Andre J. Briere is the Deputy Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. He was sworn into his current office on August 6th, 2021. In this capacity, he oversees a $750 million annual budget and helps lead a state agency of over 1,600 employees dedicated to providing safe, efficient transportation systems for Granite Staters. He exercises overall direction and oversight for administration and finance at NHDOT as well as statutory responsibility for all aviation, rail, and transit within the State of New Hampshire. Mr. Briere brings extensive aviation, transportation, logistics, emergency management, and safety management experience to his role as Deputy Commissioner. These skills were honed over decades of increasingly responsible US military commands and C-suite roles in industry. He is a US Air Force Command Pilot, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and FEMA-certified National Executive Emergency Manager. Andre graduated with honors from the United States Air Force Academy in 1990 and holds multiple graduate degrees with academic distinction. He retired from the US Air Force as a full Colonel in 2019. Mr. Briere most recently served in government as the Defense Attaché of the United States to the Russian Federation in Moscow, Russia. He lives near Concord, NH with his wife Catherine; they have two grown children. He is also in his second term as Treasurer of the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO).

Charles Burns has over 40 years of private-sector IT experience in industries such as high technology and manufacturing. Burns has held positions ranging from Software Developer to Sr. Director of Architecture, Development and Operations. Currently serving at IT Lead serving the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

With 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, governance, and critical infrastructure protection, Maeve Dion currently directs the online M.S. in Cybersecurity Policy and Risk Management at the University of New Hampshire. She is the governor-appointed Chair of the New Hampshire IT Council (2021-2024), and her research interests include cybersecurity metrics, governance, and risk management. As assistant professor of security studies at UNH, she was awarded the 2021 UNH at Manchester Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award. Her teaching incorporates constructivism, universal design for learning, open education, active learning, and curricular alignment. Over the years, Maeve has supported various legal and policy efforts of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the OECD, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, the U.S. DOD and DHS, the U.S. President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC), the American Bar Association, and the National Research Council, among others.

Annie Dove has served as Director of Information Technology for the City of Dover, New Hampshire for the past twenty years, adding the CISO role in 2021. The Office of Information Technology includes a team of IT professionals supporting Enterprise and Public Safety systems, Utility and Asset Management (Facility/GIS) infrastructure. She oversees an annual municipal Information technology budget of 1.9 million dollars. Annie has participated in NH Local Government Information Network, NH Primex, “Municipal IT Listserv” moderated by NHMA and State of NH BET LEAN programs. She has held or currently holds Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) and LEAN moderator credentials.

Kenneth Dunn joined the State of New Hampshire in 2017 and has served as the Deputy Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Information Technology for the past 5 years. In this capacity, he oversees operations, finance, and HR for the Department, which supports over 40 Executive Branch agencies.
Prior to State service, Ken spent over 32 years in the private sector in a variety of technology leadership roles for large aerospace and manufacturing companies. Mostly recently, he was responsible for managing a 1000-person team delivering IT services for a major defense client including data center, service desk, desktop, server, applications, LAN, voice, cyber security, and database management, in support of 60,000 users in 230 sites.
Ken currently resides in Southern New Hampshire with his wife Laurie. They have two grown children and spend their free time visiting their grandchildren and cruising on the high seas.

Fash Farashahi has been with town of Peterborough NH’s since 2002, starting as an intern in the Office of Community Development. He is now the Director of the IT/GIS Department and oversees all GIS and Technology functions for all Town operations, including oversight of Peterborough’s PEG (Public, Education, and Government) TV Station. During his tenure, he has transformed the GIS from just maps to an integral part of daily operations, particularly for the Planning Dept, Assessing Dept, and the Dept of Public Works. Fash and Peterborough were named a SAG Award recipient (Special Achievement in GIS) by ESRI in 2015.

Justin is the founder and CEO of NuHarbor Security, where he continues to advance the state of the art in integrated cybersecurity services. He has over 20 years of cybersecurity experience, much of it earned while leading security efforts for multinational corporations, most recently serving as global CISO at Keurig Green Mountain Coffee. His technical skills span all levels of the cybersecurity stack and NuHarbor stands as one of the most rapidly growing managed cybersecurity firms in the U.S. Justin is also a managing partner at the newly formed Almanna Cyber Fund, an early-stage cybersecurity investment firm, and is fiercely competitive, both in his professional career and earlier as a semi-professional soccer player. Justin also serves multiple local organizations in the public interest, including his board membership at Champlain College.

As Director of Infrastructure & Operations in the Department of IT, David has overall responsibility for Network Operations, Telecommunications, System Administration, and Database Administration for the State of New Hampshire. Prior to State service, David spent over 34 years in the private sector working for 2 startups, 3 medium-sized companies, and 3 fortune 50 enterprises. He’s held positions as a night-shift Operator, VMS Systems Manager, Linux/UNIX Systems Administrator, Network and Security Engineer, Business Analyst, IT Manager, and Director of Engineering Applications. David resides in Southern New Hampshire with his family and is active on his town’s Conservation Commission. He enjoys hiking and playing bass guitar with his band of over 30 years.

Megan has worked for the State of New Hampshire for over 12 years and is a US Army Veteran. Her current focus is on planning and the State Emergency Operations Center. She has a wide variety of experience with project management, Lean events, and has held a variety of leadership roles within the State.

Mike Lauer is Director of the Fortinet Capture Team. His expertise is in managing business development and strategy for state and federal government agencies. He has spent his career honing technical project management skills to support SLED initiatives and to help architect and buildout multi-party and agency initiatives that range from K-12 to Higher education to healthcare. Mike’s unique background bridges knowledge gaps to facilitate projects connecting service providers, erate applicants, USAC HCF for Healthcare programs, NG911 (wireline and wireless) initiatives and rural broadband development and deployment.

John Maddaus is the Chief Information Officer and Information Security Officer for the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, where he is presently leading major infrastructure, information systems and technology modernization initiatives. His professional interests include digital transformation and automation, emerging technologies, and enterprise architecture.
He previously worked in the financial services industry with a focus on data-driven portfolio management, regulatory compliance, data analytics, and operational excellence enabled through technology. Major clients served include the US Department of Education, Sallie Mae/Navient, and several states and commonwealths.
John graduated from the University of New Hampshire, is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and recently earned his Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification from Microsoft. He loves Python but sometimes misses semicolons.

William (Bill) Mannion has been orchestrating the expansion of business intelligence availability to the multiple agencies of the State of New Hampshire over the past 4 years. Bill comes from 30+ years in the private and nonprofit sectors as a Vice President of Technology Solutions, VP of Supply Chain Management, Security Officer, and Director of Technology for several start-ups, mid-sized, non-profit and fortune 500 companies. Bill has implemented or matured the organization’s technology base in the verticals of manufacturing, fin-tech (online banking), distribution and supply-chain. Bill is known for creating an online loan origination system with a highly complex underwriting system that reviews 25 different credit score and fraud detection characteristics within seconds. He has leveraged Six Sigma Lean to determine the Department of Health and Human Services “Options” application modules that will be modernized to an ASP.NET MVC responsive web application. He is a “Disney Family” man and travels 3 to 4 times a year to see “Mickey”.

Pam McLeod is Director of Technology & CISO for the Concord School District/ SAU #8, a district with 1000 staff, 4500 students, and a $100M budget. She focuses on balancing risk management with innovation, leadership, cybersecurity, building positive workplace culture, modernizing business processes, organizational transformation, data privacy and compliance. Pam co-founded and co-led the cooperative NH Student Privacy Alliance to 1300+ SaaS vendor data privacy agreements against a set of NIST 800-171 based security standards, reducing risk for 130,000 of NH’s public school students in just 3 years. Pam is a “big picture” systems thinker who excels in leading organizational change and uses soft skills along the way, transforming and modernizing organizations by focusing on personnel, best practices, best of breed systems, and secure, productive applications. She is a co-founder of the NH CTO Council and also serves her small town of Alton as a school board member and chair. She has served on the boards of NHSTE, the NH CTO Council, and the NH School Boards' Association.
Pam holds a CAGS in Educational Leadership from SNHU, a Master's in Engineering in Geomatics from Purdue University, and a Bachelor's in Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Wyoming. She is a Granite State Leadership Academy Fellow. Prior to entering the public education sector, Pam specialized in GIS and ocean mapping for organizations such as Maine Maritime Academy, Radian International, URS Corporation, and the UNH Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping.
Pam hails originally from a ranch outside of Casper, Wyoming and now lives on a small mountain farm in Alton Bay with her husband Andy, two nearly-grown teen sons, and a small menagerie.

Joshua is the Director of Technology / CISO in the Oyster River Cooperative School District and is in his 18th year of serving NH's schools; he holds a B.S. from Daniel Webster and a Master's in Computer Technology in Education from Thomas College. Joshua has been leading data privacy work in New Hampshire K-12 schools since 2019 after the passage of New Hampshire HB1612. Joshua also serves on the management board for the Student Data Privacy Consortium. Joshua co-founded the NH CTO Council, New Hampshire's CoSN affiliate for technology leadership in K12 education, and was named NH Technology Leader of the year by NHSTE in 2019. Joshua resides in Farmington with his wife and four daughters.

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.

Brian has worked in various roles within municipal government for 24 years, starting as an Intern, Police Explorer, and Emergency Dispatcher for the Town of Goffstown. In 2005, he started his municipal Information Technology career as a Support Specialist for the Nashua Police Department. In 2008, he returned to the Town of Goffstown as an IT Specialist. Over the years he has been promoted to Systems Administrator, and to his current position as Information Systems Director. In addition to his IT career, he is also an active volunteer Firefighter/EMR in his hometown. With the experience from these various positions, Brian understands the importance of having the right team in place for project, event, and overall organizational success.

Ram Reddy is Nagarro’s Chief Technology Officer responsible for Enterprise Solutions, overseeing both Public Sector and Private sector sides of Nagarro's businesses.
Ram previously held the role of CIO at Rockport and before that held senior IT management positions in several other organizations, including Wolverine Worldwide, Stride-Rite and Reebok. Ram brings with him extensive experience of more than 25 years spanning IT, operations, and consulting in various industries.
At Rockport Ram worked on the strategy to divest Rockport from adidas, in the contracted 2-year window. Ram worked with the Rockport teams on the business strategy for the new company. Subsequently there, he worked on an IT strategy to fit the business strategy and was instrumental in designing and implementing the IT architecture and all global systems for this green-field company.
Ram has worked in India and Italy before moving to the US. When he is not traveling, he lives in historic Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, son and daughter.

Richard “Rick” Rossi is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Cybersecurity Advisor (CSA) assigned to the State of New Hampshire.
Rick has been with the Department for more than 17 years and joined CISA in 2021 as the first CSA assigned to New Hampshire. Prior to joining CISA, he served eight years with the DHS Office of Intelligence & Analysis, most recently as the HUMINT Collection Operations Manager assigned to the New England DomDNI Region, with prior assignments in the agency front office and as the Intelligence Officer assigned to New Hampshire.
In these roles, Rick led the regional HUMINT intelligence collection and reporting missions with focus on cyber threats to the Homeland, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, transnational organized crime, and economic security. He also led the regional terrorism watchlisting mission. Rick provided expertise on national security cyber threat actors and tactics, as well as analysis and forensic exploitation of cyber threats. He contributed to numerous national-level strategic, operational, and tactical operations and policy initiatives including Operation Warp Speed and Support to U.S. Election Security.
Rick earned a Bachelor’s Degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts Boston, a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University, and also holds a Certificate in Legislative Studies from the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University. He holds Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH), GIAC Cyber Threat Intelligence (GCTI), and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) cybersecurity certifications, and is a SANS Lethal Forensicator coin holder. Rick is a member of the GIAC Advisory Board.

Timothy serves as the Technology Manager for the New Hampshire Emergency Services and Communications division of the New Hampshire Department of Safety. He has been with the department for over 20 years and manages a diverse range of responsibilities including Next Generation 911 networking, GIS data management, and 911 Automatic Location Information Database administration. In addition to these responsibilities, Tim’s staff run and managed 911 support systems such as call recording, medical dispatching protocol software, CAD functionality and a statewide Emergency Notification System. In addition, Tim composes grant applications, and formal requests for proposals as well as manage programs and relationships with over a dozen 911 related vendors.

Lindsey Stepp has been Commissioner at the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration since December 2017, and previously served as Assistant Commissioner of the DRA as well as a Financial Analyst. Lindsey began her career at EY as an International Tax and Transfer Pricing Consultant. She received her Master of Business Administration degree from Plymouth State University and her Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

Data Scientist and Military Veteran with a Secret Security Clearance and offering almost 30 years of government service experienced in interpreting and analyzing data to drive growth. Proven ability to develop, implement and conduct comprehensive organizational quality assessments. Possess a comprehensive background in Project & Program Management, Business Development, Business Intelligence, Quality Assurance, and Data Analytics to improve corporate performance. Skilled in coordinating groups across internal and external agencies; this includes Programmers, Developer, and Quality Assurance to manage costs, schedules, and performance that delivered quality results. Possess extensive knowledge in instilling a culture of process improvement with change management to ensure standardization of quality service across various departments. An astute professional with an in-depth understanding of business strategies, processes with procedure compliance. Including a structured methodology to deploy necessary tools to have an opportunity to increase the rate of excellence.

Prof. Soroush Vosoughi leads the Minds, Machine, and Society group at Dartmouth, focusing on natural language processing, machine learning, and social media analytics. The group aims to make large language models (such as GPT models used for ChatGPT) more prosocial by addressing their anti-social tendencies, improving interpretability, and refining fine-tuning strategies. Their research also involves creating computational tools to examine social systems and issues, with recent work extending to health and bioinformatics applications. Prof. Vosoughi has received multiple awards, including the Google Research Scholar Award (2022) and Amazon Research Award (2019), and serves as a technical advisor to Public Mind. He has affiliations with various institutes at Dartmouth and was previously a postdoctoral associate at MIT and an affiliate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center. During his time at MIT, Prof. Vosoughi directed the "Electome" project and advised the nonprofit organization Cortico. He holds a Ph.D., MSc, and BSc from MIT.

Ken Weeks is the Chief Information Security Officer for the State of New Hampshire. He spent most of his adult life as a Naval Officer, Special Duty, Cryptology and Information Warfare, and retired as a CAPT (O6). Although most of his time was spent in the Pacific Theater, he also enjoyed several all-inclusive trips to Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. After the Navy, he worked as an Executive Leader of Cyber Operations at the National Security Agency (NSA). Ken spent a couple years in the private sector as a Consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton and then moved to New Hampshire and back into public service as the Department of IT Business Relationship Manager for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. Since he always works in rooms with no windows and under artificial lights, he spends the rest of his time as an avid four seasons outdoor sportsman with his spouse, teenagers and two Irish Wolfhounds.

David Wieters is the Director of Information Services for the Department of Health and Human Services sunce 2018. David moved to the Granite State from Tucson, Arizona where he spent 15+ years as an IT leader and public servant for the Pima County Government providing IT services to over 1 million citizens. His various roles and responsibilities included system/storage administrator, database administrator, business analyst, project manager, director of application development, system architect, data center manager, data strategist as well as the Deputy Director for Budget, Strategic Planning and Project Management.
David is a highly respected business innovator with a focus on developing agile, sustainable and scalable solutions for constituent and organizational problems. He is passionate about leveraging technology to drive business value, organizational change and collaboration. David’s favorite success stories are leading a team of system administrators to implement a virtualization first strategy to save the County over $19M in by reducing power, cooling and capital expenditures while still providing increased performance and services. Additionally in the last five years David has had the plasure of working with a mission driven matrixed information technology and services teams to deliver complex health care systems supporting Medicaid, Child Support, Behavioral Health, Public Health, 24/7 hospital services, Long Term Supports and Services, Children, Youth and Families, and Economic Stability. As a leader, David believes everyone’s voice is important, and that individual as well as business growth is attained through constant learning and change.
Most importantly, David is a dad to three children (his 14-year old son Brannon and two beautiful puppies – Bucky and Sparky!) and a husband to an amazing partner. He and his partner, Melissa, will celebrate their 24th wedding anniversary this summer. When not at work, you will find David outside snowboarding, boating, hiking or cycling with his family.