Infrastructure: Cloud Summit

Sean Connelly serves as the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) Program Manager at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this role, he leads the TIC Program Management Office, which is responsible for leading the Office of Management and Budget’s TIC initiative within CISA. The TIC initiative is the federal government’s strategy to securely protect government networks that connect to the Internet and cloud providers. CISA’s TIC Program Office works with a wide-spectrum of partners across government and industry and leads the way at enhancing network security across the federal enterprise horizon.

Mr. Connelly joined DHS in 2013 and has served in a variety of roles, including the development of TIC 1, 2 and 3, along with the deployment of CISA’s sensor capabilities (operationally known as EINSTEIN 3A), and was part of the initial architectural team that stood-up the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. Additionally, Mr. Connelly was a lead author on the ‘IT Modernization Report to the President’ in 2017, as well as a co-author of NIST’s Special Publicization towards ‘Zero Trust Architectures’ in 2019.

Prior to joining the federal civilian service, Mr. Connelly worked as a consultant to the Department of State, where he led architectural initiatives within the department, including the adoption of TIC 1 and TIC 2, as well as the design of the State Department’s next-generation telecommunications platform, providing IT for a global workforce. Overall, Mr. Connelly has over 15 years of experience in the federal domain, and over 20 years of experience in the IT and cybersecurity domain.

Mr. Connelly earned a MS in Information Technology Management from George Washington University, and holds two Cisco Certified Information Expert (CCIE) certifications. Mr. Connelly holds the first CCIE in Routing, and a second CCIE in Security.

Joe Foster joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as the Cloud Computing Program Manager in September 2018. He designed and built the Agency’s Mission Cloud Platform (MCP), achieving an Authorization To Operate (ATO) at a Moderate Security Level in only 10 months. Since the ATO, MCP has grown rapidly to now supporting almost 160 projects across all 10 NASA centers and still growing. For his work on MCP and thought leadership in the Federal space around Cloud Computing, Foster has won numerous awards including the 2020 Robert H Goddard Award, the 2021 NASA Agency Honors Award, and the 2021 Association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM) Leadership in Cloud Computing award winner.

Foster previously served as an IT Program Manager and Data Scientist with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) from 2010–2018, where he migrated 60 separate activities from on-premises data centers to the cloud, spearheaded the adoption of the DevOps Pipeline, and conceptualized the system being used by the Agency to plan and track the cloud migration of 650+ applications. He served on NGA’s Cloud Leadership Team, Cloud Adoption Management Group, and DevOps Council, as well as two Intelligence Community-wide Cloud forums, the Intelligence Community IT Enterprise (ICITE) steering committee, and the ICITE Mission Users Group Forum. Foster also served in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and as a private sector consultant. Foster is a U.S. Army Combat veteran who served as a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Engineer from 1998–2005.

David is a Distinguished Engineer at IBM working in the Office of the Federal CTO. He started his career in the U.S. Navy in the late 80’s and now has 3 decades of experience in designing and developing enterprise grade IT solutions. His passion for technology has led to experiences across a variety of industries from manufacturing to media to government. David is an excellent analytical problem solver with combined expertise in project management and technical architecture. He champions a learning environment continually encouraging his teams to sharpen one another’s skills. He currently provides technical leadership for Cloud and Hybrid Cloud opportunities in the Federal Market. David also provides direction, thought leadership, and technologies to IBM offerings to support enhancing their security posture and adhering to compliance requirements.

Ms. Danielle Metz is a member of the Senior Executive Service and serves as the Deputy CIO (DCIO) for the Information Enterprise (IE). In this role, she provides oversight, policy guidance, and digital expertise for DoD enterprise infrastructure initiatives driving toward the objectives of digital modernization. She leads Department-wide execution of strategic guidance aimed at achieving an operationally effective and secure Information Enterprise in a cost-efficient manner. Areas of priority include network optimization, cloud adoption, software modernization, and IT reform.

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

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

Mr. Korie Seville serves as the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Hosting and Compute Center (HaCC) Technical Director. In this role, Mr. Seville is responsible for the strategic technical direction of various DISA HaCC data center and cloud initiatives, including the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) and Zero Trust.

Prior to becoming the Technical Director, Mr. Seville was the HaCC’s cloud infrastructure architect. As a member of the HaCC, he was responsible for architecting and integrating commercial cloud hosted solutions into the DoD network infrastructure.

Before joining the HaCC, Mr. Seville was an infrastructure architect for the Cloud Computing Program Office (CCPO) providing support to critical cloud enabling projects to include the Cloud Layered Obfuscation Application Kit, Global Directory, Azure Hosting Infrastructure, and the Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) environment, which brought Microsoft 365 to over a million Department of Defense employees during the global pandemic. Also, Mr. Seville received a Bachelor of Computer Science from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

As NCI CIO, Mr. Jeff Shilling is responsible for the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of all NCI IT systems and their data. This includes maximizing the value, and assessing and managing the risks of information technology at NCI. In addition, Mr. Shilling leads the Infrastructure and Information Technology Operations Branch in NCI’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology. In this role, Mr. Shilling manages the centrally provided IT for the NCI enterprise, which includes server and endpoint hardware, COTS software, network, desktop support, and policies required to support NCI’s scientific and administrative activities. These services play a critical role in advancing the NCI mission. Mr. Shilling believes that highly trained and knowledgeable IT support staff are the key to developing a productive work environment for the NCI.  Mr. Shilling came to CBIIT from NCI’s Center for Cancer Research (CCR) where he served as an IT architect with a focus on translational research. Prior to joining NCI, he worked as a biologist in a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry and molecular biology. He made the transition to Information Technology, enjoying the diverse and fast-paced work, and moved to the Research Triangle area in North Carolina, working for NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program. After NIEHS, Mr. Shilling worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. During his time at LLNL, he provided a full range of IT services with the Physics Directorate.

Joe Augustine is the Director of Cloud Innovation Center at GovCIO and an inventive Cloud and Data Center Senior Solutions Architect with 15+ years of IT experience in the public and private sectors implementing enterprise-level, large-scale, multi-tier solutions. In his most recent accomplishment, he played a critical role in GovernmentCIO winning $876M DEA Bluestone contract.

His experiences include AWS, Azure, and GCP, breaking down monolithic applications into microservices, and leveraging Git, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Jenkins, Ansible, Python, and other related DevOps, and cloud automation tools. He has held positions such as Lead Technical Cloud Solution Architect, Data Architect, Cybersecurity Network Architect, System Engineer, Program Manager, Database Administrator, and Application Developer.

In addition, he has worked for many agencies and private sector companies such as the DEA, US Agency for International Development, US Army, US CYBERCOM, Ravyn Systems, C2S Consulting Group, and GovernmentCIO.

Amy Kluber is editor-in-chief of GovCIO Media & Research. Previously she managed two aviation publications at B2B media company Access Intelligence. She was nominated for The Innovation in Aerospace Journalism & Publishing Award for launching and hosting an aviation podcast. Prior to that she wrote news scripts and produced videos for the network Newsy. Follow Amy on Twitter: @amykluber

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Having traveled around the world since an early age, she grew up a U.S. Army brat born in Vicenza, Italy, and spent most of her youth living in Seoul, South Korea.

In her free time, you may find her at Disney World.

Raymond Lo Presti brings more than 35 years of leadership, program management and solution development experience to his role as Principal Solutions Architect for GovernmentCIO. Ray specializes in delivering enterprise value driven technology solutions, directing cross-functional teams, and leading complex projects from conception through completion. Ray has a diverse background of experiences that includes architecture, assessments, solutions design and delivery, vendor analysis, infrastructure and quality processes. Ray has successfully delivered engagements for Federal and Commercial clients across multiple industries and geographies. Ray earned his Bachelors in Psychology from La Salle University and graduated from the Systems Automation Officers Program from the US Army.

Sarah Sybert joined GovCIO Media & Research as a staff writer/researcher in March 2021, where she primarily covers the Department of Health and Human Services. Before Sarah joined the team, she covered defense, industry and information technology reports and events with Executive Mosaic. Her work has helped connect private and public sector leaders and promote awareness of emerging market trends.

When she’s not on the job, you can find her hiking in Shenandoah, checking out the newest “hole-in-the-wall” coffee shop or jamming on the guitar.  Sarah earned her bachelor’s degree in English, with minors in Creative Writing and Film Studies, at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.