to ensure assistive technology users are able to successfully access and use our products.

Blake brings over 30 years of executive experience in information technology, operations management, supply chain management, and strategic planning to his role as Chief Strategist and VP, Service Delivery for Xigent Solutions. Blake is responsible for all aspects of Xigent’s IT strategy services.He is also the founder of his own independent consulting practice (Incite Consulting, LLC), focused on strategic planning facilitation for small to mid-sized for-profit and non-profit organizations.Prior to joining Xigent, Blake worked for Andersen Consulting and then Andersen Corporation; an industry leading window manufacturer. Blake help various leadership positions within IT, Manufacturing & Distribution, as well as Strategy Development and Execution.

NAME Bio.

Joseph Adamji serves as the Director for the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) at the Science Museum of Minnesota creating bridges between families, community efforts/organizations, educators, institutions and opportunity. The KAYSC works to build a cross-sector “STEM Justice Ecosystem” to bring inclusion and the experiences of women, youth of color, and youth from low income communities to the center of conversations on workforce development, career pathways, education, and leadership in the 21st century. Adamji believes in the power of young people, and of the collective to support them, as they discover their brilliance, find their purpose, and lead us into the future.

Scott Kuffel closed his 35 year public school educational career In Illinois, serving 17 years as superintendent of two different PK-12 public schools. He was twice named Superintendent of the Year in his region, and in 2018 was recognized as one of 21 Superintendents of Distinction from across Illinois. He served 9 years on the state association board of superintendents and was elected by his peers to serve as President of the Illinois Association of School Administrators in. He believes passionately in a strategic model for leadership connecting a cycle of trust while developing skill utilizing leadership lenses.  

Ryan Cloutier is a seasoned IT Security professional with over 15 years of experience and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional CISSP® he has held a variety of IT roles during his career including multiple architect and security roles, Ryan has worked on cloud security, Dev-Ops / Sec-Ops methodology, policy, process, audit and compliance, network and application security architecture for several fortune 500’s in the health care, financial, and agriculture sectors and has been working with K-12 and SLED for the last 2 years.

Katie White is Coordinator of Learning for the North East School Division in Saskatchewan, Canada and an author and Assessment Associate for Solution Tree, in addition to being an independent educational consultant. With more than 25 years of experience in education, she has been a system leader, an administrator, a learning coach, and a K–12 classroom teacher. She has contributed to assessment literature in the field and has helped develop multiple supports for facilitators of school-based professional learning. Her blog, Just Thinking Out Loud…provides perspectives on multiple aspects of leadership, teaching, and learning. She has written the following books: Softening the Edges: Assessment Practices That Honor K–12 Teachers and Learners and Unlocked: Assessment as the Key to Everyday Creativity in the Classroom. She received a Bachelor of Education and Master of Education in Curriculum Studies from the University of Saskatchewan.

Gayra Ostgaard works as a Results Measurement Specialist at the MDE. Part of her work includes serving as the Project Manager for the transition to Ed-Fi happening at MDE and as the department’s Data Governance Coordinator. Gayra received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2016. Her areas of interest include ensuring quality data across the lifespan of data from collection to reporting.

Joe Cerar is a 28-year educator, the past 25 as a high school Social Science instructor at Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School in SE Minnesota. He serves on many committees in the PEM District and is a passionate advocate for improving teaching and learning, and a recent convert to all things PLC.

Stacey Lackner earned a Ph.D. the University of Minnesota. Her experience includes working as a school psychologist, district outcomes manager, and a research analyst for school districts in the Twin Cities area. She is currently the Director of Research and Evaluation for Wayzata Public Schools. 

Angie Freese is a committed educator, author, and collaborator with expertise in assessment, leadership, and strategic planning. Angie has supported students for nearly two decades as a teacher, principal, and director within school systems. She now serves as the president of Playmakers LLC, revitalizing school systems by igniting creativity, leveraging strengths and assets to build capacity, and linking assessment and feedback to invest in system evolution.

Heather Hirsch is a School Climate Specialist with the School Safety Technical Assistance Center, Minnesota Department of Education. Heather’s work for MDE addresses school climate improvement, bullying prevention and social emotional learning. She travels across the state providing training and consulting with schools and districts on best practices in those areas. She has been certified by McGrath Training Systems, Inc. to provide training on the McGrath Bullying and Harassment: Minimize the Risk Curriculum. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health, and a School Climate Leadership Certificate from the National School Climate Center. She is a South Washington County District School Board member, and serves on the board of a non-profit, AARP Experience Corp – Twin Cities, aimed at improving literacy and social emotional skills of low-income K-3 students.

Angela Hochstetter is a Math Assessment Specialist in the Statewide Testing Division at the Minnesota Department of Education. She has experience as a test development specialist in the private sector and taught high school math for several years. Ms. Hochstetter is a licensed high school math and Spanish teacher in Minnesota and Tennessee. She is working on a M.A. in Quantitative Measures in Education at the University of Minnesota.

Penny Houtz is the MDE Education Supervisor for Math and Reading in the Statewide Testing Division. She has 15+ years of experience as a test development specialist in the private sector and 12 years of teaching junior high school English language arts. In addition, she worked as a Title I Coordinator and District Assessment and Curriculum Director. Ms. Houtz has a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Literacy from Lesley University, a K–12 Principal Certificate in Educational Leadership from the University of Wyoming, a BA in English and a BA in Secondary Education from Western Washington University, and is currently admitted into the M.Ed. Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment (MESA) certification program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Brad Drazen has recently completed his 5th year teaching, teaching 5th grade at Eagle View Elementary, in the New Prague Area School District. He is excited to share his experience with scaffolding state standards and how to make deeper learning accessible for all learners.

Jennifer Dugan is Director of the Statewide Testing Division at the Minnesota Department of Education. Ms. Dugan has served as the Supervisor of Test Development and Mathematics Assessment Specialist both within the Division of Statewide Testing, middle school teacher in Mathematics, and also worked as a Mathematics Assessment Specialist.

Billy Chan is an elementary school principal with Osseo Area School District who inspires and prepares teachers to demonstrate commitment to each student’s achievement of their dreams. He leads with conviction for a paradigm shift in educational practices to ensure equitable student outcomes. Billy has participated in MESPA Speaks, sharing his lived experiences as a struggling multilingual learner to becoming a school principal. Billy has eighteen years of experience in education including ten years as a school administrator. Billy received his undergraduate degree from Concordia University in St. Paul, MN and his Master’s degree from Bemidji State University. Billy attained his K-12 Administration credentials through St. Mary’s University. Billy completed his superintendent endorsement from Mankato State University and is pursuing his doctorate in education leadership.

Sara Florin is the Technology Integration Coach for Centennial Schools in Circle Pines, MN. Prior to this position she was the Media Specialist at Centennial Middle School where she taught media skills and digital citizenship. She is currently the Co-President Elect of ITEM (Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota).

Emily Cavazos is a Tejana from San Antonio, Texas. She graduated from Macalester College in 2016 with a major in biology and a minor in art history and decided to stay and explore her connections within the Twin Cities. She currently works at the Science Museum of Minnesota with the Kitty Andersen Youth Science Center (KAYSC) as an assessment coordinator.