Disruptive DevSecOps

Rob Brown is currently the Chief Technology Officer at USCIS and former Integration Architect/Cloud Solutions Developer and EID Division Chief with USCIS. Rob has 20 years of experience providing technical, managerial and business development solutions to the IT industry. Rob has a thorough understanding of IT and business, leading to successful experiences in completing large scale IT deployments from the initial corporate IT strategy and vision to design, build and maintenance. Rob has been focusing on Domain Driven design, Event driven architecture and reactive micro services for the past 4 years. Rob has also been working to provide BizDevSecOps technical standards and governance at USCIS. He also has expertise in auditing, directing and managing corporate IT strategies for small to large sized commercial businesses. Additionally, Rob has a strong background in software development, health care, scientific research and biomedical industries. Rob holds a MS in Bioinformatics from George Mason University and a BS in Microbio/BioChem from Virginia Tech. He holds certifications from (ISC)2, ICAgile, ITIL, Fonality and Juniper. Prior to joining USCIS, Robert worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, Information Innovators, QSSI, V2 Systems, Ronin Tech Solutions, and American Red Cross.

Dave Catanoso has over 25 years of experience in fields ranging from database development, enterprise architecture design, and enterprise cloud solutions, contributing to a solid track record of success culminating in the overall growth of multiple technology initiatives. Mr. Catanoso led a cross-organizational team over three years to design and implement the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC), capable of hosting most of the VA’s applications. The VAEC is designed to be controlled by the VA and to accommodate all applications up to and including the FedRAMP High security level.

Prior to joining the VA in 2011, Mr. Catanoso worked in the private sector, serving in roles related to project management, strategic planning, and systems integration. He also served as a Signal Officer in the US Army. A native of New Jersey, Mr. Catanoso holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 2017 he completed the Senior Executive Fellows program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

He currently serves as the Acting Director of Cloud and Edge Solutions (CES) in Infrastructure Operations, which is part of Development, Security, and Operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. CES is responsible for coordinating IT products and services within VA’s Office of Information and Technology and provides specialized solutions that align with stakeholder requirements. Previously he was Director of VA’s Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office, overseeing the efficient migration to and utilization of cloud technology and leveraging cloud solutions for the benefit of VA customers and, ultimately, Veterans.

Colonel Charles L. Destefani is the Department of the Air Force Chief Data Office (SAF/CO) Chief Architect and AFMC Liaison Officer. He delivers innovative data analytics capabilities to reduce the decision cycle time across all Air Force warfighting domains and spearheads analytics initiatives in the Logistics, Information Technology communities, and PEOs under the Life Cycle Management Center.  He is responsible for establishing data strategy and reference architecture that encompass both Air and Space Forces in alignment with Federal Law and National Defense Strategy.  He facilitates the Data Architecture Working Group to enable Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning across all of the functional verticals, and drive technology and business process decisions to realize the CDO Vision of making data VAULT – Visible, Accessible, Understandable, Linked, and Trusted across the operational, ISR, Space, and Business System enterprises.

Amy Kluber is editor-in-chief of GovCIO Media & Research. Previously she managed two aviation publications at B2B media company Access Intelligence. She was nominated for The Innovation in Aerospace Journalism & Publishing Award for launching and hosting an aviation podcast. Prior to that she wrote news scripts and produced videos for the network Newsy. Follow Amy on Twitter: @amykluber

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Having traveled around the world since an early age, she grew up a U.S. Army brat born in Vicenza, Italy, and spent most of her youth living in Seoul, South Korea.

In her free time, you may find her at Disney World.

Lauren Knausenberger is CIO for the Department of the Air Force. Knausenberger leads three directorates: Enterprise Information Technology, Data and Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity. She supports 20,000 cyber operations and support personnel around the globe with a portfolio valued at $17 billion and provides oversight of the Air Force’s IT investment strategy. She also integrates warfighting and mission support capabilities by networking and securing air, space and terrestrial assets.

Knausenberger joined the Air Force in 2017 as chief transformation officer and director of cyberspace innovation to drive innovation across the Defense Department, speed adoption of emerging technologies, and create stronger partnerships between DOD, startups and the venture community. Prior to that, she held a number of roles in the private sector including at American Management Systems, CACI and most recently as founder and president of Accellint Inc., a consulting firm and venture partner with NextGen Angels. Accellint specialized in solving national security problems and investing in commercial technologies that could be applied to a government mission.

Mr. Schneider has served over 8 years with VA and has 20 years of experience in Information Technology in a variety of fields ranging from System Administration and Digital Automation to System Engineering.  Prior to his current role with VA, he worked as a System Administrator at the Financial Services Center in Austin, Texas.  In that capacity, Mr. Schneider helped propel the DevOps initiative where he setup and secured the infrastructure pipelines which transformed the way deployments were done for various applications.  He also played a key role supporting one of the largest applications at the facility and helped execute a variety of technical activities ranging from security processes, disaster recovery, and migrations of applications and infrastructure.

In his current position, he is a System Engineer for VA’s Infrastructure Operations, Platform Product Line.  His focus is on delivery of a DevSecOps platform to help clients leverage Infrastructure as Code (IAC) while easing the burden of security controls through secured containerized environments. Mr. Schneider currently leads the Enterprise Container Strategy Community of Practice (CoP), bringing together an array of VA technologist to help define standards for how platform and containers are managed at the VA, while providing space for knowledge sharing among different pockets of innovation across the VA. He is leading innovation making use of Knative technologies and helping promote application modernization.

Mr. Schneider is married with 2 children.  In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, hunting, foosball, sports, and woodworking.