Adobe Digital Government Technology Conference

Michael Hermus is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), working within the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). He assumed this position on June 15, 2015. With almost 20 years of CTO experience, Mr. Hermus’ background includes strategy, operations, management, and systems engineering. As DHS’s CTO, Mr. Hermus will integrate the President’s national security, innovation, and emerging technologies priorities with the DHS mission. He is also responsible for building the department’s capacity to identify and address future mission needs and emergent security weaknesses and threats.

Prior to his arrival at DHS, Mr. Hermus worked in the private sector. He was the Chief Product & Technology Officer for House Party, Inc., a social marketing platform that leverages data and open source technology to build brands and increase sales. Previously, he was CTO for FirstCarbon Solutions, directing product design, development, and operations for its sustainability software product line. Prior to that, he co-founded and served as CTO for two software companies, Enverity Corp. and MarketXT, Inc.
Mr. Hermus earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

*Pending Agency Approval

Christen Geiler is a Management and Program Analyst, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA), Digital. Christen oversees HHS’s implementation and adoption of content services and products, is an Agile product owner for several ASPA Digital tools and services, and is the lead for the HHS Digital Community.

Christen has an MBA and a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership with an emphasis in Project Management from Regis University in Denver, CO. She also holds a Master Certificate in Project Management from Villanova University. Geiler resides in Virginia with her family.

Kerry Lenahan currently serves as a member of the US Digital Service in the White House. In that role, she leads efforts to design digital services that are more useable and launch products across the VA and HHS that bring value and transparency to users. These efforts include work on identity, interoperability, and analytics to drive data-driven decisions agency-wide.

Prior to her current role, she was the VP of Product Management for LivingSocial, where she led the company’s product strategy and roadmap. She brings over 15 years’ experience leading key teams of product and marketing managers to deliver high quality, innovative products and features that delight customers. Kerry holds an Sc.B in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University, and an MHA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

*Pending Agency Approval

Dan Munz is a digital professional with nearly a decade of experience building winning strategies in the public and non-profit sectors. Dan currently serves as a Senior Advisor at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), connecting global audiences with American foreign policy and public diplomacy through innovative digital engagement. IIP does everything from digital messaging to in-person speaker programs to maintaining over 200 U.S. mission websites worldwide. Prior to joining the U.S. State Department, Dan was a founding member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's technology and innovation team, and served as Deputy and Acting Assistant Director for Consumer Engagement, where he led the Bureau's consumer-facing product and marketing strategies. Before becoming a "dot-gov," Dan helped non-profits and political campaigns build their technology and social media strategies. Dan lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife Jennifer, who is also a proud public servant, and his daughter Ava, who is three and hasn't yet settled on a career path.

Shannon Sartin is the Executive Director of the Digital Service at Health and Human Services. As the lead for the team at HHS, Shannon oversees the work of the U.S. Digital Service in the healthcare space. Prior to coming to USDS, Shannon served in several leadership positions including as a co-founder of her own startup. Shannon has a deep personal passion for healthcare in the U.S. and has worked on projects in multiple federal agencies, such as the Indian Health Service, VA, and DoD.

*Pending Agency Approval

Nora is what Malcolm Gladwell calls a "connector." Although currently focused on using technology as an innovative diplomatic tool around the world, Nora has been at the heart of more traditional partnerships between educational institutions, and governments, across international borders. She was a member of the U.S. Middle East peace team 1993-1995, Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council 1999-2000, the U.S. Consul General in Florence, Italy and the founder of SAPER, an international biotech research center in Tuscany. Director of the State Department's advanced Arabic Institute in Tunisia 2008-2012, her MBA thesis from the Southern Mediterranean University in Tunis focused on cultural patrimony and the international partnerships required to preserve it.

Bridget empowers people to make government better by being more transparent, collaborative, and participatory. Growing up in the Foreign Service, she sees the connectedness of people globally and tries to model this approach throughout government by introducing individuals, offices, and agencies to each other to avoid duplicating effort and resources. At the State Department, Bridget and the eDiplomacy team coordinate the Virtual Student Federal Service, the government-wide virtual internship program now at 34 agencies. She also inspired and organized the first-ever User Experience (UX) event for the State Department for a day of reflection and empowerment.

Adobe’s new Vice President of Americas Public Sector, Karen Terrell has almost three decades of experience in the public sector. Prior to joining Adobe, she served seven years as the Vice President of U.S. Federal Operations for SAS Federal. During her 12-year tenure at SAS, Karen helped civilian, defense, and intelligence agencies across the U.S. maximize taxpayer dollars to achieve their goals. In her new role at Adobe, she leads a team of 250 professionals focused on leveraging the innovation and power of Adobe technology to support the missions of federal, state, and local government organizations. Karen also serves on the AFCEA DC Board of Directors.

Craig P. Abod is president of Carahsoft, a Reston, Virginia-based firm that has become one the nation’s most respected government-focused IT solutions providers. In founding Carahsoft in 2004, Abod combined his entrepreneurial spirit and 25+ years of experience in government sales, marketing and contract management to create a new, award-winning company that has redefined the way technology is marketed and sold to the public sector market.

In 2016, Carahsoft crossed $3.7 billion in bookings and currently employs 750+ people. As a top-ranked GSA and SEWP schedule holder and master aggregator, Carahsoft supports a growing ecosystem of vendor, reseller and integrator partners.

Abod has received the 2015 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Greater Washington Region and The Federal 100 Award. Carahsoft is also consistently recognized as the top performing partner for many of its vendor partners, including Adobe, VMware, Symantec, Red Hat and others.

*Bio Coming Soon

Stephen Condon joined Fig Leaf Software in March 2013, and currently works as on contract with the National Park Service. Stephen has experience maintaining a large implementation of an Adobe ColdFusion-based content management system, and developing custom applications in Adobe ColdFusion to help accomplish the National Park Service's mission.

Erik Crawford, the Adobe Technical Manager at Carahsoft, has been in the web conferencing and eLearning industry for over 19 years and has supported Adobe Connect and Adobe Presenter for the last 9 years. He has built an Adobe Connect product specialist team that supports customers from the DoD, federal government, state and local government, education, healthcare, non-profit and commercial organizations. He has conducted thousands of product demonstrations, webinars and live events on everything from emergency preparedness to telework.

Clint Funk, Senior Solutions Consultant, Public Sector, has worked with Adobe products since Adobe Illustrator was released in 1987. Always on the cutting edge of publishing and graphics technology, he has worked with Adobe in a variety of roles since 2000. Over the years, he’s worked with a wide variety of agencies, and corporations, consulting and training organizations as they make the digital transformation. He is a popular speaker with a humorous style at hundreds of conferences, trade shows, and Adobe Days plus presenting at thousands of webinars.

Paul Gilbertson is a Senior Solutions Consultant at Adobe. Paul has been a long-standing Adobe champion being an expert in most of the collaboration, eLearning and rich media products, currently specializing in the Adobe Connect product line. Paul has over 20 years of experience in consulting, teaching, and managing eLearning and development projects. Between his three different tenures with Adobe and Macromedia, he has run his own development firm with clients including 3M, The CIA's Federal Language Training Lab, and the big three airlines: Northwest, United and American.

Dr. Steve Gottwals has 18+ years of experience in information security. With Adobe, Steve has been responsible for the management of Adobe’s line of security solutions in enterprise rights management and digital signatures as well as the security of Adobe Acrobat, Reader, and Document Cloud. Now, with Adobe Systems Federal, Steve is responsible for security solutions across the public sector.

*Bio Coming Soon

Melanie Megregian is a Senior Solutions Consultant on the Public Sector team at Adobe, focused on the Adobe Experience Cloud. Melanie has worked in both the public and private sectors, with roles in management, consulting, and sales. In her role at Adobe, Melanie is helping Public Sector customers optimize their overall analytics capabilities, and provide better experiences to their constituents and internally within their agencies as well. She holds a BS from University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce.

Mark Middleton is a 19 year veteran of Adobe Systems, having held positions in solutions consulting, business development, field marketing, and sales. As an Acrobat Certified Expert, Adobe Sign, and Creative Cloud professional, Mark has presented to tens of thousands of enterprise customers at Adobe seminars, webinars, and conferences where he shares his expertise and passion for Adobe Digital Media technology. Mark is currently an Adobe Senior Solutions Consultant supporting public sector customers in North America.

Hunter has been supporting Adobe Connect since 2012 and has a heavy focus on federal government accounts. He authored a live streaming guide and works very closely with marketing to produce live events leveraging Adobe Connect.

Christopher Murphy joined Clarix Technologies, Inc. in 2015 as a Senior Solutions Consultant, and has over 6 years of experience with implementing and administering learning management systems in both the private and public sectors. Chris has delivered thousands of hours of training and eLearning consulting to Fortune 500 Companies, top educational institutions, and non-profit organizations across the United States and Canada. Over the years Chris has helped on-board hundreds of clients making the switch to Adobe Connect, the award winning online collaboration tool, and Captivate Prime, Adobe's next-gen LMS that delivers personalized learning experiences. Chris is currently part of the selling team at Clarix Technologies Inc., and manages a team of Certified Sales Representatives for Adobe Connect and Captivate Prime.

Dean Pianta is a Solution Manager within the CTO group at Adobe Systems Federal. He has over 25 years of experience with the design, development, and delivery of solutions for both public and private sectors. Breaking down information “stove-pipes” and improving the customer experience CX has been a central theme across solutions for the Public sector. Dean brings extensive training, simulation, collaboration and eLearning technology to his current work with the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and the Federal Civilian market. Pianta holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a Masters in Computer Science from George Mason.

Greg Reeder heads Government Industry Strategy and Marketing at Adobe. His role involves helping government identify solutions and ideas that address technology challenges -- ranging from digital transformation to outreach and engagement, analytics to mobile development, and operational efficiency to content personalization.

Greg has led teams as a U.S. Marine, as well as teams within commercial enterprises. He’s served as a Federal government executive, an advisor to non-profits, and as a digital technology leader in government and commercial industries.

For more than two decades he has been directly responsible for information technology management, digital strategy, quality engineering, mobile apps, and web development. He has led the charge to institute organization-wide changes for: web standards, content management, social media innovation, and creative production, inside organizations, across government, and for the Department of Defense.

Nargis Sakhibova is a Product Manager for Adobe Campaign at Adobe, focusing on customer product usage. Nargis has worked in consulting and product marketing prior to joining Adobe as a Product Manager. In her role at Adobe, Nargis works with customers to understand their needs as well as to help customers optimize their marketing activities and deliver personalized, relevant, and engaging experiences as efficiently as possible using Adobe Campaign. She also works with other Product Managers to inform their product decisions and develop features that are the most critical to the customers. She holds an MBA degree from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BA from Williams College.

Yasir Saleem is a Senior Solutions Consultant at Adobe Systems Federal. He has over 10 years of experience working within Department of Defense, Civilian, and Intelligence Community. Yasir has worked to engineer and architect solutions from online collaboration to incident response applications. Having an extensive background in systems and infrastructure management, data center consolidation, and cloud computing, Yasir focuses on customer’s journey to finding value while providing a long-term vision. Yasir has also been working in the eLearning space applying marketing principles and technologies to help elevate user experience, engagement with content and peers, and overall effectiveness of the platform. Saleem holds a Bachelor of Science in Integrated Science and Technology from James Madison University, and a Master’s of Science in Information Systems Technology from George Washington University.

Elliot leads global strategy and product marketing for Adobe’s digital asset management and rich media offerings, Adobe Experience Manager Assets. Elliot holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, a MS in Engineering Management from The George Washington University, and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland. Elliot is also a co-founder of the educational non-profit, The A.B. Foundation.

As CEO and head of the Public Sector Practice for GBR, Juliana Slye delivers over 20 years of public sector business management, business development, marketing, and public relations experience. Government Business Results provides business strategy, marketing, and enablement services to technology companies wishing to grow their business within the public sector (government, healthcare, and education). Prior to Government Business Results, Juliana was the Director of Government Solutions at Autodesk, responsible for managing Autodesk’s business strategy, marketing, and solutions in the U.S. Public Sector. Juliana also held a leadership role as the Senior Director, Global Government Industry leader at Macromedia (and subsequently Adobe), where she was responsible for managing their global government business at a P&L level.

Co-Founder and CEO of Envolvemedia, Mr. Smith has over 25 years of software implementation and eLearning experience at Envolvemedia, Oracle, Pitney Bowes Software, aerospace & defense integrators, and a number software startups. A certified trainer and eLearning developer, he has provided training to hundreds of students, covering topics such as blended instructional design, migrating brick and mortar classes to a virtual delivery model, Adobe Connect, Adobe Captivate, Adobe Presenter, and virtual instruction best practices. He holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas, and an MBA from George Washington University.

A respected thought leader in the Federal IT community, Tom Suder is the Founder of the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC), a non-profit organization that provides a collaborative forum for Federal government, academia, and industry to resolve emerging technology challenges. Tom is a past winner of a Federal 100 Award, a prestigious honor that recognizes government and industry leaders who played pivotal roles in Federal IT and made a made a difference in the way technology transformed the government. In addition, Suder is the co-author of 20 White Papers that were jointly published by the MITRE Corporation and ATARC following collaboration sessions during the ATARC Federal IT Summit Series on topics such as Mobile, Cloud, Big Data, DevOps, and Cybersecurity.

Michael Towles has been a part of providing services and technology support to many parts of the Federal Government since 1999 to include U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, both civilian and national security agencies as well as the Executive Office of the President. Among his technology areas of interest include data center and cloud management, cybersecurity automation and remediation, and the development of enterprise scale user experiences.

Lisa's diverse background includes over 25 years of experience in high-tech, non-profit, public, and private sector positions, doing marketing, training, business development, business/project/event management, sales, video production, writing, editing, design, eLearning and multimedia development, and promotions. Prior to joining Adobe in 2012, she was also an Adobe Community Leader and Professional, working closely with the Adobe development teams and the user community on utilizing Adobe products and solutions. She can be reached at watkins@adobe.com and @kavka on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook.

Jeffrey Young is a Solution Consultant Manager for Adobe’s Public Sector. Jeffrey engages in projects with various government stakeholders leveraging Adobe technology to provide solutions in content security, collaboration, eLearning, multimedia development, web content, and digital asset management. He customizes the Adobe product line to meet the government’s unique standards for authentication, authorization, auditing, collaboration, and security.