Dave has been with the Department of Information Resources since 2006 and with the state since 2000. Before his state employment, Dave worked in automobile manufacturing and the military for ten years. In his current role, he helps manage the Texas.gov contract and focuses on financial and data analysis. He is also the point of contact for state and local government interest in using the Data.Texas.Gov open data portal. Prior to his current position, Dave managed the business intelligence section for DIR’s Cooperative Contracts Division.

Edward Block is an attorney and experienced information security professional primarily focused on how emerging law affects personal privacy at the State, Federal, and International Level. Mr. Block has built secure networks for government agencies and Fortune 50 companies; performed penetration tests; and managed technical teams performing all aspects of information security including identity management, certification and accreditation, network perimeter defense, and penetration testing. Mr. Block is experienced developing information security policies, standards, and guidelines that balance protection of information assets with legal and functional requirements for both public and private sector enterprises.

Mr. Block is a licensed member of the State Bar of Texas and admitted to the U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH).

Christopher Cyr is an Enterprise Cloud Architect at Oracle. With three decades of systems engineering and analysis, enterprise architecture and design, along with DoD experience, Christopher has held positions of leadership working on some of the largest programs in the nation. These include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Special Operations Forces Aircrew Training System, and NASA Space Operations Space Shuttle and International Space Station. He served as a member of Air Force Special Operations for 13 years which led him to be a founding designer of the first Joint Special Ops Air Operations Center. His experience is applied now towards assisting Oracle’s customers making the pivot to cloud architectures throughout all of the phases of cloud integration and development.

Edie Rozier is an Executive in IBM’s Smarter Workforce practice. With over 20 years of leadership experience, Edie consults with executive leaders across all industries in the United States on workforce and business analytics. Additionally, Edie was Regional Director with Kenexa/IBM in their Survey, Assessment, and Leadership Development practices.
Prior to joining IBM, Edie spent over 20 years in broadcast media including owning a Radio Station and as a Regional Vice President at Westwood One, a CBS company.

Raymond M. Elwell is the Markey Advisory Program Manager for Workday, Inc., a provider of enterprise cloud applications for human capital management (HCM), payroll, financial management and analytics. Prior to joining Workday, Mr. Elwell was the Deputy Chief Financial Officer at the City of Orlando, Florida for over ten years. His responsibilities at the City included overseeing accounting, budget, procurement, treasury, fleet/ facility, and information technology. Mr. Elwell also served as Orlando’s Project Manager for the implementation of Workday HCM and financials, the first such implementation in a local government.
Before joining the City Mr. Elwell served Anne Arundel County, Maryland in various financial and budget positions for seventeen years, concluding that service as an Assistant Budget Officer. Mr. Elwell holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Loyola University Maryland and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Baltimore. Mr. Elwell is a Certified Public Accountant.

Elizabeth Frisch is a business performance consultant to Fortune – 1000 companies, government agencies, cities, non-profits and the U.S. military. She is a graduate of Purdue University holding a degree in Chemical Engineering. In 2002, after the birth of her first child, she was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases, a failing thyroid, 140 pounds overweight, and trying to help her son who was diagnosed with various disorders. Through that experience, Elizabeth realized she was going in the wrong direction with her career and that ‘you can’t engineer humans’. She quit her job, lost 100 pounds, put both diseases into remission, launched her company, and cross-trained in psychology, health, organizational development and business transformation. Fast forward 14 years, and she is now an author, keynote speaker, high performance business consultant and the Founder and CXO of The Thrival Company, a women-owned business working globally (www.thrivalcompany.com) helping clients make their big ideas happen.

Polly Gifford joined Evolve Data Center Solutions, Inc. (EDCS) in 2016 to work with transport providers within the Houston market to provide a Next Generation Cloud Onramp and Infrastructure solution to the metro area. EDCS is a leader in Data Center design/build, maintenance, monitoring, fire protection, power generation, colocation and connectivity for Data Centers.
Polly Gifford founded and grew a premier technology consulting firm, EPS, Inc. specializing in fiber and Internet infrastructure design solutions and quality implementations in 1996. Through EPS, Inc., Polly has provided successful advanced technology WLAN, LAN, WAN, MAN, Internet, Data Center and IP-based managed service models and design solutions for her clients for over 20 years. In 2011, EPS, Inc. led the dialog to update the original fiber networks of the 90s to redesigning to meet the needs of the next generation of technology and leverage the now approved erate funding for fiber based networks. The extension of the client on premise physical data center to the carrier neutral data center (CNDC) as an onramp to the cloud was the natural progression of the service.
Due to EDCS knowledge, business models, services and success in meeting the market needs, Polly joined EDCS to provide the models and solutions for the fundamental cloud infrastructure to support the holistic data center solutions of the next 3 – 5 years. Polly has been instrumental in building a regional network model in the Houston market for SLED to deliver advanced transport and cloud service highways to support the data center of the future.

Mr. Guerra has over twenty years of experience in sales and engineering bringing compelling data-center technologies to government entities, helping them reduce costs, simplify operations, and improve service levels to their customers. He works closely with Nutanix clients to help them eliminate the inefficiencies and high costs of legacy 3-Tier infrastructure for virtual environments and to beat public cloud performance in their data centers.
Prior to Nutanix Mr. Guerra founded Austin based software company Electrivant, managed VMware SLED sales in Texas and ran worldwide sales for StoredIQ (acquired by IBM 12’).
He has delivered presentations to the Texas Legislature as a subject-matter expert on information security, identity protection, and data storage regulatory compliance - in support of proposed legislation. Mr. Guerra holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering.

John Hoffman serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the Texas Department of Information Resources. He is responsible for providing comprehensive strategic planning for the agency. John oversees DIR's IT leadership in planning and policy, accessibility, and enterprise solution services.
John brings over 25 years of experience in wired and wireless telecommunications, having held positions in network operations and integration, field operations, program management, sales, and real estate. Most recently John was Director of DIR's Communications Technology Services (CTS) where he had management responsibility of the statewide telecommunications network and contracts including the Capitol Complex Telephone System. During this assignment John focused on providing thought leadership, technical support, competitive environments and enabling innovative solutions to state agencies and other DIR customers.
John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Management from the University of Missouri and a Master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University.

Todd Hoffman leads PwC’s Human Resource Services practice and has over 25 years of HR and financial experience. Seasoned as both an HR executive and a consultant, he has significant experience in designing and delivering organizational effectiveness, HR effectiveness and talent management solutions, including organizational design, leadership development and customer satisfaction programs. Todd spent the last ten years on the Human Capital Executive Team for the PwC US and Global firm, where he had responsibilities for all functional areas of HR. He specifically helped re-engineer the compensation and performance management process and helped lead a team that designed a shared service model in both the US and Global firm. He also restructured the recruiting programs for campus and experienced hires as well as the performance development management process. Todd received his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Lamar University.

Shannon is currently Manager of Enterprise Contract Management at the Department of Information Resources, where she has worked since 2007. She oversees the contract managers for several major programs including Texas.gov, Data Center Services and TEX-AN, as well as the internal contracts for the agency.
Shannon has worked for the State of Texas for more than 20 years. She previously managed contracts at DIR and served as subject matter expert for cloud services. Prior to her work at DIR, Shannon worked variously as the Director of Surplus Property at the Texas Facilities Commission, as a contract manager with the Council on Competitive Government, and as a business planner at the Texas Department of Insurance.

Tony is Senior Enterprise Security Architect for Akamai Technologies. With over 15 years of Information Security industry experience Tony works with Akamai clients to provide security guidance, architectural analysis and web application security expertise. Tony has worked and consulted in many verticals including finance, medical/healthcare, enterprise, and mobile applications. He is currently responsible for supporting public sector clients as well the training of an Akamai internal group whose focus is on Web Application Security disciplines. Tony’s previous responsibilities include managing security operations for a mobile payments company, and overseeing security and compliance responsibilities for a global financial software services organization. When he is not working with Akamai clients or traveling, Tony can be found spending time with his wife and children in Dallas, TX.

For the past decade, Rebecca has managed digital and customer consulting for Public Sector clients who seek to provide better services and experiences for their citizens and employees. She has supported local governments to large federal agencies as they launch of a number of groundbreaking applications, including an application named by Time Magazine as one of the top inventions of 2008. Rebecca has experience overseeing and advising on all aspects of digital government, from strategy to development, design to change management, risk management to marketing. She has a B.A. from University of Maryland and a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University, where her research focused on the use of mobile technology to increase consumer access to financial institutions.

Miller is Director, Public Sector Workflow and Business Process Automation Solutions for Xerox Large Enterprise Operations – US. He is responsible for the delivery of workflow automation solutions to Xerox Public Sector customers. Xerox provides solutions to improve document intensive businesses processes leveraging professional consulting and technologies such as document scanning, intelligent capture, enterprise content management, workflow automation software and integration with ERP and custom systems. Xerox Public Sector workflow solutions reduce process complexity, improve responsiveness to constituents and lower overall processing costs for our Public Sector customers.

Tim first joined IBM in 1995 as an industry solutions consultant. He came to the company after his college years studying international relations along with deterrence theory and nuclear war gaming. He has spent 18 years at IBM in numerous leadership roles spanning strategy, solution sales and solution portfolio management teams.
Tim now serves as the Worldwide Government Leader for the IBM Cognitive Solutions Team which is focused on helping government agencies around the world harness cognitive analytics to transform operating models and optimize the business of government. Tim has had the honor of working personally with 100’s of government agencies both in the United States and abroad, at the national, provincial and local levels. He is passionate about enabling governments for the first time with the ability to create insight and apply learning across vast streams and sources of data - with speed.
While fluent in all segments and levels of government, Tim also has a particular dedication in helping public safety, emergency management, intelligence and defense agencies harness information as a strategic asset for protecting the societies they serve.
Tim has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in Government, with a specialization in international deterrence and war gaming. He is a member of the IBM Industry Academy since 2013. Tim is also a nationally certified fire rescue instructor, and recently retired from 15 years on the thin red line as a firefighter in Simsbury, CT, where he achieved a terminal rank of captain.
Tim lives in Connecticut with his wife Angela, three children, and their Labrador retriever. He is also an avid mountain biker and fly fisherman.

Bobby Pounds - Bobby has 24 years of experience in state government, including previous work in compliance with the Texas Education Agency and subsequently as a Program Administrator in Operations and Contract Management with the Texas Workforce Commission. He came to the Comptroller of Public Accounts in 2008 as the Team Lead of the TPASS Contract Management Office and in April 2014 was promoted to Assistant Director of TPASS. As Assistant Director, he oversees all of statewide procurement and contract management, including oversight of the state's HUB program, the TxSmartbuy online purchasing portal, state mail services, the state's Training & Certification program, the State Travel and P-Card program, and the Cooperative Purchasing program, all housed within TPASS. He holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds certifications as a Certified Texas Procurement Manager (CTPM) and Certified Texas Contract Manager (CTCM).

Jacob Pugh is the manager of the Legislative Budget Board's Contracts Oversight Team, tasked with identifying and mitigating risk in the contracting process in Texas. In this role, he oversees the contract oversight function of the LBB, including managing the contracts database and providing outreach and training to state agencies regarding contract reporting, and providing policy recommendations on contracting matters.
He has a Bachelor’s degree from Macalester College in Minnesota, a Law degree from the University of Minnesota and an MBA from the University of Texas. Prior to assuming his current duties, he spent 3 years at the Texas Military Department, and 12 years as an Active Duty Air Force Judge Advocate. He is currently an officer in the US Air Force Reserve, and holds certifications as a Certified Texas Contract Manager (CTCM) and Project Management Professional (PMP).

As the SLED Chief Technologist for Hewlett Packard Enterprise in the Central US, Karen has spent the past 6 years in the public sector in various capacities, and brings the latest HP innovation and solutions to this unique set of customers.
Prior to joining HP Karen spent 10 years in the Hosting industry as Chief Architect with 15,000+ HP servers in 7 datacenters supporting over 1% of all Internet websites. She focused the organization’s strategy on hosting virtualization solutions based on VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, Solaris and Xen based cloud environments.
Karen has spent the last 20 years in technology as an engineer/architect and has held the following certifications: Converged Infrastructure MASE, Network Infrastructure MASE, Wireless MASE, Security ASE, VCP3,4, 5, and VCP-NV, CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP. She is a member of the global network ambassadors team where she works with the worldwide Hewlett Packard Enterprise R&D and Executive teams.

Jesse Romine has been working in the Cloud technology industry for over a decade with specific focus on Open Data in Government for the last three years. Jesse is certified by the Open Data Institute for Open Data in Practice and is an ODI Learning Associate. Jesse has worked with dozens of large Cities, Counties, and States across the US to implement Open Data policies and programs as well as governments in Mexico, Latin America, South America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As a Director at Socrata, Jesse is currently responsible for strategic relationships within the States of California, Montana, and Texas. Prior to Socrata, Jesse was employed at Oracle Corporation, RightNow Technologies, Microsoft Business Solutions, and Great Plains Software. Jesse attended Concordia College in Moorhead, MN where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in Economics with minors in Business and Religion.

Edie Rozier is an Executive in IBM’s Smarter Workforce practice. With over 20 years of leadership experience, Edie consults with executive leaders across all industries in the United States on workforce and business analytics. Additionally, Edie was Regional Director with Kenexa/IBM in their Survey, Assessment, and Leadership Development practices.
Prior to joining IBM, Edie spent over 20 years in broadcast media including owning a Radio Station and as a Regional Vice President at Westwood One, a CBS company.

Sally Ward serves as Director of the Data Center Services Program at the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR). Sally’s experience in information technology and government contracting spans 30 years and includes both public and private industry. As an applications development Systems Engineer, Sally spent 20 years with EDS in leadership roles managing Medicaid and Medicare outsourced systems, including Chief Information Officer and Chief Operations Officer roles. Sally also served as a Senior Research Analyst with the Comptroller of Public Accounts specializing in IT contracting and public health care issues. Sally is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with degrees in Mathematics and Business.

Sandra Woodruff is Assistant Director of the Fiscal Management Division at the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, overseeing Fiscal Integrity, Statewide Fiscal Services and Statewide Fiscal Systems Departments. She also serves as the executive sponsor of ProjectONE — the effort to implement Enterprise Resource Planning for the state of Texas.
During her 31-year career with the state, Woodruff has worked on the statewide financial systems in various leadership capacities. She led the strategic direction of the Comptroller’s statewide financial and payroll/personnel systems; served as the business/project manager of ProjectONE; directed staff in the planning and implementation of desktop, Web and mainframe systems; and managed communications for the division.
Woodruff has an Associate of Arts degree in behavioral sciences and a Bachelor of Arts in business, with a minor in human resource management from Concordia University, and is a 2014 Texas Fiscal Officers’ Academy graduate.

Tim Zeimann is the CISO at Texas NIC. He is focused on identifying and analyzing risks and implementing technologies and controls in compliance with PCI DSS and other regulatory controls. With more than ten years of experience in Information Security, Tim has applied his skills across the financial services, defense, and healthcare industries before coming to Texas.gov.