John is the Principal Architect for Worldwide Client Engineering and Integration Lead at IBM. Over the past 28 years, John has specialized in discovering and promoting patterns for applying emerging technologies to help solve the business problems of clients around the world. He enjoys working closely with all levels of a client enterprise from the c-suite to line of business developers. John considers himself fortunate to have worked with over 100 clients from both public and private sector in his career. He is an advocate for modern DevOps and coaches clients as they both develop and implement their mission critical applications. Since the beginnings of cloud, he has collaborated with clients, assisting them as they develop infrastructure and application modernization strategies that fit their organization's unique requirements.
John is a resident of Park City, Utah and you might find him skiing the "Greatest Snow on Earth", mountain biking, surfing, or enjoying summers on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York.

The California Department of Technology welcomed Scott Adams as its new Deputy Director for Broadband and Digital Literacy, a critical role in the push to provide broadband equality throughout California. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Adams April 9, 2021.
Broadband has been the signature item in Adams’ professional history.  In 2020 he authored the policy paper, Disconnected: Understanding Communication System Failures during Disasters, as Rebuild North Bay’s first-ever scholar-in-residence. He served as a director of government and external affairs for Comcast in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2010-2018, where he led the implementation of the company’s efforts to bring high-speed Internet to low-income households.
Adams’ involvement and background in environmental campaigns and government is extensive. He ran his own consulting firm from 2008-2010, and in 2007 he served as statewide outreach director for California’s Water: A Crisis We Can’t Ignore campaign. In 2006, he was the statewide political director for the Yes on Proposition 87 Clean Alternative Energy Initiative, and served as an aide to Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla from 2003-2005.   
He received a master’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies from California State University, Sonoma.

I have over 25 years of experience in Information Technology. My California state government experience expands over three major agencies throughout my 30 years of state service. I am a graduate from CSUS and an ITLA graduate as well (ITLA 27). I have expert knowledge in Geographic Information Systems and Tableau platforms. I have managed staff operating big data platforms as well as open data platforms. I am currently managing the Applications Development and Testing Branch in the Department of Child Support Services where we utilize the Agile mindset to continually improve services to the customers.

John Cleveland is California’s Deputy State Chief Information Security Officer with the California Department of Technology (CDT). 
Prior to his current position, John was manager of CDT’s Statewide Security Operations Center. His other positions included security operations chief at the Employment Development Department, chief information security officer at the Department of Child Support Services, and chief technology officer at the Contractors State License Board. He has been instrumental in his previous roles devising and implementing security operations strategies and has built security controls for some of the state’s largest benefit-based systems.
John brings over 20 years of private sector information security and technology management experience, including roles as service delivery manager for Banyan Systems, consulting manager and security practice manager at Lucent Worldwide Services, and principal consultant and owner of his own security consulting business. 
He is an Iraq war veteran with over 10 years of military service.

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.

Mike Driessen joined Government Technology in 2021 as the VP of Subscription Services, where he is responsible for managing execution, strategy and operations for all recurring revenue services. He also oversees Navigator, a market and sales intelligence tool for private-sector SLED teams, and Techwire and Industry Insider – Texas Edition, each of which provide daily news and insights into the California and Texas GovTech markets.
Mike brings over 25 years of experience in the IT consulting and systems integration industry with firms like Accenture, Grant Thornton and Hitachi Consulting. His experience covers Sales and Marketing leadership, advising on Digital Strategies, and managing Enterprise Application alliances and implementations. He has managed large global teams and led start-ups. Mike lives in Los Angeles, although he grew up in the Midwest, and graduated from Marquette University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Business Administration.

Chris Hein runs a team of 50+ customer engineers for Google Public Sector. His team is responsible for architecting technical solutions to solve Public Sector problems. He’s been with Google for 8 years as a Solution Architect, Technical Evangelist, and now Director of Customer Engineering. During that time Chris has helped Fortune 10 companies and state governments alike work more like Google. He is also a member of the Executive AI Principles Fellowship at Google focused on ensuring ethical use of AI both internally and externally. His goal is to help public sector organizations become more efficient and effective in furthering their mission using best in breed technologies and methodologies.

Cassandra Holzhauer serves as the Assistant Director of Strategic Planning at the Department of Child Support Services. She currently overseas teams focused on Organizational Change Management, the Strategic Plan, Behavioral Economics, Sprinting, Innovation and Data. She has spent the past 13 years in numerous child support roles from case manager to executive and has the local and state perspectives of the program.
Cassandra earned her Masters of Public Administration from Cal State Northridge, and completed her undergrad at San Diego State University.
Her professional vision statement is to collaborate with others to greatness. When not dreaming of Strategic Planning, she loves to spend time on the beach with her husband and two young daughters.

Mike Hussey is an industry executive director for state and local strategy for Oracle Government and Education. Mike has 25 years of senior leadership experience with the State of Utah where he most recently served as CIO for the State of Utah and the executive director for the Department of Technology Services. While serving in this cabinet-level position, Mike was known as a collaborative and transformative leader who enjoys applying technological advances available in the market. Among some of his accomplishments while the state CIO, Mike led the state’s cloud journey and digital transformation efforts, created the state’s first cyber center, and formed the state’s first innovation fund.
Mike has been recognized as a “Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver” in the public sector.

Keson Khieu, CISSP, PMP is a servant-centered leader. Keson has served in the role of a State Department Chief Information Officer (CIO), Information Security Officer (ISO), Project Director, and Project Manager in the last fourteen years. Keson has also been an adjunct faculty member at many Universities and Community Colleges. Keson is currently serving as the CIO at Emergency Medical Services Authority. Keson is passionate about Data-driven Digital Transformation and Business Intelligence.

As DCSS CIO and the Technology Services Division Deputy Director, Catherine Lanzaro is directly responsible for all Information Technology (IT) activities within the Department. By putting people first, she strives to inspire DCSS Information Technology experts to create secure, unique, and customer-centric automated solutions that drive the Child Support Program forward and achieve the Department’s mission.
Ms. Lanzaro has 35 years of technology, business, and management experience for the State of California, and is a graduate of the California Department of Technology, Information Technology Leadership Academy (ITLA-21). Working with her talented teams, her most notable accomplishment is the 2021 Cloud Migration Project which moved DCSS’ most complex application, the Child Support Enforcement System (CSE) from a legacy platform to a modern cloud-based environment. CSE is one of the state’s largest IT systems, serving 1.2 million customers with a user community of over 7,000 child support professionals.
In June 2022, Ms. Lanzaro was awarded CIO of the Year from the California Public Sector CIO Academy.
An especially important aspect of Ms. Lanzaro’s life is family and community; she is devoted to her husband of 34 years, children, and grandchildren. Ms. Lanzaro has also spent the past 25 years volunteering as a costume designer and master seamstress, creating costumes for local theaters and high school performing arts productions. She enjoys listening to music and is a big fan of Disney.

In December 2020, Mr. Levine joined T-Mobile for Government where he was hired as the National Senior Executive for State Government Strategy and given the task of building and leading the company’s State and Local Government Telecommunications & Technology strategy team.
Mr. Levine is a former member of the California State Legislature, where he served as Chair of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce. Mr. Levine established himself as one of California’s leading experts in energy, telecommunications, and technology policy. Consistently tackling some of the most challenging and signification statutory policy changes, Mr. Levine authored numerous pieces of historic legislation which became national models in many policy areas. Mr. Levine served as a member of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Broadband Taskforce and was a Founding Member of the Board of Directors of the California Emerging Technology Fund.
In addition to his work at T-Mobile, Mr. Levine is a Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Riverside’s school of public policy and a Founding Member of the school’s Advisory Board. Along with the School’s Dean, Mr. Levine co-founded the University’s Center for Technology Policy and Society. Later this year, Mr. Levin’s first book, “Technology vs. Government: The Irresistible Force Meets the Immoveable Object” will be published.

Wesley Major is the Chief Information Officer for the California Department of Finance (Finance), a role he has held since 2008. He has 33 years of State service, 28 of which are at Finance.
He is responsible for providing leadership and policy direction for the department’s internal computing infrastructure, application portfolio, security, disaster recovery, network infrastructure, application development and client support, managing and working with the department’s information security officer (ISO), serves as the department’s Technology Recovery Coordinator, oversees the Technology Recovery Plan, and prepares and submits annual information technology reports to the California Department of Technology on behalf of the department.
He has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento, a former Correctional Educator at Mule Creek State Prison, and a degree in Sociology from the Los Rios Community College District.

Christopher brings 20+ years of experience in Business Intelligence, Analytics, Data Integration, Application Development, and Data Warehousing. His primary areas of focus are on scalable cross-industry/cross-functional Data Engineering solutions, data governance, database management systems, data modeling spanning multiple domains, data visualizations, reporting and analytics needs. From traditional relational database systems and on-premises solutions to cloud computing and big data architectures, Christopher is adept at working with customers to architect scalable solutions that meet the business needs. Christopher has developed and grown delivery teams that partner with customers by ensuring effective and successful deployments of analytics environments. He believes in establishing a working partnership with all clients to meet their business needs.

Kristin Montgomery currently serves as Director, Enterprise Information Services for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). She provides leadership for the continued development and management of an innovative, robust, and secure information technology environment throughout CDCR. Prior to taking the role of Director she was the Deputy Director of Operations and Support at CDCR. In this role she managed all the enterprise infrastructure functions including: network services, storage/server services, telephony management, radio management, and active directory management.
Prior to CDCR, Kristin served as Controller at California Public Employees Retirement Fund (CalPERS). She managed all functions in the Financial Reporting and Accounting Services Division which included: accounts payable, accounts receivable, cashiering, pension and health accounting, investment accounting, financial reporting, and treasury management.
Ms. Montgomery has more than 20 years of experience in the investment, financial, and pension industries. Before joining CalPERS she worked as a consultant, providing technology and change management services for accounting, investment, and enterprise-wide pension projects.

As a certified cloud and security expert Mr. Nicholson continues to practice in business development, a career that has spanned nearly 30 years. He is currently serving as a panelist and moderator for the State of Oregon’s Cyber Security Webinar series which was launched in 2022 and will run to mid-2023. Mr. Nicholson offers his expertise in the areas of cloud compute, information security, managed IT services, digital transformation, and data management. He has specific industry expertise in State and Local Government, Education, Engineering, Healthcare, and Water Infrastructure fields.

Jason Piccione was appointed in November 2015. As chief information officer, he oversees Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), Office of Information Services as well as sets direction for information technology and coordinates infrastructure and service delivery across DCA. Prior to his appointment, Piccione served as DCA’s chief technology officer. He has held various positions at the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education and the Contractors State License Board. Piccione has worked more than 15 years in public service. He obtained a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California, Davis.

Morgan Reed spent nearly four years as CIO for the State of Arizona, where he led cloud transformations to consolidate 30 different email systems, modernize 15 citizen-facing applications, migrate critical agency workloads off the state-owned mainframe and shut down the state’s largest datacenter after migrating 80 percent to the cloud. He joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) as an Executive Government Advisor to coach State and Local Government executives through strategy, policy and governance challenges to help them accelerate their journey to the cloud and help governments innovate for their customers.

Jim Richberg’s role as a Fortinet CISO leverages his 30+ years of experience driving innovation in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and cyber strategy and 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, Jim served as the National Intelligence Manager for Cyber, the senior federal executive focused on cyber intelligence within the $80B+/100,000 employee U.S. 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.
Jim’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.

Roseville is a Full Service Chartered City with Population of ~150,000. Sae Represents CIO & Information Technology Leaders from 350 Agencies and ~1600 Members of California Local Government & Special Districts.

A Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Executive, Member of Sacramento CIO/CTO Leadership Forum, California State CIO Advisory Workgroup, Honor Graduate of Certified Government Chief Information Officer Program (CGCIO) from Rutgers University. 30 years of high-performing business leadership role as CIO and IT-Director for City of Irving-TX, City of Farmers Branch-TX, TX-MHMR, National Medical Enterprise & Other Private Industries.

Matt Thibault leads the cybersecurity business for AT&T’s Public Sector, specifically focused on securing the missions of State, Local, and Education (SLED) customers across America. Entering the industry as a cybersecurity solutions architect and serving as Chief of Staff for the Public Sector organization, Matt brings together deep technical knowledge with an understanding of the business and customer landscape to own and direct the relationship with key leadership across the Federal and SLED markets

Herb is a State, Local and Education Strategist. Having history in various government CIO roles he is responsible for assisting customers achieve their strategic outcomes through understanding their business issues and how policy can impact business outcomes. He has been sharing best practices learned from around the country on optimization, workforce modernization and hybrid cloud. He also is providing insight in practical implementations of AI, Smart Communities and blockchain at many government conferences. Prior to joining in 2018, VMware Herb served as the State of Wisconsin Deputy State CIO and CTO, CIO for Health and Family Services and Corrections.

As Executive Editor at e.Republic, Steve is responsible for the coordination of editorial strategies and standards across all the firm’s media platforms. He directs the editorial teams that produce Government Technology, Emergency Management and Digital Communities and their respective Websites, in addition to developing and maintaining corporate policies and standards for editorial. Steve has over 20 years of writing and editing experience including more than 17 years covering technology in the state and local government market.
Steve joined e.Republic in 1996. During his tenure, e.Republic’s print and electronic media have received many awards for editorial excellence, including “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Emergency Management in 2013, “Best New Web Site” from ASBPE for emergencymgmt.com in 2009, ”Best Overall Publication” at the Maggie awards for Government Technology in 2008 and “Magazine of the Year” from ASBPE for Public CIO in 2007.

After a lengthy career in the private sector focused on the web, Blaine joined CDT in 2020 as Chief Web Officer to drive digital transformation efforts across the State of CA. In his current capacity as Acting Deputy CTIO, Blaine is leading the operations of the Office of Enterprise Technology in support of digital innovation and improving how state government applies innovative solutions to meet the public’s evolving needs.

Wright began his career with the state in 1994 as an IT manager for the Department of Motor Vehicles, a position he held for 24 years, with one two-year break. In 2005, he left DMV and moved to CDT. He worked at what was then Teale Data Center until 2007, returning to the DMV in 2007 and remaining until his promotion to the deputy directorship for IT for the Office of Traffic Safety in 2018. In May 2018, Wright was named Deputy Director and CIO for Technology and Administration for the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), whose mission is “to effectively and efficiently administer traffic safety grants while fostering partnerships to deliver innovative programs that reduce traffic deaths, injuries and economic losses.” Wright held that position for just under two years before being named to the CDT position in March. Wright has held various positions in Enterprise Architecture, Program Supervisory, and IT Technical and Management classifications. He is also a graduate of the 25th Information Technology Leadership Academy (ITLA), one of several career-development programs that the state offers. He’s also a member of the Sacramento Blockchain Code Forum.