Teneika Askew
Teneika is an engineer by nature, specializing in big data. She helps clients make the most of their data—both technically and strategically. Her mission is to improve access to big data and allow visualizations to serve as the voice of the business.
Adept at delivering detailed analytical reports, she leverages her tech savviness to create a pipeline of opportunities to pivot into data and tech careers and alleviate the technical assistance gap in entrepreneurship communities by driving growth for women and small businesses.
Brant Backes
Brant Backes' IT experience is extensive. He has gone from 25Bravo (IT network specialist) in the Wisconsin Army National Guard to finishing his AAS in Supervisory Management to enrolling in a pilot "IT-Ready" program for the Creating IT Futures Foundation, which led to his CompTIA A+ certification. From there, Brant went to HealthPartners, first as an intern, later as a full-time desktop analyst associate, and finally as desktop analyst principal, helping lead/mentor other desktop techs in his region. He then transitioned to Infrastructure Deployment Services and received his Jamf Certified Associate certificate and then his Jamf Certified Tech certificate, further expanding his knowledge of their Mac and Windows environments.
Mike Burr
Mike Burr has an extensive background spanning 25 years in information technology and currently works at Google on the Android Enterprise Security team heading up global security. He has worked in the Enterprise Mobility space for the last 12 years for McAfee, Intel, Enterproid / Divide, and the last 8 years with Google on the Android Enterprise team. Mike works with the Android Eco-System to include EMM providers, Device OEMs, carriers, and ISVs to educate, enable, and support their field Sales and Sales Engineering teams. He also works directly with partner customers to advise and assist with various topics, including mobile security education, implementing deployment best practice strategies, policy reviews, and many other Android items directed toward BYOD and corporate-owned deployments.
Jalen Byford
Jalen Byford serves as the Chief Information Officer for Humana Healthy Horizons in Oklahoma, where he leads all Medicaid-related information systems strategy and execution. In this role, Jalen oversees business-sponsored IT initiatives, partners with the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OHCA) to support managed care transformation, and ensures seamless coordination between Humana, state agencies, and third-party vendors. His work is focused on leveraging technology to improve health outcomes, enhance member experience, and drive operational efficiency in Medicaid delivery.
Jalen brings over 15 years of IT leadership experience spanning healthcare, government, and telecommunications sectors. Prior to joining Humana, he served in senior IT roles at Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma, the State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Heart Hospital, Future Dial, and Sprint Nextel.
He is deeply committed to advancing Oklahoma’s tech ecosystem and community well-being. Jalen serves on the Board of Directors for Techlahoma and Christmas Connection and is an active member of the Project Management Institute – Oklahoma City Chapter (PMI OKC).
Shinesa Cambric
Shinesa Cambric (CCSP, CISSP, CISA, CISM, CDPSE) is a cloud security, compliance, and digital identity architect with strategic expertise in technical design and implementation of security architecture and controls. Her experience includes designing identity management and governance solutions for cloud-based platforms, building insider threat programs, and providing unique subject matter expertise on the intersection of governance, risk, and compliance with IT and application security. Shinesa volunteers for the Dallas chapter of the Women's Society of Cyberjutsu and Cloud Girls. She is an accomplished speaker and has contributed to multiple publications, including "Shifting Security Left" and "97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know.
Jason Corley
Jason Corley (CISSP) is a Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at Motorola Solutions with over 10 years of hands-on experience in network and application security. He leads nationwide cybersecurity training initiatives, empowering public safety and enterprise teams to implement practical, scalable defense strategies. Passionate about mentorship and community impact, Jason volunteers with various charities and enjoys spending time with his family. His blend of technical expertise and service-oriented focus reflects a strong commitment to advancing the cybersecurity profession.
John Cusimano
John is an electrical and computer engineer and business leader with over 25 years of experience in process control, functional safety, operational technology (OT), and industrial cybersecurity. He is currently a managing director within Deloitte's Cyber Risk Advisory business. John has performed countless industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity vulnerability and risk assessments. He is a voting member of the ISA 99 cybersecurity standards committee. As part of that committee, he chaired the subcommittee that authored the ISA/IEC 62443-3-2:2020 standard, "IACS Security Risk Assessment & Design." John is a Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE), a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GICSP), and an ISA 62443 Expert.
Ryszard Czerminski
Ryszard is a seasoned professional with a Ph.D. in Biophysics and decades of experience in computational drug discovery, mathematical modeling, statistical and machine learning, and data analysis. From small startups to large corporations, he has held lead and principal scientist roles in various sectors, from pharmaceuticals to telematics and insurance. In the pharmaceutical industry, he worked on diverse challenges, from de novo drug design to modeling antibiotic resistance. Ryszard has a genuine passion for extracting knowledge from data and building predictive and actionable models.
Ray DeJean
Ray DeJean is the deputy CIO at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he is responsible for IT security, networks, servers, storage, and voice. He has more than 22 years of experience in designing, implementing, and securing IT systems. Ray holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a master's degree in Integrated Science and Technology. He is also an adjunct instructor in the Department of Computer Science, where he teaches courses in networking and IT security. A recognized IT security subject matter expert, Ray holds several industry certifications, including Security+ and CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner. Ray currently lives in Madisonville, Louisiana, with his wife and kids.
Joe Dery
Joe Dery is the VP & dean of data analytics, computer science, & software engineering at Western Governors University's College of IT, aiding over 15,000 students in finding a surgical balance of mathematics, programming, and business influence skills. Previously, he was a senior data science leader at Dell Technologies, working on projects spanning ML-driven sales quota allocation, sales forecasting, customer cross-sell targeting, marketing opportunity sizing, sales BI, and supply chain optimization. He advocates for decision intelligence frameworks, change management, and "improv" in analytics solutions. Dery holds a Ph.D. in Business Analytics and an M.S. in Marketing Analytics from Bentley University.
Meredith Dodd
Dr. Meredith Dodd holds a Ph.D. in Health Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington, where her research focused on analyzing data for a chronic pain clinic called Productive Rehab. Institute in Dallas for Ergonomics (PRIDE). That, along with her later data science work supporting Army Med Command programs within the Army Public Health Center's (APHC) Public Health Assessment Division, led to 30+ publications in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks. Later, as head of the data science program at Woz U, she won awards for increasing her student body and completely revising the data science curriculum. Dr. Dodd helped launch CompTIA Data+ and is involved with CompTIA's new data pathway certifications. Currently, she is a data scientist with Strata Decision Technology.
Mignon Edorh
Mignon is Sure Secure's digital transformation lead with expertise in transforming the way her clients operate their cloud environments for operational efficiency and asset security. Her most recent work has enabled federal clients to accurately tag assets in the cloud and build efficiencies that optimize performance to realize significant cost savings. Under her leadership, her teams have defined the policies that ensure security controls are implemented into the software development life cycle. Mignon also serves as Sure Secure Solutions' QMS manager and establishes the organization's processes to provide our clients with the highest level of quality across all service areas.
Juan Fernandez
Juan Fernandez, a.k.a. the chief encouragement officer, has improved processes/procedures and empowered individuals to be successful while delivering business outcomes via technology his whole career. As a CompTIA SME, Juan has helped maintain and revise CompTIA certifications. He is an early-stage investor in software startups, co-founder and CEO of the MSP Growth Coalition, co-chair of the GTIA Channel Development Advisory Council, a member of the Forbes Magazine Technology Council, CompTIA Infrastructure Certification Advisory Committee, and a Channel Futures MSP mentor. He has been featured in CompTIA World Magazine, won the HP DaaS Innovator of the Year award, CRN magazine's fastest-growing MSP award, and was GTIA's 2022 Industry Advisory Leadership award winner. He is also the author of the CompTIA MSP Handbook.
Ted Hallum
Ted Hallum enlisted as an all-source intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in 2006. After the military, he spent eight years working as an intelligence professional in the cleared defense contracting space, focusing on counterinsurgency targeting, identity intelligence, Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), and cyber all-source analysis. His time as a contract intelligence analyst included over two years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait to support U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) elements.
Mr. Hallum has earned a Master of Science in Business Analytics at the College of William & Mary (Raymond A. Mason School of Business) and, in 2019, secured his first role as a full-performance data scientist. Today, Mr. Hallum is a senior defense machine learning engineer at Octo.
DuWayne Harrison
DuWayne is a leader in PwC's Cloud and Digital practice with over 27 years of international technology and cross-functional leadership experience that spans management, IT, and operations for financial services, healthcare, enterprise solutions, pharmaceutical, government, nonprofit, and education clients. He has played a key role in helping senior business and technology executives understand the best ways to use existing and emerging technologies to run their enterprises, accelerate growth, and ultimately deliver greater business value to their customers. DuWayne has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences & world forums and won numerous awards.
Allen Lanning
Allen (A+, Network+, Security+) is a seasoned IT leader with over two decades of experience. He is currently serving as Associate Manager at Yum! Brands, leading the global Apple, Windows 365, and Hardware QA engineering team. His passion for technology ignited early, earning his A+ and Network+ certifications from Scott Horan’s CompTIA curriculum at Eastern High School (Louisville KY). He sits on their and Butler High School IT curriculum boards, providing strategic guidance on the technology curriculum to ensure it aligns with current industry standards and best practices, equipping students with the practical skills and knowledge needed to excel in the IT field.
May Ledesma
May Ledesma is a senior technical writer at Silicon Labs, writing and editing technical content for the company's engineering community's consumption. She co-chaired one of the company's ERGs—the Women @ Silicon Labs, which aims to engage, inspire, and develop women leaders at the company. May also co-chaired the Customer Experience Committee of the company's Technical Symposium, evaluating around 50 abstracts, 12 of which were presented during the symposium. May volunteers as an SME for CompTIA certifications and serves as a member of the CompTIA Certification Advisory Council for Infrastructure, in addition to acting as a programming instructor and a career mentor for Code2College.
Thomas Marr
Thomas Marr is a senior information systems security engineer. His lengthy experience as an information security professional ranges from supporting technology startups to Fortune 500 companies to the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Thomas is also a proud veteran of the United States Army, where he served on active duty as a military intelligence analyst specializing in signals intelligence and open-source intelligence. In addition to CompTIA's CAC for Cybersecurity, Thomas also actively provides technical expertise to information security community projects as a technical reviewer for globally recognized technology books.
Pamela McComas
Pamela joined General Dynamics IT in 2016 and is currently a program director within GDIT's Defense Group. Pamela holds a senior leadership role in the U.S. Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System (US BICES) program, where she leads the program's business operations and a globally dispersed workforce covering project management, change and configuration management, supply chain and asset management, program administration, finance, staffing, risk, and quality. Previously, Pamela served as a solution architect within GDIT's Defense CTO team, focusing on cyber, workforce development, and program management solutions. Pamela holds a master's degree in IT Management from the University of Virginia.
Harry McLaren
Harry is an established technology leader with 15 years of experience in IT and cybersecurity. Currently focused on solving complex cyber-related problems at SenseOn as a senior product manager and security engineering squad lead. Security operations subject matter expert and "Blue Team" obsessed! Active member (and founder) of the Scottish cyber community Cyber Scotland Connect.
Brandon Miller
Brandon Miller is the data analytics and integration lead at PeoplesBank, A Codorus Valley Company. He has worked in various data roles for over 20 years, including data management, data warehousing, data quality, and data governance. Brandon holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Business Information Systems from Shippensburg University. Brandon is currently a member of the CompTIA Advisory Council and holds CompTIA Data+ and Security+ certifications.
Hardik Parekh
As a CISO at Five9, Hardik is responsible for company-wide global cybersecurity strategy and execution. Prior to Five9, Hardik developed and matured security programs at companies like DellEMC/RSA, Intuit, Amazon, and Splunk. He also serves on advisory boards of innovative startups and CompTIA. Hardik brings two decades of global cyber security experience and a builder mindset. His previous experience includes developing product security and enterprise security, including identity and access management and compliance, and building a modern, highly automated security operations center at Amazon as the physical retail unit's CISO. He co-authored the OWASP Software Assurance Maturity Model 2.0, promoted OWASP SAMM 2.0 as a conference speaker, and has contributed to many industry standards.
Jo Peterson
Jo Peterson is the vice president of cloud and security services for Clarify360. An engineer by trade, Jo has been helping clients architect cloud solutions since 2009. Jo holds multiple AWS, Azure, and Google certifications, as well as CCNA and CCNP. She is currently in the process of her CCSP and CISSP. Jo has a master's degree in information technology and an MBA, is an Air Force vet, and is the founding co-chair of cloudgirs.org. Jo is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and serves on CompTIA's Infrastructure Advisory Board. Jo has provided social media thought leadership and independent analyst insight to brands such as Intel, HPE, IBM, SAP, Cisco, Splunk, Dell, Ericsson, and others at events such as vmWorld, Think, Discover, AWS reinvent, Google Next, and many others.
Tenette Prevatte
Tenette Prevatte is the academic dean for computer & information technology programs at Fayetteville Technical Community College in Fayetteville, NC. She has over 25 years of industry experience with network security. She has been a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for CompTIA for over 10 years, assisting with exam development for industry exams. She also serves on the CompTIA Infrastructure Certification Advisory Committee and the CompTIA Subject Matter Expert Advisory Committee. She has served as a technical editor for numerous higher education textbooks in subjects such as network security and digital forensics. She holds an MBA from Campbell University and 20 graduate hours in Computer Science from Radford University and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Reanna Schutlz
Reanna Schultz, from Kansas City, MO, holds both a Bachelor’s and master’s degree in Cybersecurity. With over six years of professional experience, Reanna has contributed to various corporate environments, leveraging her expertise to strengthen cybersecurity practices.
Throughout her career, Reanna has worn many hats, including roles in Endpoint Security Engineering, Detection Engineering, and leading a Security Operations Center (SOC) team. In addition to her primary responsibilities, Reanna serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Central Missouri (UCM) and is also an entrepreneur.
Reanna is the founder of CyberSpeak Labs, a platform dedicated to fostering community engagement through collaboration. She hosts the podcast Defenders in Lab Coats, where she delves into cyber threats and occasionally invites passionate guests to share their insights.
Driven by her passion for cybersecurity, Reanna frequently travels to speak at events, sharing her industry knowledge and empowering others to improve their organizations' cybersecurity practices.
Arron Stebbing
Arron Stebbing is a principal technical trainer at Veeam Software. He is responsible for creating and implementing comprehensive training programs and educational strategies that align with business objectives and address skill deficiencies. He is a member of CompTIA's Technical Advisory Committee and a Subject Matter Expert for exam development. Additionally, he is certified in the LEGO® Serious Play® method, which he uses to bring creativity and innovation to the business world. With 19+ years of experience in the IT industry and a background in building and operating cloud service provider environments, Arron excels in communicating technical concepts to executives and educating technical teams on delivering business value.
Susanne Tedrick
"Susanne Tedrick currently works as a technical trainer at Microsoft. In her work, Susanne delivers skills-based, outcome-driven training on the Azure platform for some of Microsoft's leading enterprise clients. Susanne is a Microsoft Certified Educator and a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Susanne performs community service work for several nonprofits, including serving as chair of the Advancing Tech Talent and Diversity Executive Council for CompTIA and coalition member for NPower's Command Shift initiative. Susanne is also the host of Wiley's Diversity in Tech webinar series."
Lew Thorne
Lew is on a mission to love, lead, teach, and accelerate the lives of many! Lew serves as director of cybersecurity in the financial services industry and as an adjunct faculty member of continuing education in computer science, cybersecurity, and project management. He is an accomplished, results-focused professional with a history of success aligning program activities to achieve organizational objectives on a global scale. Lew is also a seasoned instructor and contributor to educational program development, certifications, and training. Lew earned his MSc from the University of Salford (UK), SCPM from Stanford University (U.S.), MCPM from George Washington University (U.S.), and holds multiple professional credentials, including those with CompTIA, PMI, ISC2, and ScrumAlliance.
Brandon Umland
Brandon Umland has over 20 years experience in IT, security, privacy, compliance and audit in both the insurance and financial services industries. Brandon holds a bachelor's degree in Information Technology with a focus on Information Security from Western Governors University. He has been working with CompTIA since 2017 as an SME and maintains over 30 certifications across IT, security, privacy, compliance and audit.
Ingmar Van Glabbeek
Ingmar Van Glabbeek brings over 15 years of expertise in cybersecurity, network automation, and product strategy, with a strong focus on DNS, infrastructure security, and emerging technologies. Known for his ability to translate complex technical concepts into practical solutions, he has led global initiatives in secure software development, firmware supply chain integrity, and cloud-native platform design. A multilingual collaborator and lifelong learner, Ingmar is passionate about advancing standards-based innovation, fostering cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing, and building secure, resilient systems at scale. His hands-on experience spans both the technical and human sides of technology.
Lawrence Wells
Director, Enterprise Security GRC | U.S. Navy Veteran | Family Man
Lawrence brings over three decades of experience in technology, defense, and security leadership. Currently serving as Director in Risk Management, Lawrence leads the charge in research & analysis, Attack Surface Management, and Critical Response - helping safeguard critical systems and data across the Enterprise.
His journey began in 1991 during Desert Storm, where he served as a senior technician (Sonar Systems) in the U.S. Navy. After six years of forward-deployed service, including WestPac 94–95, USS Constellation Battle Group, during Desert Shield, Lawrence transitioned into research and development as a government contractor, followed by roles in network administration and cybersecurity. Since joining Optum over ten years ago, he has helped build the company’s Security Operations Center (SOC), led enterprise database security monitoring, the Threat Intelligence team, and Critical Risk management.
But Lawrence is more than his title or technical experience. He identifies as human, Christian, a family man, African American, a Veteran, and an INFP - driven by curiosity and purpose. He and his wife are proud parents of four adult daughters and one spirited 7-pound Chorkie “Tippy”. Whether volunteering together, attending sporting events, or battling it out over Uno or Monopoly, family time is always a highlight.
Lawrence’s life is rooted in service, integrity, and a deep commitment to continuous learning.
Daniel Nelson
Daniel Nelson is a Senior Training Manager with Ricoh USA. His roles within Ricoh have consisted of field services, solutions sales, management, and now services training. His team of instructors is responsible for the learning and development of thousands of team members across the United States and Canada. This passion for continued education started with his completion of the CompTIA Net+ certification in 2005. He has also obtained the A+, Security +, CDIA+, Project+, and CTT+ certifications throughout his career.