As GIS Manager at the Bluegrass Area Development District from 1988-1998, Kent was responsible for the management of GIS specialists, technicians and interns. He served as the GIS Manager for the Water Resource Information System (WRIS) within the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority (KIA) from1998 until 2004 and was responsible for the technical aspects of developing and maintaining the WRIS. Currently, Kent works at the Division of Geographic Information and is the primary technical staff person that maintains the Kentucky Geography Network (KYGEONET). Management of the Commonwealth’s Enterprise GIS, development and configuration of web-based mapping applications, and collaboration with geospatial publishers are his primary responsibilities. Creation and customization of Story Maps, implementation of KyGovMaps, and management of the KyFromAbove effort have been Kent’s recent focus.
Kent has a BA in Geography from the University of Kentucky (UK).

Dr. Akers is the executive director for the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics. As executive director, Dr. Akers uses her passion for education and Kentucky’s workforce along with her extensive knowledge of statistics and large data systems to oversee the daily and strategic planning for the organization. Dr. Akers’ primary research areas are statistics, measurement and quantitative research methods for the social sciences including evaluation and analysis of longitudinal data. As the deputy executive director, Dr. Akers served as the lead researcher within the office, coordinating the development of the Center’s research agenda and responding to information requests. Prior to her role at KCEWS, Dr. Akers worked as the lead researcher in the Office of the Commissioner for the Kentucky Department of Education, as a research analyst with the Kentucky P-20 Data Collaborative (now KCEWS) and as an agency data fellow with the Strategic Data Project.
Dr. Akers is a native Kentuckian and graduate of Mercer County High School, Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky. She joined the KCEWS office in 2011.

In 2010 Dr. Brenzel was appointed the Medical Director for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (BHDID) with the Cabinet for Health and Families Services (CHFS) for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Prior to 2010 he served as the Medical and Psychiatric Consultant for the Department of Community Based Services (DCBS) and as the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. He attended the University of Louisville School of Medicine and completed a combined residency in Pediatrics, Adult Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky. He also completed his Master in Business Administration in 2006. He joined the UK faculty in 1993 where he is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics.
Dr. Brenzel has developed a breadth of knowledge and experience in mental health and substance abuse treatment. He frequently provides trainings and consultations across systems of care that have included Behavioral Health, Child Welfare, Juvenile Justice, Education and the Judiciary. Early identification of children and families at risk, and implementation of evidence based interventions across the lifespan have been the focus of his work. He is uniquely trained to bridge gaps between medical and mental health systems. It is well known that he excels at working in multidisciplinary teams and building effective systems of care.
Dr. Brenzel is actively involved in healthcare services reform in Kentucky. This has included working to modernize the State Medicaid Plan to include a full continuum of behavioral health substance abuse services including targeted case management, mobile and residential crisis and peer supports.
In partnership with other state agencies, Dr. Brenzel has worked on reducing prescription drug abuse, addressing buprenorphine utilization and diversion, disseminating naloxone rescue kits, and developing guidelines for Kentucky’s recently approved Harm reduction and needle exchanges. He is also the CO-PI on the Kentucky MAT-PDOA grant which is providing coordinated care to woman with and opiate use disorder who are pregnant or parenting. In 2017, Dr Brenzel was actively involved in the submission of Kentucky’s SAMHSA response to the Opioid STR grant. This will bring 10.5 million dollars to Kentucky for each of the next two years to address the opioid use disorder crisis in Kentucky.

Karen is the Executive Advisor and Privacy Officer for the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE). In this role Karen has responsibility for KHIE operations, management, and privacy compliance. Prior to assuming this role at KHIE, Karen was Senior Advisor and Privacy Officer for the Kentucky Department for Medicaid Services, and Staff Attorney and Privacy Officer for KHIE. Before beginning her public service at the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Karen practiced law in various locations within Kentucky.

Within the AT&T FirstNet organization, Doug Clark is responsible for a team that engages with district / state & territories to consult on providing FirstNet based on specific state first responder needs. His special focus areas include LMR-LTE interoperability, mobile data communications, deployable technology & mobile security.
Doug has 16 years of telecommunications experience, including business development, consulting and sales leadership roles at AT&T. In his career at AT&T he has been responsible for delivering advanced connectivity solutions across Public Safety and Government customers. A majority of his focus has been delivering wireless solutions including mobile VPNs, fleet management, workforce management, and LMR-LTE interoperability. Doug engaged early in BC14 discussions in 2009 and led the development of AT&T’s LMR-LTE interoperability strategy until his appointment to the FirstNet team.
Doug holds Bachelors degrees from the Ball State University in marketing and history as well as a Master’s of Science in Information & Communication Sciences. In addition Doug holds a MBA from the Kennesaw State University. He has been a speaker at events including IWCE, IACP, APCO, NENA, LEIM, NOBLE, IJIS & NASTD. He lives in Dallas with his wife and has three daughters.

Chuck Grindle is the Chief Information Officer for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. As CIO, he heads up the Commonwealth Office of Technology and is a member of the Governor's executive cabinet.
Dr. Grindle served 29 years in the U.S. Army in various capacities. During his active military service, he was an Army Information Technology and Field Artillery officer. In addition to holding key military positions in Information Technology at the Installation, Agency and Theater level, Dr. Grindle has taught academic courses on Contemporary Security Issues, Cyber Operations, theory of war and strategy, strategy and policy, and United States National security policy.
Dr. Grindle graduated from Washington and Jefferson College and was commissioned into the Field Artillery. He completed his Masters in Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh and served three assignments at the U.S. Army War College, including Deputy Chief Information Officer. He was deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait and served as the Lead Information Technology officer for the 3rd Army (FWD). Upon his return he served as the Chief Information Officer for the United States Military Academy.
Dr. Grindle earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science and holds a second Masters Degree from the U.S. Army War College. Dr. Grindle's awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit; Bronze Star Medal; (4) Meritorious Service Medals; (2) Army Commendation Medals; (4) Army Achievement Medals, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; and Parachutist's Badge. He retired from the Army in 2017.

Jess has worked for LOJIC for almost 3 year and spent the previous 5 years with Louisville Metro Government as a GIS Supervisor at Public Works and a Systems Administrator at Metro Technology Services. He also worked as a GIS Analyst at Spatial Data Integrations for 4 years. He is a 2006 graduate of the Western Kentucky University with a B.S. in Geography.

Wendy Henry is a Specialist Leader in the Technology, Systems Integration service line currently serving as the Federal Blockchain lead. She is a deep technologist with a knack for understanding emerging technology and working with clients to understand how those technologies can be integrated into organizations’ fabric to drive increased value. Wendy is expert in building strong leadership teams who know how to deliver and has demonstrated success in delivering high-impact successful large-scale technology solutions and serving as trusted advisor to clients especially at the executive level.
Wendy is keenly focused on driving innovation and technology discovery to allow her clients to achieve extraordinary value and results while driving and enhancing productivity and profitability. She is knowledgeable in both the federal and commercial market spaces, is experienced in CMMI and Lean Six Sigma and is both Agile Scrum Master and PMP certified.

Will’s goal is to make a difference in the world by giving people information they need. With 20+ years of GIS experience, he helps build collaborative solutions across organizational boundaries including everything from LiDAR & aerial photography, to mine mapping, standards development, and specific transportation, environmental, and economic development projects. He is active in state GIS efforts as well as nationally, where he serves on the GIS-T Planning Committee and AASHTO’s Technical and Applications Architecture Task Force (T&AA).
He’s part of a team that has won four international and several state awards for GIS and Big Data innovation. The team delivers information to customers at their point of need, wherever they are.

Van Ingram is the Executive Director for the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. Van joined ODCP in November 2004, shortly after it was created with the mission of coordinating Kentucky’s substance abuse efforts in enforcement, treatment and prevention/education.
Van served with the Maysville Kentucky Police Department for more than 23 years, the last six as Chief of Police. He is a former President of the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police, and was named “Kentucky Chief of the Year” in 2001. He is a former recipient of the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Law Enforcement, as well as the Melvin Shein Award for distinguished service to Kentucky law enforcement.
Van is a certified law enforcement instructor and has trained officers across the state on a variety of topics, including community oriented policing, case management, and “Kentucky Substance Abuse Issues” for Chiefs, Sheriff’s and command staff. He is a frequent speaker on a variety of substance abuse issues both in Kentucky and nationally.

Mark Macumber, Security Practice Manager at Volta, has many years of experience with and a passion for I.T. Security. He has a hands-on technical background including everything from coding, building systems, networking, layering applications and managing them. This broad I.T. knowledge enables Mark to see the big picture and identify the vulnerabilities within and between systems which can expose organizations to data breaches and loss. He assists Volta clients with identifying and remediating shortcomings in their security profiles to minimize risk from external and internal factors.

Adam Meier was appointed by Governor Bevin as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in December 2015. As Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Meier’s focus is oversight of policy advising, formation, coordination and implementation to move Governor Bevin’s agenda forward. Meier is an attorney and previously served as a policy and political adviser for the Bevin Gubernatorial campaign. In addition to state level experience, Meier has public service experience, working as Senior Contracting Officer for the Federal government, as well as serving as a member of the Fort Thomas City Council.

Chris Neff leads the marketing, market research, and consumer insights functions for NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV). NIC is the nation’s largest provider of digital services and secure payment processing solutions for federal, state, and local agencies. The company’s user-friendly self-service solutions are used by 28 states and more than 5,500 federal, state, and local agencies nationwide.
Chris is a frequent speaker on understanding the evolving citizen mindset and how to build and market relevant digital services. He is also a professional voiceover artist and occasional radio host for the National Public Radio member station in Park City, Utah. He received an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA from the University of Michigan.
Chris lives in Park City with his wife and two children.

Jane has worked for LOJIC for 22 years helping citizens and local government personnel learn about and use LOJIC resources including their applications and data. Prior to working for LOJIC, she sent 10 years working as a cartographer for the U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources and National Mapping Divisions and the Louisville Field Office of the Defense Mapping Agency (now called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency).

Robert Putt is the newly appointed and first Chief Data Officer for the Commonwealth. Robert has been a part of Kentucky state government for almost a decade. He served as CIO & Executive Advisor to the Secretary in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services; Deputy CIO & Executive Officer of the Kentucky Judicial Branch and Administrative Office of the Courts; and Program Director in the Finance and Administration Cabinet for the Department of Revenue and Commonwealth Office of Technology. Prior to state government, Robert spent 9 years as a vendor to state, local and federal government in the roles of Vice President at MAXIMUS, General Manager & Operating Officer at ACS (Xerox/Conduent), and Director of the Project Management Office at SCT (SunGard). He began his career as a student intern at IBM, then programmer analyst at Ashland Inc. (Ashland Oil/Valvoline) working in both the U.S. and western Europe in several systems engineering and project management roles, ending as Manager of Enterprise Systems. Robert holds a MBA in Management and BS in Mathematics from Morehead State University; and has served as adjunct professor at Eastern Kentucky University and Georgetown College.

Michael Ramage, Ph.D is the director of the Center for Telecommunications Systems Management (CTSM) at Murray State
University. Dr. Ramage leads the Center’s research activities, establishes new programs, facilitates recruitment of new students, maintains relationships with alumni and oversees the planning and execution of special events such as the Security Matters conference, West Kentucky’s largest annual information technology conference. CTSM conducts research in the various areas of technology as well as serving as a liaison between the academic and private sectors to increase the technology workforce across the state.
Currently, Dr. Ramage serves as the president for the Information and Technology Education and Research Association (ITERA), a higher education association of telecom and IT related academic programs. Additionally, Dr. Ramage serves as president for two nonprofit startup organizations, Sprocket, Inc., Paducah, KY-based makerspace, and the Technology Council of West Kentucky. Dr. Ramage is a frequent presenter at a variety of academic and industry conferences and article author for several publications.
Dr. Ramage earned his doctorate of philosophy in technology management from Indiana State University, a master of science in telecommunications systems management and bachelor of science in computer science, both from Murray State University, and an information assurance graduate education certificate from Purdue University. Dr. Ramage has obtained his Project Management Professional credentials from Project Management Institute. He received the first TSM Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009 and in 2013 was inducted into the Tennessee Broadband Hall of Fame.
Before returning to academia, Dr. Ramage held several positions over eight years, within the national technology non-profit Connected Nation including: Project Manager at Connect Kentucky, Executive Director at Connected Tennessee and Director of Product Development for Connected Nation. Dr. Ramage’s work focused on the mapping of broadband services, expanding broadband service, increasing technology usage, and establishing efforts to bridge the digital divide. While at Connected Nation, Dr. Ramage was the recipient of five state and federal grants totaling over $14 million.

As Mayor Jim Gray’s Chief Innovation Officer, Scott Shapiro generates transformational projects that do not fall neatly within the standard method of city operations.
A city-benchmarking project led Scott to discover a new species of city – the University City – and he writes and speaks frequently about the concept’s implications for Lexington, its peers, and aspiring University Cities. Scott also co-leads Lexington’s Gig project, which is bringing a $70M fiber-optic network with ultra-fast internet speeds throughout the city, making Lexington the largest gigabit city in the country. And, as part of a broader Smart Cities effort, he is launching the city’s first text-notification system, providing advance notification to citizens regarding city services on a house-by-house level.
Prior to taking on the CINO role, Scott was a senior advisor to the Mayor, managing strategic projects. He was the point person for Mayor Gray’s economic-development partnership with Louisville and the Brookings Institution. And he managed the Mayor’s reform of the city’s long-troubled police and fire pension system, which cut the fund’s unfunded liability by $150 million and strengthened the system that serves more than one thousand public-safety retirees. The city’s actuarial firm called the effort “the most effective pension reform the country.”
Scott joined the Mayor’s office having earned a Masters in Public Administration degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he went, at age 40, to embark on a new career in public service. Prior to that switch, Scott was in the private sector in New York City, where he built and sold a consulting company and was a senior executive with a publicly traded health care company.
As a side project, Scott has taught a course titled City Innovation at the University of Kentucky.

Grace Simrall was named Chief of Civic Innovation for Louisville Metro Government in August 2016. Prior to this role, Simrall served as Executive Director of Innovation at Care Innovations, a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, where she was responsible for the company’s innovation and analytics initiatives. In 2010, she founded iGlass Analytics, a startup focused on delivering data management and analytics solutions in the healthcare technology space. In that role, she worked with payers, providers, and accountable care organizations (ACOs) to apply enterprise data management design principles and cutting edge analytical tools to their specific challenges.
Simrall earned a bachelor’s degree in the geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Louisville’s Speed School of Engineering.

Lee Tompkins serves as the General Manager for Kentucky.gov and the President of Kentucky Interactive LLC, a subsidiary of NIC Inc., where he has been responsible for leading the successful implementation of Kentucky’s eGovernment strategy in a public-private partnership with the Commonwealth Office of Technology since 2003.
Mr. Tompkins has a wide array of experience in information technology, business development and leadership, alliance management, financial services and government affairs in both the United States and abroad. In a leadership role, he has served as the Director of Operations for Kentucky Interactive, Director of Strategic Alliances for NIC, the President of NIC Canada and as a Vice President of Portal Operations for NIC.
Prior to joining Kentucky Interactive / NIC Inc., he managed and developed web-based service delivery solutions and strategies for Alltel Information Services. He also worked for high-tech startup eCommlink as the Director of Strategic Alliances.

Laura joined the Office of Performance Improvement & Innovation in January 2017 to improve the ways citizens and residents experience Louisville Metro. With an extensive background in community development and network cultivation both locally and internationally, Laura has had the privilege of working with a variety of government and non-profit organizations as a community organizer, community food security coordinator, national and international development grants coordinator, project manager, and neighborhood liaison. She was first introduced to the impressive work of OPI2 as she led community outreach efforts and developed holistic, innovative solutions to systemic issues in distressed areas of Louisville through a fellowship with the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Innovation Delivery Team. Serving in a role that matches her sociological background, empathetic nature, and drive for impactful community change, Laura is thrilled to be working as a CX Consultant with Louisville Metro Government.

Stephen Vandegriff is Pomeroy’s Vice President of Digital Strategy responsible for thought leadership, development and delivery around Pomeroy’s advanced services; executing go-to-market strategies and programs to provide marketing support, sales enablement and quality solutions to our clients. Pomeroy solutions include Digital Workplace Services, Global Service Desk, Enterprise Networking, UC/Collaboration, Managed Network Services, Next Gen Data Center - Server, Storage, Virtualization and Cloud.