State of Utah

Governor Gary R. Herbert took office in 2009 and is currently the nation’s longest-serving governor. During his time in office, he has kept a resolute focus on economic development, improving Utah’s educational excellence, and working today to guarantee that Utah will continue to maintain its high quality of life far into the future. Under his leadership, Utah’s economy has risen to a position of national and international success.
Governor Herbert was born and raised in Utah County, where he would eventually serve as a County Commissioner for 14 years. He attended Brigham Young University, served six years in the Utah National Guard (from 1970-1976), and started a successful real estate brokerage and development company, Herbert and Associates Incorporated.
He served as the past president of the Utah Association of Realtors and the past president of the Utah Association of Counties.
Governor Herbert has also served as chair of both the Western Governors Association and the National Governors Association. He currently serves as the national president for the Council of State Governments. Prior to becoming governor, he served as Utah’s lieutenant governor for five years.
Governor Herbert is most proud of his roles as husband, father, and grandfather. He has encouraged his children to “follow in his footsteps and marry up.” His wife, Jeanette Herbert, before becoming the First Lady of Utah, owned and operated a commercial child care and preschool, The Kids Connection, for 23 years. The First Lady’s initiative is called “Uplift Families.” The goal of this initiative is to promote good parenting skills, strengthen families, and offer resources to parents throughout the state.
Governor Herbert is tremendously proud of the successes of his wife, children, and grandchildren, and he is grateful to serve as the 17th Governor of the great State of Utah.

Michael Hussey was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Department of Technology Services in October 2015. As CIO, he is responsible for the administration and supervision of a dedicated IT workforce that provides innovative services to Utah agencies and residents.
Mike has led Utah in eGovernment to provide over 1,300 services online, modernized all mainframe applications, made developments for data center migration to cloud, and has created efficiencies through easy-to-use, accessible, and innovative government services. Mike currently serves as the Vice President of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.
Hussey started his IT career while attending the University of Utah working in the Marriott Library as a help desk assistant providing support to patrons of the computer lab. In 1995 Michael was hired in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget working as an integral member of the IT team serving the technology needs of Governor Leavitt. He has been with the Department of Technology Services since it was created in 2006.
Hussey attended Brigham Young University and the University of Utah. He completed numerous technology courses and received certificates in network administration during his time in the IT industry.
Hussey was born in West Covina, California and moved to Utah with his family at the age of 15. He and his wife are the parents of five children. He is a loyal University of Utah sports fan. Hussey has a passion for learning and enjoys staying current on emerging technologies.

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.

Teri Takai 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. 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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Phil Bates is the Chief Information Security Officer for the Department of Technology Services, State of Utah. He has been involved in Cyber Security for many years, as the IT Director for the Department of Public Safety Phil aided in the creation of the Utah Cyber Task Force. Phil began his career in Law Enforcement, retiring as a Lieutenant from the West Jordan Police Department. While at West Jordan, Phil directed the deployment of the first large-scale use of Commercial Mobile Data for Public Safety in the US.

Mark Evans has worked in public sector IT for 32 years. Mark’s current assignment is Director of Information Security for Salt Lake County. Salt Lake County is Utah’s largest with 1.2 million residents. The County has 6500 full-time or part-time employees. Mark and his team of seven security analysts protect the County’s IT systems and resources. Several other government entities contract with the County for IT services. Examples are the Unified Police Department of Salt Lake, Wasatch Front Waste and Recycling District, and Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District. Mark has been working in Information Security since 1998.

David Fletcher is currently the Chief Technology Officer of the State of Utah where he
oversees the State’s digital government initiatives and coordinates the introduction of new
innovation and the state’s technical architecture program. David has a long history of
involvement with technology initiatives, having previously served as director of the
state’s Division of Information Technology, Deputy CIO over egovernment, and Deputy
Director of the Utah Department of Administrative Services. During his tenure with the
State of Utah, he has promoted the use of technology to improve citizen and business
interaction with state government. Utah now offers over 1450 interactive online citizen
and business services through its award-winning portal, Utah.gov. Many of these
services have become the primary channel for service delivery. David has a Masters
Degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington.

James joined Pure in early 2016 and is a leader of the FlashArray Product Marketing organization. James is an experienced data center architect, systems engineer, product marketer, and technologist. He is passionate about disruptive technologies and brings a well-rounded perspective to the industry, with hands-on experience of the end-to-end data center stack.

Daniele Loffreda is senior advisor, Healthcare State/Local Government and Education (SLED) in Ciena’s Market Development organization. In this role he leads Ciena’s initiatives to apply next generation hardware, software and services networking technologies to help these sectors deliver better services to their constituents through digital transformation, optimized cloud strategies, virtualized infrastructure and improved data security.
Daniele has more than 20 years of experience helping customers leverage information, communications and technology solutions provide greater value, improve their operations and generate higher returns on network investments. He has been involved in smart city projects since 2014, he has been a speaker at smart city events and has published a number of articles and blog posts on network connectivity as a critical foundation of smart cities.

Corona Ngatuvai is the chief technical architect for Utah’s Department of Technology Services (DTS). Corona was introduced to public service at Utah’s Department of Health (DOH), where he implemented networks for various Utah health departments. Since joining DTS in 2006, he has led Utah’s migration to the cloud and assisted in developing/implementing enterprise initiatives.

As the 5G Innovation Architect in Verizon's Public Sector Product organization, Mr. Schweitzer’s focus is on developing pioneering architectures, integrated solutions and over the horizon applications for DoD, Federal, State and local agencies, as well as those which can benefit other facets of Verizon’s business organization. Working directly with customers to ideate, prototype, test and productize solutions that benefit from 5G architectures, this role permits exploration and the opportunity to Re-Define the Art of the Possible in ways that are only beginning to be imagined.
Mr. Schweitzer originated the concept of globally scaling the first Zero Trust Networking technology, known as Software Defined Perimeter. He has pioneered applications of emerging technologies spanning unmanned and autonomous systems, highly advanced communication and collaboration platforms, as well as numerous unconventional solutions for large scale disasters, terror threats, cyber threats and most recently the pandemic, COVID-19. From his creation of Operation Convergent Response, the world’s first immersive technology testing and demonstration event simulating real-world disaster situations, to leading disaster response support efforts at Mexico Beach, FL, ground zero for CAT 5 Hurricane Michael, his passion for innovation has been field proven in some of the most strenuous environments and under the harshest of conditions.
His passion for helping those who cannot help themselves serves as a driving force for innovation and is the key to his passion to contribute to making the world a better place.

Brett Stott is the general manager of NIC Utah (known previously as Utah Interactive), the state’s partner for digital services. He leads NIC’s 30-person Salt Lake City office that manages the state’s official website, Utah.gov, and delivers digital services on behalf of the State. Brett joined NIC (Nasdaq: EGOV) in 2000 and has served as a business development leader with direct sales, marketing, and proposal management expertise. In addition to his national enterprise business development experience, Brett has represented NIC as a frequent speaker at digital government events and served as a liaison to a variety of professional associations that support key decision-makers, including governors, chiefs of staff, secretaries of state, budget officials, and chief information officers. Most recently, Brett led NIC's strategic alliances and partnership program and spearheaded the effort to acquire the nation’s leading provider of cannabis licensing platforms.

Renee Tarun has over 20 years' experience in the cybersecurity and information technology fields with leadership experience in development and engineering, operations, strategy, policy, and portfolio management, across the intelligence community, law enforcement, and private industry. As Deputy CISO at Fortinet, she focuses on enterprise security, compliance and governance, and product security. Prior to joining Fortinet, she served as Special Assistant to the Director, National Security Agency (NSA), for Cyber and Director of NSA's Cyber Task Force, in which she advanced NSA's execution of its cybersecurity and cyber-related missions by overseeing resources; defining and integrating mission capabilities; and shaping agency strategy and national level policy at the White House. Renee is also a board member for the George Mason University Volgenau School of Engineering, creating synergy between the school and the professional community by addressing workforce development demands, industry expectations, and employment trends. She is married with two children.