J.R. Sloan is a results-driven leader with over 20 years of experience in technology and 15 years in leading product and program teams. As State CIO, J.R. oversees technology innovation development and IT policies. He also serves as Chairman for the State of Arizona Information Technology Authorization Committee (ITAC) which approves and monitors high-cost technology projects statewide. In addition, J.R. serves as chairman of the body responsible for monitoring and overseeing high-risk technology projects across all state agencies.
Prior to joining the state, J.R. gained experience in both operational and executive roles in product management, marketing, business development, and customer service for enterprise software companies. He has extensive experience in leading cross-functional teams, building consensus, and achieving strategic objectives. His broad knowledge of business and processes coupled with technology and systems integration experience enable him to effectively engage all parts of an organization. He is customer-centric in his approach and results-oriented in his deliverables.
J.R. is certified in Pragmatic Marketing and Product Management. His educational background includes Electrical Engineering at the University of Arizona and Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University.

Dan Thurmon is the founder and President of Motivation Works, a company that helps leaders and their organizations move confidently through change and transformation so that they achieve and contribute MORE. Dan is an expert speaker and performer. He has delivered thousands of presentations across six continents for audiences including world leaders, Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, educators, and even troops on the front lines of battle. In 2011, he was inducted into the prestigious Speaker Hall of Fame. Dan recently served as the President of the National Speakers Association. During his tenure, he led the Board of Directors and the 3,000+ member organization through a critical transformation, which included new governance, a new mission, higher member value, and greater financial accountability. He’s authored two books: Success in Action and Off Balance On Purpose. Dan produces an ongoing weekly video coaching series and podcast in which he shares leadership principles and life-enhancement strategies in under three minutes. He is a health and fitness advocate. In his 50s, Dan continues to train and perform advanced acrobatics, and enjoys hobbies such as golf, mountain unicycling and the flying trapeze.

Teri Takai is the Co-Director of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. She worked for Ford Motor Company for 30 years in global application development and information technology strategic planning. From Ford, she moved to EDS in support of General Motors. A long-time interest in public service led her to the government sector, first as CIO of the State of Michigan, then as CIO of the State of California, and subsequently the CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, the first woman appointed to this role. She then served as the CIO for Meridian Health Plan. She is a member of several industry advisory boards. Teri has won numerous awards including Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year, CIO Magazine’s CIO Hall of Fame, Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, the Women in Defense Excellence in Leadership Award, and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Phil Bertolini is the Co-Director of the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. Previously, he served as deputy county executive and CIO for Oakland County, Michigan. During his 31-year tenure, Phil built a world-class IT organization in the second-largest county in Michigan, just north of Detroit. As Oakland County CIO, he oversaw more than 150 employees serving over 1.2 million residents. In 2005, he was also promoted to deputy county executive, holding dual positions until his retirement. Phil’s efforts earned the county national attention, winning numerous awards for technology innovation and excellence. He was named Governing Magazine’s Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers. He was also honored by the President Obama White House as a Champion of Change.

Dustin Haisler is the Chief Innovation Officer for e.Republic. As Chief Innovation Officer, he has a strategic role to help shape the company’s products, services, and future direction. Primarily, he leads e.Republic Labs, a market connector created as an ecosystem to educate, accelerate, and ultimately scale technology innovation within the public sector. Dustin began he career at a very young age as the finance director and later CIO for Manor, TX, a small city outside Austin. He quickly built a track record and national reputation as an early innovator in civic tech, for which he was named a Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver in 2009. A member of Code for America’s original steering committee, Dustin pioneered government use of commercial technologies not before used in the public sector – including Quick-Response (QR) barcodes, crowdsourcing, and gamification. Dustin went on to the private sector to help broaden the adoption of these and other civic innovations. His work has been featured in Wired, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, Inc., and the Today Show on NBC. An in-demand speaker, he has given two TEDx speeches – one on Disrupting Government (TEDxAustin) and the other on Disrupting Education (TEDxLivermore).

Deputy Assistant Director, Division of Employment and Rehabilitation Services, Department of Economic Security, State of Arizona

Bryce currently serves as Deputy Assistant Director within the Division of Employment and Rehabilitation Services. Bryce assists in the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Benefits and Tax programs, supports the compliance and performance reviews of state administered federal workforce programs, and coordinates the division’s strategic deployment and process improvement efforts.
Bryce is committed to serving within an organization that works to support and better the community. As such, Bryce first joined the AZ Department of Economic Security in 2012, serving in the Office of Inspector General. In doing so, Bryce served as the Administrator of the Office of Internal Affairs, providing direct oversight and management of administrative and criminal investigations involving employee misconduct, and vendor and client fraud. Bryce also served as the agency’s Program Compliance Officer, ensuring information from audits and performance reviews supported the agency’s performance improvement efforts.

Gary Buonacorsi has nearly two decades of experience in the IT industry as a transformational leader for Government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. As Tanium’s SLED Chief Technology Officer, Gary is responsible for thought leadership in the public sector, SLED business strategy, and guiding customer security and operations transformations. Additionally, he defines long-term goals for the State and Local Government vertical, leads industry discussions, and conducts conference keynotes and seminars.
Gary comes to Tanium with a wide range of experience. Most recently he served as the State and Local Government CTO for Dell Technologies. Additionally, Gary’s career includes positions as CTO and CIO at the States of Nevada and Texas, along with Senior Director and Managerial roles at Dell EMC, Oracle and Merck-Medco.

Anthony Huey is a highly popular international speaker and communications consultant who offers session attendees pragmatic communications tools, tips and techniques they can use immediately in their professional and personal lives. His career includes tenures as a news reporter, magazine senior editor, crisis management specialist, media relations consultant and executive speech coach. Anthony heads Reputation Management, LLC, one of the nation’s leading communications training and crisis consulting companies. He has presented nearly 2,700 keynote speeches, workshops and seminars. His direct client work includes a wide variety of advertising, public relations and communications initiatives for hundreds of trade associations, municipalities and companies.

As the State’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Doug is responsible for the statewide strategic IT plan, deploying business strategies that support and drive the technology vision for the state of Arizona. Bringing a customer first approach to ADOA-ASET, Doug leads our Business Engineering organization; responsible for building and maintaining strategic partnerships with both private and public sector clients throughout the state.
Prior to joining the State of Arizona, Doug held a series of leadership positions focused on driving growth strategies and improving profitability in the areas of business operations, software development, business analysis, and product development while at Go Daddy. Well versed in leading cross-functional teams and initiatives, Doug embraces a holistic approach to the department’s long-term strategy and vision.
Doug’s teams have been the recipients of several industry awards in the areas of technology and innovation within customer service. He received his B.S in Management Information Systems, with a focus on Organizational Leadership from Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Chief Technology Officer, Department of Economic Security

Durga Pattela is an innovation-oriented technology leader with over 20+ years of experience combined with global technology consulting and enterprise Information Technology leadership in insurance, finance, and the public sector.
As a CTO, Durga is responsible for technology strategy, enterprise architecture, development, and deployment of core business applications, data and analytics, digital and advanced technology capabilities. He also oversees Information Technology governance, risk, compliance, and security architecture functions. Durga is currently leading the development of digital technology modernization strategy and roadmap for the agency.
Prior to joining DES, Durga held a series of leadership positions in global IT organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Extensive experience in leading large-scale technology transformations and day to day IT operations, focusing on increased business growth, profitability, customer satisfaction, customer retention, and reduced operational expenses. Durga believes in orchestrating people, processes, and technology to enable organizations to achieve excellent results. Durga fosters customer first, agile and data-driven decision making culture.
Durga holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics from Nagarjuna University and a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications from Madras University, India.

Zach Patton is the Chief Editor of the Content Studio at e.Republic and Government Technology. He has been covering the public sector for nearly 20 years. Until 2019, he was the Executive Editor of Governing magazine, where he also had served as a staff writer for more than a decade.

President, e.Republic

Cathilea is president of e.Republic, where she oversees operations for the company’s award-winning media platforms: Governing, Government Technology and Emergency Management. Cathilea also oversees e.Republic’s websites, conferences and events, and its national research and advisory groups: the Center for Digital Government, the Center for Digital Education and the Governing Institute.
In 2014 Cathilea directed the launch of the Governing Institute’s Women in Government Leadership Program, an innovative initiative that encourages future generations of women to participate in public service.
Cathilea is a frequent speaker for government and education organizations worldwide, including the United Nations, Harvard University, the State Legislative Leaders' Foundation, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, and the World Congress on Information Technology. She has been quoted frequently in publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes and others.
Cathilea is a recipient of NASCIO’s National Technology Champion Award for her outstanding contributions to advance public sector information technology innovation. She is also the winner of an Outstanding Women Leadership Award from the Sacramento Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners and is a Greater Sacramento Business Hall of Fame Laureate.

Paul Robles is the Google Cloud sales executive supporting government clients in Arizona and Colorado. He has spent the past 25 years in the IT and airline industry including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Avanade/Accenture, and American Airlines. Prior to joining Google in 2020, Paul spent six years as a sales executive and director for state, local government and education at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He was responsible for running a sales organization of 24 people across the Western US. In his current role, Paul works with government clients to help them transform how they deliver digital services to their constituents. He and his team help clients adopt new ways of running government services using cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Paul received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Brigham Young University and a Masters in Business Administration from Arizona State University.

Alan is Executive Vice President of e.Republic and Publisher of Government Technology magazine and Techwire. In this role, Alan is involved in the annual production of dozens of events as well as the strategic direction for Governing, Government Technology, Emergency Management, the Center for Digital Government and the Center for Digital Education. Alan is also the senior executive that has overall charge of e.Republic’s research organization which includes, custom research, the Digital Government and Digital Education Navigator tool and the Content Studio (webinars and custom content).
Alan has been a guest lecturer at universities and a frequent speaker for key government and industry organizations. For over 35 years, Alan has worked with industry, education and government officials to help them better understand the importance and use of information technology. Alan received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento.

John Downey is the Vice President of Sales for Acronis SCS - an American cyber protection and edge data security company exclusively dedicated to meeting the unique requirements of the US public sector. John has 15 years of experience selling enterprise information security and data protection software to the US Public Sector. He has deep expertise in mapping product capabilities to key US federal government policies, creating enterprise license agreements for systems integrators, and developing sales and channel strategies to maximize customer attainment and satisfaction. John received his bachelor’s degree from Towson University. He resides in Maryland with his wife and two children.

Heather Flowers is a Lean Consultant in the Government Transformation Office for the State of Arizona. In this role, she works with various State agencies to improve core processes and build problem solving skills that increase the ability of the State to do more good for the citizens of Arizona. She also serves as a program manager for the Arizona’s Connected Workforce (ACW) program which is being developed to drive a statewide cultural transformation to focus on best practices for managing and coaching for performance over presence and provide alternative workspace options to modernize the workplace and allow agencies and employees the flexibility to work how they work best.
Heather has worked with the State of Arizona since 2016. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the College of Charleston, and has a professional background in environmental consulting.

Jimmy Kim is the Head of Business Development for Verizon’s Smart Mobility and Transportation Vertical. In this role Jimmy leads go to market activities and customer engagement to address the increasingly complex Internet of Things (IOT) smart infrastructure requirements of a diverse market, including state and local governments, campuses, and large venues. Jimmy is a seasoned technology solutions executive with a successful track record of bringing disruptive technologies to the market place, including IOT, big data, enterprise mobility, and mobile payments. He has spearheaded large scale business transformation across Asia, North America, and Europe in multiple leadership roles at Samsung, Accenture, and smaller ventures. Jimmy graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Tawnya Lancaster has led thought leadership and research in cybersecurity for 10 years. In her role at AT&T, she works across multiple AT&T business units, including AT&T’s Chief Security Office, AT&T Alien Labs™ (the threat intelligence unit of AT&T), Managed Security Services, Professional Services, and R&D, to identify trends in cybersecurity and develop thought leadership content on emerging security technologies and strategies for protecting the enterprise. Recent research includes the use of machine learning and analytics in threat intelligence, increasing importance of Zero Trust as a strategic approach for security programs, the consolidation of security services in virtualized/cloud environments, and measurement of cybersecurity maturity across industries.

Chad is a Senior Security Field Solution Architect with CDW covering much of the Western United States. He specializes in the design, deployment and operation of enterprise network security architectures and security controls. Chad has over 16 years of extensive hands-on experience. Prior to joining CDW, he held positions in architecture and engineering for embedded testing, marketing and engineering organizations. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering and holds certifications from Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Juniper Networks.

Dorothy is an Enterprise Account Executive within the Public Sector division at DocuSign. Dorothy helps State and Local Government agencies connect and automate how they prepare, sign, act on, and manage agreements. She’s worked in the technology space for 15+ years.

Chris is an award-winning, influential Business and Technology Leader with over 25 years of experience across multiple industries. At VMware, he is a Director within the VMware EUC (End User Computing) organization. Working directly for the EUC Global CTO, he works with customers, The VMware EUC Business Unit, and Engineering furthering alignment and partnership. As a Technical strategist, his influence is demonstrated in customer success and reflected in the additions he has influenced within the EUC portfolio. His broad-reaching experience in Healthcare, Education, Financial Services, and others allow a balanced perspective across a broad range of industries.

Much of Chris’ portfolio’s evolution through digital transformation is radically changing the relationship and experience with various end users in the University ecosystem, one in particular is the ASU Mobile App. Chris Richardson joined ASU from Honeywell where he held a number of positions over an 11- year career. He holds degrees from the University of Washington, University of Puget Sound and the University of Arizona.

Jim Richberg’s role as a Fortinet CISO leverages his 30+ years’ experience driving innovation in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and cyber strategy & policy. He is currently focused on cyber risk management, election security, and helping organizations maximize their IT efficiency and security post-COVID.
Prior to joining Fortinet, Mr. Richberg served as the National Intelligence Manager for Cyber, the senior Federal Executive focused on cyber intelligence within the $80B+/100,000 employee US Intelligence Community (IC). He led cyber strategy for the 17 departments and agencies of the IC, set integrated priorities on cyber threats, and served as Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on cyber issues.
Mr. Richberg’s broad operational experience –including his 20 years at CIA-- gives him practical insight into difficult cyber challenges. He brings a strong focus on strategic problem solving and on framing complex issues in comprehensible terms that facilitate analysis and formulation of solutions.

Linda Roberts is the Chief Information Officer for Arizona Department of Child Safety. She has over 20 years’ experience in managing and leading large transformation projects. She is currently the program sponsor for AZDCS Child Welfare transformation project which is a cloud based multi-platform solution. Linda is an award winning leader as a recipient of CIO100 award, finalist for StateScoop 50 state leader of the year, finalist for NASCIO digital transformation and lastly, Arizona’s ISM best of use of technology in Operations award.

Tim Roemer has been the Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Arizona for over a year. Prior to that he served as Governor Ducey‘s Public Safety Advisor, Deputy Director of the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, and ten years in the CIA, including a two year assignment in the White House Situation Room.

Tom Stutesman is a Principal System Engineer at Pure Storage, working with customers to maximize the success of their storage deployments. Over the course of his 40-year career in technology, Tom has developed extensive expertise in database performance, applications, and analytics. Before joining Pure in 2019, Tom worked most recently as a Principal Engineer at Oracle. Previous positions included 11 years with Hitachi as well as earlier roles with NetApp, Informix, and Sybase.
Since 2016, Tom has served as a judge for the prestigious Edison Awards for new technology and innovation. He is an elected trustee of his home township, in which role he manages municipal communications and technology. An avid pilot, Tom also does humanitarian and disaster relief work and mentors young people as a Civil Air Patrol Officer.
Tom holds a Bachelor of Science from Illinois State University.

Walter is a Partner serving the Public Sector for Global Business Services at IBM. He has 30 years of success in the IT industry building client relationships, cultivating skilled and motivated teams, and delivering market-leading IT capabilities to public and private sector clients.
His current focus is working with clients to help them transform the way they serve citizens through collaboration and sharing data. Walter is the Offering Leader for the IBM Health and Human Services Connect360 solution. This solution integrates data across multiple disparate sources and organizations to provide a holistic view of the individuals, families and children in need of comprehensive programs and services.
Walter views his greatest accomplishments through the impact his clients have on their customers. For example, his work with clients enables caseworkers to quickly assess the safety of a child and make potentially life-saving decisions. There is no greater satisfaction than knowing what he does makes a difference to those in need.
Before joining IBM, Walter has held leadership roles at Computer Sciences Corporation, Accenture and Electronic Data Systems. He has extensive experience working in State and Local Government, has supported clients in the Federal Government while holding a TS/SCI Clearance with Full Scope Poly, and started his career developing IT solutions in the automotive industry.
Walter attended Buffalo State College and has a degree in Information Systems Management. He lives outside of Nashville, TN with his wife and family.

Steve West is an IT Professional with over 36 years of experience in identifying, planning, organizing, leading and delivering technology solutions in the government sector. He brings veteran experience and leadership to manage the constant changes in the information age that are faced by government entities. Having worked with the Legislative branch and larger Executive branch agencies in Arizona, he has led a range of modernization initiatives.
Steve was appointed as the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Chief Information Office in 2017 and just recently has been part of the successful implementation of one the largest modernization projects in the State’s history.