Elizabeth B. Armstrong is the chief executive officer of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM). She ensures that the association supports its members in developing emergency management policy, as well as in providing leadership in the development and improvement of local emergency management programs. She also is the chief staff executive for the National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials and for the National Association of Government Communicators. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing from the College of William and Mary and a Masters of Association Management from George Washington University. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame for International Women in Homeland Security and Emergency Management in 2012.

Robert Boyd was formerly an executive at several education nonprofits, including Donorschoose.org, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Community Education Building in Delaware, where he led the $26 million conversion of an 11-story office building into a state-of-the-art campus for charter schools. It has been heralded as the safest building in Wilmington as well as one of the safest schools in the nation. In addition to his role as chief of staff to a senior congressman, he also previously worked in the New York City Mayor’s Office and was public safety chairman for University Park, Texas. He holds degrees from Brown, Harvard, and Southern Methodist universities and can be reached at rboyd@secureschoolsalliance.org

Rodger Clark is a senior mission assurance analyst at the Army Installation Management Command, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas. He retired from the U.S. Army after 28 years as a military police officer. He has served in police and operational positions in emergency management for over 25 years. In his final assignment in the Army, he served as the sergeant major for the deputy commanding general at U.S. Army North, Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.  He was integrally involved with Army North’s mission for the Defense of the Homeland, Support to Civil Authorities, and Theater Support and Cooperation. He has served in positions of increasing responsibility and leadership intensity: from division operations sergeant major, sergeant major at the United States Army Military Police School, battalion and company operations noncommissioned officer, first sergeant, division antiterrorism officer, physical security inspector, nonlethal weapons instructor, and emergency manager. He has a B.A. in criminal justice, M.A. in emergency and disaster management, Ph.D. (all but dissertation) in public policy specializing in homeland security. He can be reached via email at: rodger.k.clark@gmail.com

Michael E. Cox Jr. is a 33-year veteran of the fire service and currently serves as a faculty member at the University of Maryland’s Fire and Rescue Institute, where he works on the Institute’s Management Team. He began his fire service career as a volunteer at age 16, joined the Anne Arundel County Fire Department (Maryland) as a career employee in 1988, and advanced to become the 10th Fire Chief of Anne Arundel County, where he led 1,400 personnel until his retirement in December 2014. Dedicated to serving others, he promotes a “Citizens First” model that emphasizes fiscal prudency, data analysis, innovation, and consensus building to ensure effective/efficient services. He holds an associate’s degree in emergency medical service field, a bachelor’s degree in fire science, and a master’s degree in executive fire service leadership. A nationally registered emergency medical technician paramedic, he is a state-certified emergency services instructor and graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program. He also was designated Chief Fire Officer by the National Center for Public Safety Excellence and is a graduate of the Leadership Anne Arundel Program and current member of the 2017 Leadership Maryland Program. He can be reached at: mec568@verizon.net​

Vincent B. Davis, CEM, is founder of Preparedness Matters Disaster Consulting. Prior to launching his company in January 2017, he was senior preparedness manager for Sony Interactive Entertainment. Before joining Sony, he was program manager of emergency preparedness and response for Walgreens Co. Following his career in the U.S. Air Force and Illinois National Guard, with 23 years in military public affairs, he served as: external affairs and community relations manager at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); regional preparedness manager for the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago; and private sector consultant to the Illinois-Indiana-Wisconsin Regional Catastrophic Planning Team. He holds certifications as an Illinois Professional Emergency Manager and FEMA Professional Continuity Practitioner, and is a member of the International Association of Emergency Managers Children’s Caucus and a lifetime member of the Black Emergency Managers Association. He authored, “Lost And Turned Out, A Guide To Preparing Underserved Communities For Disasters,” and recently authored the Native Family Disaster Preparedness Handbook. He also is emergency supply solutions consultant to Ready America, and principle partner in PrepWorld LLC, creators of the PrepBiz Disaster Preparedness Education APP for children. He can be reached via his website at www.preparednessmatters.net

Fiona Gettinger is a public affairs professional with an international background. She is currently a communications associate with CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization located in Arlington, Virginia. In addition to defense-related matters for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, CNA’s research portfolio includes policing, homeland security, climate change, water resources, education, and air traffic management. She has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of New Hampshire. She can be reached via email at gettingerf@cna.org.

Kay C. Goss, CEM®, is president of World Disaster Management, U.S. president of The International Emergency Management Society, president of the Council on Accreditation of Emergency Management Education. She is also part-time faculty online and Go-To-Meeting, as well as in person, in the Executive Master’s Program in Crisis and Emergency Management at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and in the Graduate Program in Emergency Management and Homeland Security at Metropolitan College of New York. Previous positions include: executive in residence at the University of Arkansas; senior principal and senior advisor of emergency management and continuity programs at SRA International (2007-2011); senior advisor of emergency management, homeland security, and business security at Electronic Data Systems (2001-2007); associate Federal Emergency Management Agency director in charge of national preparedness, training, and exercises, appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton and confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate (1993-2001); senior assistant to the governor for intergovernmental relations, Governor William Jefferson Clinton (1982-1993); chief deputy state auditor at the Arkansas State Capitol (1981-1982); project director at the Association of Arkansas Counties (1979-1981); research director at the Arkansas State Constitutional Convention, Arkansas State Capitol (1979); project director of the Educational Finance Study Commission, Arkansas General Assembly, Arkansas State Capitol (1977-1979).

Stephen Grainer is the chief of IMS programs for the Virginia Department of Fire Programs (VDFP). He has served in Virginia fire and emergency services and emergency management coordination programs since 1972 – in assignments ranging from firefighter to chief officer. He also has been a curriculum developer, content evaluator, and instructor, and currently is developing and managing the VDFP programs needed to enable emergency responders and others to meet the National Incident Management System compliance requirements established by the federal government. From 2010 to 2012, he served as president of the All-Hazards Incident Management Teams Association.

Richard (Dick) Green is the director of disaster response for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Before the ASPCA, he was the emergency relief manager for disasters at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). He has responded to international and national disasters, and his teams have rescued thousands of animals from floods, tornadoes, fires, and hurricanes. Recent international responses include typhoons in Taiwan, Philippines, and Australia, volcano eruptions in Philippines and Iceland, and earthquakes in China, Haiti, and Japan. He has trained hundreds of responders in disaster prevention and response and has developed training curricula and texts for Slackwater Rescue, Water Rescue for Companion Animals, and Rope Rescue for Companion Animals. He is the past chair of the National Animal Rescue and Sheltering Coalition, is on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance of State Animal and Agricultural Emergency Programs, co-chairs the Animal Search and Rescue Best Practice Working Group, and is a member of the Evacuation and Transportation Best Practice Working Group. His doctorate is in education with an emphasis in kinesiology and biomechanics. He was an educator for 27 years, the last 10 at Gonzaga University in the Department of Exercise Science.

Charles J. Guddemi served over 25 years for the United States Park Police (USPP). He worked in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia, rising to the rank of deputy chief. He has worked six presidential inaugurations, serving as the USPP principle planner for the 2013 inauguration. He was responsible for overseeing the safe dedications of the Martin Luther King Jr. and the Americans Veterans Disabled for Life Memorials. Well versed in the Incident Command System, he has served as incident commander, Operations and Planning Section Chief for many of the National Capital Regions largest special events and first amendment demonstrations. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, he designed the in-depth multi-layered security plan for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Complex, creating mainland screening sites at Battery Park, Manhattan, Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ, and a secondary screening facility on Liberty Island prior to entering the Statue of Liberty Monument. The Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Complex’s security plan has served as a model for many of this country’s critical infrastructure. He is a graduate of the 237th session of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Academy. He earned a Bachelor’s of Art degree in psychology with a minor in business from the State University of New York at Albany.

Robert C. Hutchinson is the chief of police for the Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) Special Investigative Unit. Prior to joining BCPS in October 2016, he retired as a deputy special agent in charge (SAC) with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Miami, Florida, and acting SAC for the HSI Miami Field Office from September 2015 to August 2016. He began his career as a federal agent in 1988 with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, United States Customs Service (USCS) in San Angelo, Texas. He transferred to the USCS RAC West Palm Beach, Florida, office in 1992, and to the USCS SAC Baltimore, Maryland, office in 1999. In 2001, he was promoted to supervisory special agent within the USCS Firearms and Tactical Training Division, Policy and Programs Section at Headquarters in Washington, D.C. With the creation of ICE in 2003, he became the assistant director of the ICE National Firearms and Tactical Training Unit, Policy and Programs Branch. In 2005, he was promoted to deputy director of the ICE National Incident Response Unit. In 2007, he transferred to the ICE SAC Miami, Florida, office as an assistant SAC. He is a graduate of the USCS Management Development Program and Customs Leadership Institute, received a Bachelor of Science and Master of Public Administration degrees from the University of Delaware, and a Master of Security Studies (Homeland Security) degree from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Christopher “Chris” Johnson is the Director of Safety, Security, & Emergency Management for Valley Medical Center in Renton, Washington. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he began a career in emergency services in 1989. Throughout his career, he has held positions as a firefighter, paramedic, public safety officer (law enforcement), critical care flight paramedic, hospital safety & emergency management officer, and assistant chief/training officer for a county rescue squad. He has also held leadership positions with the South Carolina Emergency Response Task Force (SCTF-1 USAR), and National Disaster Medical System (SC-1 DMAT and OR-2 DMAT). He earned a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Emergency Management. He is a certified instructor through the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Center for Domestic Preparedness. He has more than 90 specialized certifications, including WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Hazardous Materials Technician, Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings, and Advanced Tactical Management of WMD Incidents. In his free time, he teaches seminars and courses nationwide in healthcare emergency management, WMD preparedness and response, technical rescue, swift-water/flood rescue, and large animal rescue. He can be reached via email at: c.johnsonem@gmail.com​

Seth J. Komansky, MS, NRP, is deputy director and chief of operations for the Wake County Department of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is responsible for the day-to-day operational function of Wake County EMS response units and personnel. He supports the paramedics, EMS techs, field training officers, and district chiefs. He is also responsible for special operations, which includes community special event support, EMS Honor Guard, bike team, hazardous materials medical response, and tactical paramedic program. Additionally, he manages the Wake County EMS Medical Intelligence Unit and serves as the statewide EMS field liaison officer coordinator at the N.C. Information Sharing and Analysis Center, North Carolina’s state fusion center based at the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation. He has a Master of Science in homeland security management from the Homeland Security and Terrorism Institute at Long Island University.

CDR Joseph J. Leonard Jr. (USCG, ret.) is a 30-year veteran of the Coast Guard and is a senior consultant with the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health’s Global Preparedness and Crisis Management Division. He serves as the chair of the Greater Harris County Local Emergency Planning Committee, is a member of the NFPA-472 Technical Committee, and actively serves in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. He holds designations as a Master Exercise Practitioner, Professional Continuity Practitioner, Certified Emergency Manager, Certified in Homeland Security-V, and Certified in Homeland Security-Emergency Medical Response, and as a Certified National Threat Analyst. He has a BA in History from the Virginia Military Institute and an MS in Engineering Technology from Murray State University.

Ann Lesperance is the deputy director at the Northwest Regional Technology Center for Homeland Security, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). In that capacity, she focuses on the identification of technology issues and needs for regional preparedness, response, and recovery to all hazards, with emphasis on chemical, biological, and radiological incidents, port security, and critical infrastructure protection. As part of the PNNL’s homeland security programs, she is engaging regional emergency planning professionals in identifying specific requirements and technology applications in the Pacific Northwest.

Thomas (Tom) J. Lockwood is a former member of U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) senior leadership team and served three of its secretaries in key leadership roles as well as the White House Office of Cybersecurity Coordination on national cyber strategies securing online transactions. He served as the DHS director for the National Capital Region, the homeland security advisor and deputy director of homeland security for the State of Maryland, and the executive deputy commissioner for homeland security and emergency services for the State of New York. He has experience in the public and private sectors – including the information technology (IT), transportation, chemical, pharmaceutical, and food sectors. He served as leader and team member of design-build teams, including major defense systems, industrial facilities and processes, safety and reliability systems, systems integration, and net-centric systems. He was a Brookings Institution fellow, a graduate of the Harvard Business School and chairman of his class, and past president of the Navy’s Association of Scientists and Engineers. He is a board member of the Smart Card Alliance and serves on its Executive Leadership Committee and is also a member of the Preparedness Leadership Council, Cyber Committee.

Anthony S. Mangeri, MPA, CPM, CEM, is the director of strategic relations for fire services and emergency management and is on the faculty of the American Public University System. He has more than 30 years of experience in emergency management and public safety. For more than 10 of those years, he served as the New Jersey State hazard mitigation officer. During the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he served as operations chief at the New Jersey Emergency Operations Center, coordinating that state’s response to the passenger-aircraft crashes into the World Trade Center. He has been a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician for more than 25 years. He earned the rank of assistant chief-safety officer, serving as the fire department’s health and safety officer for three years. He earned a Master of Public Administration from Rutgers University and is a Certified Public Manager. He also sits on the ASIS Fire & Life Safety Council. In addition, he has completed a Fellowship in Public Health Leadership Initiative for Emergency Response sponsored by the Center for Public Health Preparedness.

Joe D. Manous Jr., P.E., Ph.D., D.WRE, is a civil engineer and manager of international activities at the Institute for Water Resources, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he specializes in the areas of water resources and environmental security issues associated with water. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University and previously served as an academy professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point teaching courses in environmental engineering, water resources, and environmental security. He is active in the American Society of Civil Engineers, Society of American Military Engineers, The Infrastructure Security Partnership, and the National Institute for Engineering Ethics, and has worked on a variety of infrastructure, professional development, and college outreach initiatives.

Charles (Chuck) Manto is chief executive officer of Instant Access Networks LLC, a consulting and research and development firm that produces independently tested solutions for EMP-protected microgrids and equipment shelters for telecommunications networks and data centers. He received six patents in telecommunications, computer mass storage, and EMP protection and has another one pending for a smart microgrid controller. He is a senior member of the IEEE and founded and leads InfraGard National’s EMP SIG. He can be reached at cmanto@stop-EMP.com

Jacqueline McBride, Ph.D., CEM, CPM, CVA, CDRCC, a 2015 graduate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS/FEMA) Emergency Management Institute’s Executive Academy, has served more than 33 years as a leader in federal, county, and municipal emergency management agencies. She is currently a 21-year career reservist, serving as a FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance Branch director. She is the first person and female appointed, by the State of New Jersey Department of Civil Service, as a deputy coordinator of emergency management. In 1991, she researched and published the first Emergency Managers and Leadership dissertation in the United States and is the first person, globally, to receive a Ph.D. in the field of emergency management/homeland security. She is founder and president emeritus of the International Network of Women in Emergency Management (inWEM), founder of the International Women in Homeland Security and Emergency Management Hall of Fame, and Founder of the inWEM’s Center for Women’s Leadership. In 1995, she served as a nongovernmental organization delegate at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, and presenter on women and emergency management. She co-founded the Atlantic County Advisory Commission on Women and founded and is past president of the Atlantic County Women’s Hall of Fame. She is a former committee member on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures.

Douglas McDaniel brings 18 years of leadership, management, and public service experience to his role as assistant director of emergency management. In this position, he serves as program manager for the development and maintenance of all George Mason University emergency plans, procedures, and related university policies. He also serves as the point of contact for EHS-Emergency Management outreach and stakeholder engagement and the program manager for exercises and training. He joined George Mason from Frederick Community College, where he served as academic program manager for Emergency Management Programs. As part of his responsibilities, he oversaw the management of emergency management degree programs and provided expertise in the development of college emergency preparedness plans. He began his career at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Department of Public Safety. In that role, he served as a cross-trained public safety officer with certifications as a peace officer, structural firefighter, and aircraft rescue firefighter. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from South University and a Master of Arts in Emergency and Disaster Management from the American Military University. He is also an International Association of Emergency Managers Certified Emergency Manager (CEM).

Rodrigo (Roddy) Moscoso is the executive director of the Capital Wireless Information Net (CapWIN) Program at the University of Maryland, which provides software and mission-critical data access services to first responders in and across dozens of jurisdictions, disciplines, and levels of government. Formerly with IBM Business Consulting Services, he has more than 20 years of experience supporting large-scale implementation projects for information technology, and extensive experience in several related fields such as change management, business process reengineering, human resources, and communications.

Aaron Poynton is an executive at Federal Resources Supply Company, an industry leader in providing innovative and technologically advanced military, first responder, and maritime equipment and solution. He has served in various leadership positions with companies in the global high-tech defense and security markets over the past decade. Before his civilian career, he served in U.S. Army Special Operations and as a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) officer. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Army ROTC program and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Maryland UMBC, a master’s degree from the George Washington University, an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and a doctorate in public administration from the University of Baltimore.

Laurel Radow joined the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), U.S. Department of Transportation in 1996. From 2004 until her retirement at the end of 2016, she served as a member of the FHWA Office of Operation’s Traffic Incident and Events Management Team. In that capacity, she served as program manager for the agency’s Evacuations/Emergencies and Planned Special Events (PSE) programs as well as managed a range of traffic incident management (TIM) tasks. Recent TIM and PSE responsibilities included: management of the publications, “Making the TIM Business Case,” and “Climate Change Adaptation Guide for Transportation Systems Management, Operations, and Maintenance”; deployment of the “TIM Incident Management Outreach Toolkit”; member of the TIM SHRP2 (Strategic Highway Research Program 2) TIM responder training program; management of the Planned Special Events Capability Maturity Framework workshops; and author of the August 2016 publication, “2017 Solar Eclipse Transportation Fact Sheet for State and Local Departments of Transportation.” Since 2014, she has served as vice chair of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academy of Sciences, Standing Committee on Critical Transportation Infrastructure Protection (ABR10). This committee is one of the three committees in TRB’s new section, Transportation Resiliency. She will assume the chair of the committee in 2017.

Mark Reuther is vice president and general manager of PROENGIN Inc.’s North American chemical and biological detection marketing, sales, service, and support organization, which is located in Plantation, Florida. He has over 30 years of small business management experience including production, marketing, and sales, and became a member of the PROEGIN organization in 1991 in technical sales, with key efforts in product support. He is a graduate of Florida Institute of Technology with a BS in Air Commerce Flight Technology.

Andrew Roszak, JD, MPA, EMT-P, serves as the senior director for emergency preparedness at Child Care Aware of America. He’s worked at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, MESH Coalition and the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, Indiana. Roszak was also a senior advisor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; on the Budget and HELP Committees of the United States Senate; and at the Illinois Department of Public Health. He is admitted to the Illinois and District of Columbia Bars and is admitted to the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. Find him on Twitter: @AndyRoszak.

Richard Schoeberl, a Ph.D. candidate in Criminology and Terrorism, has over 20 years of security and law enforcement experience, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He has served at a variety of positions throughout his career ranging from supervisory special agent at the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to acting unit chief of the International Terrorism Operations Section at the NCTC’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Before his managerial duties at these organizations, he worked as a special agent investigating violent crime, international terrorism, terrorist financing, cyberterrorism, and organized drugs. He also was assigned numerous collateral duties during his FBI tour – including a certified instructor and member of the agency’s SWAT program. In addition to the FBI and NCTC, he is an author and has served as a media contributor for Fox News, CNN, PBS, NPR, Al-Jazeera Television, Al Arabiva Television, Al Hurra, and Sky News in Europe. Additionally, he has authored numerous articles on terrorism and security.  He is currently the National Manager for Whelan Security.

Connor Scott is the deputy director of operations for the Baltimore City Department of Transportation. In this role, he oversees the day-to-day operations of the agency, which includes 1,200 full-time employees and an annual budget of over $200 million. He has earned numerous emergency management certifications, including the Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) and Master Exercise Practitioner (MEP) credentials. He is the department’s liaison to the city public safety agencies, and has responded to numerous incidents and has spent countless nights at the Baltimore Emergency Operations Center. He has been involved in several federally declared disasters, has deployed to other jurisdictions to assist with major incidents, and has been the incident commander for events ranging from mass casualty incidents to cyberattacks. He holds a Masters in Public Administration from Villanova University, is a graduate of the National Preparedness Leadership Institute program at Harvard University, and is a current student in the Executive Leaders Program at the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

Justin Snair, M.P.A., is a program officer for the Board on Health Sciences Policy, Health and Medicine Division, National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine where he serves as the director for the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events and Director for the Standing Committee on Medical and Public Health Research During Large-Scale Emergency Events. From 2012-2015, he served as the senior program analyst for Critical Infrastructure and Environmental Health Security at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), where he managed projects and conducted research centered at the intersection of public and environment health, critical infrastructure, and homeland security. Prior to his time with NACCHO, he spent six years working in local preparedness and environmental health as a deputy director and environmental health agent for the Acton Public Health Department in Massachusetts. From 2001-2006, he served as a corporal and combat engineer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and deployed to combat operations in Iraq from 2004-2005. He holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science from Worcester State University.

Christine Gibbs Springer was appointed, in 2006, as director of the Executive Masters Degree in emergency and crisis management at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has since overseen the restructuring of the academic program – the only full executive masters in the country on this subject. She currently is involved in research on regional infrastructure resilience in Nevada, serves on the Nevada Citizen Corps Board of Directors, the Nevada Infragard Board of Directors and the National Academy of Public Administration Board of Directors. She also serves on a congressional panel developing performance metrics for the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS/FEMA) grants. In 2009, she served on a congressional panel to evaluate FEMA post-Katrina.

Michael Wernicke joined Emergent BioSolutions Inc. in 2009 and serves as vice president of commercial development and operations. Before joining Emergent, he gained more than 15 years of experience in commercial bio/pharmaceutical sales with progressively increasing levels of leadership and responsibility. His commercial sales leadership experience spans from startups to large multinational biopharmaceutical companies. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., with a BS in computer science, he served more than six years of active duty as a U.S. Army aviation officer, including leading combat aviation missions during the first Gulf War and subsequent operations in both Southern and Northern Iraq.