Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Whether as a business owner or governor, Tom Wolf is a leader consistently taking on the status quo and trying to help middle class families. Tom is a different kind of leader, and he has been a different kind of governor.
Before he was governor, Tom was the owner of the Wolf Organization, a distributor of lumber and other building products. Tom bought this family business and grew the company — eventually more than quintupling the business in size. He did this with smart leadership and by treating his employees fairly, even sharing the company’s profits with workers.
Since he took office in 2015, Tom has fought to change Harrisburg. On day one, his first actions as governor were signing a gift ban prohibiting administration employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists and reforming legal contracting to end pay to play. Tom also donates his entire salary to charity and refuses a state pension.
When Tom took office, he inherited an education system that had been cut by one billion dollars that led to teacher layoffs, cuts to programs like pre-k and tutoring, and larger class sizes. Rather than make Pennsylvania’s children the first casualty of the budget process, Tom made our children and our future our top priority. He has now restored the one billion dollar cut to education made in the previous administration, leading to improved graduation rates and more children in pre-k.
By expanding Medicaid, Tom provided quality, affordable health care to 720,000 Pennsylvanians. He has also given more than 50,000 seniors the opportunity to age in their homes and made Pennsylvania a national leader in fighting the opioid and heroin epidemic by expanding treatment options and ensuring law enforcement and first responders have the resources they need.
Tom is working to grow our economy by making it easier for small businesses to start and expanding career and technical education opportunities. He is fighting to make sure wages keep up with the cost of living, focusing on skills training for kids who do not go to college, helping small businesses, and rebuilding Pennsylvania’s infrastructure.

John MacMillan was appointed as Deputy Secretary for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer for the commonwealth in March 2015.
John brings more than three decades of IT industry expertise to the CIO’s office. During his career, John has developed experience in areas including application development, system integration, data center operations and facility management, as well as knowledge of statewide programs including public health, education, transportation, rehabilitation/corrections, youth services, tax collection and enterprise ERP.
John graduated in Computer Technology / Computing Science from Algonquin College. He has held a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification since 1998, and earned his Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM) from the Stanford Center for Professional Development in 2009. John is ITIL Foundations certified. He and his wife have two sons.

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.

Prior to Governor Kelly’s appointment as Secretary of Administration, Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace served as the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies at the University of Kansas. Dr. Burns-Wallace started her career as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) with the U.S. Department of State. Dr. Burns-Wallace has been selected for various leadership opportunities, awards and honors throughout her higher ed and government career, including the 2018 White House Champions of Change College Opportunity, and earning a Superior Honor and three Meritorious Honor awards from the U.S. State Department. Dr. Burns-Wallace serves as a national trainer and curriculum developer for various national professional development organizations, non-profits, and higher ed institutions on issues ranging including micro-aggressions, multigenerational workplace differences, diversity and inclusion, change management, professional development pathways, and strategic planning. Service is also a cornerstone of her journey. Dr. Burns-Wallace currently serves on Stanford University’s Board of Governors, and has previously held board roles in numerous local, regional, and national organizations, and international selection committees including Gates Millennium Scholars, Dell Foundation Scholars, and Rhodes, Marshall, and Fulbright fellowships. Dr. Burns-Wallace holds a dual bachelor’s degree in International Relations and African American studies from Stanford University, a Master in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

Over 34 years of John Alwine’s career have been in IT Management, Consulting and Leadership roles. Mr. Alwine has a long history of collaborative partnering to deliver sustainable results for clients within the Public and Private sector around the world. He currently leads the Unisys Public Sector for Pennsylvania Region. A life-long resident of the Harrisburg area, he is actively involved in improving the technology sector growth in Central Pennsylvania.

Kannan Arunachalam has more than 24 years of experience as an IT professional with an established record in Account Management, IT Service Management, Project Management, System Study, Design, Development, and Implementation. Kannan holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani, India. His current role as Business Relationship Manager at Unisys entails managerial and technical leadership with Public Sector customer success focused business relationship and account management.

Erik was named Chief Information Security Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2010. He is responsible for the information security strategy, governance, technical standards, security policies, risk management, compliance, and cyber-incident response across the commonwealth. Prior to his appointment, Erik served as Deputy Chief Information Security Officer for the Commonwealth since 2007. Erik joined the Commonwealth in October 2005 as an IT consultant and technical architect for the Enterprise Security Auditing and Monitoring initiative. The tremendous success of the project helped Pennsylvania win the 2007 award for outstanding achievement in information technology by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and finalist recognition for the NASCIO 2008 Recognition Awards for Pennsylvania’s Security Incident Response Process. Erik leads a highly successful group of information security professionals. In 2009, his team won the ISE Mid-Atlantic Project of the Year award for "Safeguarding Citizen Data" and in 2011 were the winners of the GovTech award for “Outstanding Leadership and Innovation”. In 2015, Avakian was named by GovTech as one of the top 10 Influencers in Government. Erik received a Top 50 in CyberSecurity from StateScoop in 2018 and was recently named a Top 25 Doer, Dreamer& Driver from GovTech in 2019. Erik has assembled a vast array of experience and expertise in areas of security strategy and design, architecture, risk assessment, policy, compliance, incident response and forensic investigations, and has led numerous enterprise initiatives in areas including intrusion detection, security information and event management, data protection, and automated incident response. Erik holds numerous industry certifications including Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA), and is a Certified Government Chief Information Officer (CGCIO). He is an Executive Board member for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a member of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Security & Privacy Committee, and the Pennsylvania State Fusion Center.

Jonathan Benett is an IT business and digital experience leader with over 20 years of experience in mission modernization through IT transformation in the public sector. He is currently the Technical Director for Digital Government Solutions at Adobe. Prior to Adobe, he spent ten years as a public servant in various leadership roles in government including the Chief Enterprise Architect for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the IT Program Manager for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP), and the PMO Director for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, preceded by ten years of successful experience in private industry.

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.

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.

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.

Sean E. Crager was named the Chief Technology Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in February 2019.
Sean participates in the development and execution of the commonwealth’s information technology strategic plan. Sean has specialized in leading modernization efforts for the organizations he serves and has developed nationally recognized software that has been adopted and implemented by numerous states and universities.
Prior to this role, Sean served as the CIO of the Commonwealth of PA’s Conservation and Environment Delivery Center, CIO of the PA Department of Environmental Protection, CIO of Franklin County, PA, Assistant CIO of the PA Liquor Control Board, Director of Enterprise Strategic Technology Services of the PA Office of Administration, and CIO of the PA Department of Agriculture.
Sean graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Geoenvironmental Studies at Shippensburg University with a certificate in Geospatial Technologies and earned his Master Certificate in Information Systems and Technology Project Management from Villanova University. Sean is ITIL Foundations certified and earned his Certified Government Chief Information Officer qualification from Harrisburg University. Sean is a veteran of the United States Navy where he served honorably as an Operations Specialist (Fleet Marine Force) attached to Tactical Air Control Squadron Eleven in San Diego, CA.

David Egts is the Chief Technologist of Red Hat’s North America Public Sector organization where he directs a global team of technical experts and field product management to help government clients improve service delivery the open source way. The Office of Chief Technologist, which he leads, adds value to flagship Red Hat technologies such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift, and Linux containers. His team helps Red Hat achieve ideal product-market fit by ensuring current and future government requirements are factored into existing products and R&D efforts with a focus on security, compliance, standards, efficiency, and technological improvements. The government readiness activities performed by his team positively impacts public and private sector organizations in the US and internationally with a particular focus on Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK.
David’s dynamic outward-facing role as a coalition builder reinforces and expands Red Hat’s relations with key government and open source community stakeholders nationally and internationally. He is a trusted Red Hat media spokesperson whose deep technical dives, C-suite policy discussions, and keynote speaker abilities enhance Red Hat’s technical reputation and positioning.
David received industry-wide recognition as a FedScoop 50 Industry Leadership awardee and a finalist for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards. He is a Red Hat Chairman's Award recipient and has won multiple highest employee honors from previous employers Silicon Graphics and Concurrent Technologies Corporation. He is a past Co-Chair on the Board of Directors for the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Software & Services Division (SSD) and is an active member of the Agile Government Leadership Association and the AFCEA DC Emerging Technologies Working Group. David is a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) and a three-time graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS and MS in Computer Science and an Executive MBA (Katz Graduate School of Business).
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidegts/

Tony Encinias is a Chief Strategist and Innovation officer for State
and Local Government for the Mid-Atlantic region and joined Dell
Technologies in October of 2019. Prior to joining Dell Technologies, Tony was the Vice President of Technology for ViON Corporation. Prior to his role with ViON, Tony was the Chief Technology Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and later appointed by Governor Corbett to serve as the Deputy Secretary for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer for the Commonwealth.
Tony is a well-respected and sought after thought leader for large scale technology operations, digital transformation and cyber security. Tony is a retired United States Naval Officer, with over 25 years’ experience in Information Technology management with the Department of Defense (DoD), state government and private sector. During Tony’s distinguished military career he served in leadership roles for the Space and
Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) and for the Department of the Navy, Chief Information Officer. In his final military assignment, he served dual roles as the SAS 70 Program Director with the Defense Information Systems Agency and as the Executive Officer of the Defense Enterprise Computing Center, Mechanicsburg.
Tony was honored with Government Technology's Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers, Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders and State Scoop’s State Executive of the Year awards.
Tony earned a Masters degree in Information Technology Management from the United States Naval Postgraduate School, a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from the University of Colorado, a Masters Certificate in Project Management from the George Washington University, a Federal CIO Certification through Carnegie Mellon University and is a member of Drexel University’s MIS advisory board.

Charlie Gerhards is the founder of the Government Technology Institute (GTI) at Harrisburg University Science and Technology and serves as its Executive Director. GTI provides management and leadership education to IT Leaders from the public and private sectors. He also is the president of Gerhards Consulting Group, LLC.
Before starting Gerhards Consulting in 2003, Charlie served as the Governor’s Secretary of Administration, as well as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was appointed to this post by Governor Tom Ridge in January 1999 and served under both governors Ridge and Mark Schweiker. He retired from the Commonwealth in January 2003 after 34 years of public service.
In 2002, Charlie was recognized with the “Public Official of the Year” award, which is presented annually by Governing magazine. In March 2003, he was named by Government Technology magazine as one of the “Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers” in public service.
Charlie is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University and served many years as an Advisory Board member for Penn State’s acclaimed College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST).

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).

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.

Amy Marchibroda is the Regional Vice President for DocuSign's State and Local team, which supports the largest customers in the Eastern part of the United States. During this time she has helped countless State and Local entities streamline their business processes to save time, reduce risk, and provide better services to constituents and government employees. Throughout Amy's career, she has also provided services to State and Local entities, while working for Microsoft and Salesforce.

Joseph Morris is vice president of Research and a national keynote speaker on issues, trends and drivers impacting state and local government and education. He has authored publications and reports on funding streams, technology investment areas and public-sector priorities, and has led roundtables, projects and initiatives focused on issues within the public sector. Joe has conducted state and local government research with e.Republic since 2007 and knows the ins and outs of government on all levels. He received his Bachelor of Arts in government and international relations from the California State University, Sacramento.

PN Narayanan serves as the Deputy State Treasurer and Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Treasury Department, which is responsible for over 20 million annual payment transactions worth more than $110 billion. With more than 25 years of international experience across the public and private sectors, Narayanan has demonstrated exceptional skills and leadership in all aspects of information technology. In his role as the Chief Information Officer of the Pennsylvania Treasury Department, Narayanan has been responsible for a multiyear, agency wide IT modernization and transformation program that fundamentally transformed the way the agency conducts business, greatly improving operational efficiency and security. PA Treasury’ s Transparency program is a winner of the 2018 CIO 100 award and the 2018 Digital Edge 50 award.

Before joining Treasury, Narayanan led the transformation of the State of Delaware’s financial systems through his successful management of Delaware’s ERP Financial and Human Capital Management upgrade project. Prior to that, he served in multinationals in Europe and Asia Pacific. He is an Electronics and Communication Engineer with an MBA, and is a certified Project Management Professional.

Destah is a technology and innovation enthusiast with a career built around driving business disruption, customer advocacy and connecting good ideas and good people. A veteran of several of the smallest Silicon Valley Startups as well as some of the biggest behemoths, he has picked up enough knowledge and information to be relatively dangerous. From his humble beginnings as an Electrical Engineer he has touched the data networking, wireless data, and machine learning technologies as a customer facing evangelist and problem solver.
When using his powers for good, he is identifying emerging technologies and finding synergistic solutions for customers and professional colleagues. The latest shiny objects to have caught his fancy are XR (mixed reality), Cybersecurity, and IoT/Smart City technologies.

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.

Michael Sage is the Chief Information Officer for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP), where he provides services to county government and serves as a voice for Pennsylvania counties. Prior to joining CCAP in 2019, Michael was with the Commonwealth of PA for over 15 years. During that time, he served in various roles including Chief Security Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Department of Labor & Industry. He also served as Chief Technology Officer for the Employment, Banking, and Revenue Delivery Center. Michael is passionate about collaborating, strategizing and fostering relationships across all levels of government. He has lead reorganizations, budget analysis, shared service implementations, security initiatives, strategic planning, technology and application modernizations, service optimization, and many other strategic and operational initiatives.

Ellen Strom was named Chief Accessibility Officer for the commonwealth in January 2020.
In this role, Ellen is focused on ensuring that the state’s digital content is accessible to its citizens and employees alike. She works with state agencies to define best practices, design and implement strategies to educate and influence organizational culture, improve procurement processes and organize communities of practice.
Ellen has been in the digital customer experience field for more than 15 years. For the past seven years, she concentrated on designing and implementing a digital program to improve the web and mobile banking experiences for customers with disabilities. She is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC).
Ellen earned a master’s degree in business administration from the American University in Washington, DC and a bachelor’s degree in French and German from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She spent two of her undergraduate years in study abroad programs at the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France and Phillips Universität in Marburg, Germany.

Teri Takai is 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.

Adam Thornton brings a diverse professional background with a heavy focus on a human-centered approach to business. A 15-year professional career spanning both the public and private sector, Adam Thornton made a career transition from a Reality TV Casting Producer in Los Angeles to begin contributing meaningful change in the digital government space. A key member in the successful NIC Oregon startup in 2012 and NIC Pennsylvania startup in 2014, Adam Thornton has established a career on building executive-level consensus, fostering team and cross-Agency collaboration, while advocating for citizen-centricity in digital government modernization. As General Manager of PAI, Adam Thornton guides a shared digital strategy and promotes a positive work culture that translates to improved customer and citizen experiences.

Gabriel Whalen is a principal field solution architect within CDW’s information security practice. Previously, Gabriel worked in the national intelligence and security community as a counterintelligence subject matter expert, addressing traditional and emerging threat landscapes.
He also worked in the private sector, providing enterprise security assessments to customers in a variety of industries, including healthcare, energy, manufacturing and consulting services. Gabriel is one of several recipients of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center’s Supply Chain Protection Award, as well as a graduate of CERT’s Insider Threat Program Manager course. He is also a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP). Gabriel obtained his master’s degree in forensic psychology from Argosy University in 2010 and lives with his family near Washington, D.C.

AICP, GISP is the Chief Information Officer for the City of Philadelphia and director of the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT). Under his leadership OIT has released the SmartCityPHL Roadmap and the city’s first IT Strategic Plan created with public engagement and has adopted modular procurement and user-centered design practices and expanded cyber security services. Mark previously served as Deputy CIO and Chief Geographic Information Officer and oversaw the release of public web tools Atlas, OpenMaps, and Vacancy to visualize and use City property data. Throughout his career Mark has pursued a passion for civic engagement and data-driven problem solving. He is a Citizens Planning Institute Advisory Board member and co-creator of the Neighbors Helping Neighbors Project and Citizens Toolkit. Mark has previously worked as a GIS and planning consultant for state, local and regional governments in New York State and New England. He has a master’s in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts.

Tom Yeatts is an experienced IT executive with a proven track record of delivering results. Before joining ServiceNow as SLED CTO, Tom served as deputy CIO for Howard County, MD. His responsibilities included designing the architecture and delivering IT projects in support of the county’s vision to connect its citizens and workforce on a secure and stable environment. Tom graduated from Virginia Tech and resides in Maryland.