2nd Annual

Office 365 Summit

FOR STATE, LOCAL,
& FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

With over 17 years of consulting experience, Jorge brings in-depth knowledge of real world government scenarios. He has consulted with some of the largest state agencies in the United States and designed several large scale on-premises to cloud migrations. While consulting for Planet Technologies Jorge was also an avid community member, providing support to thousands of online community members. Additionally, he was recognized multiple years for his expertise and collaboration by Microsoft and was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for both Exchange and Office 365.

As part of this mission Jorge focuses on providing world class collaboration tools from Microsoft’s cloud service ‘Microsoft 365’ to provide real time collaboration, enterprise class cloud conferencing and telephony services. These services allow our federal customers to respond more rapidly to today’s challenges while reducing overall costs and increasing organizational efficiencies.

Steve Winter is the Vice President for State and Local Government and Education at Planet Technologies.  Steve is responsible for driving our Microsoft corporate strategy for these business segments.  Steve also serves as the business lead for Eastern US revenue. Under his leadership, Planet has been awarded Microsoft’s State and Local Government Partner of the Year and unprecedented five times.  Steve speaks regularly on the transformation of Government and Education IT at Key Notes, the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference and various local conferences.

Under Steve’s direction, Planet developed a series of Solution Accelerators targeting Criminal Investigation, Inspection and Management functions of Governments and Education organizations.  These applications and others like them are the cornerstone to Planet’s burgeoning SaaS business.  The adoption of these services is changing the responsiveness of government to their constituents. Prior to Planet, Steve founded eQuest Technologies — a leading provider of Microsoft-based services to the world-wide hosting community.  This organization was later acquired by Planet Technologies and was the launching point for Planet’s cloud business leveraging Steve’s vast cloud domain knowledge and leadership.

Steve attended the University of North Florida where he studied Jazz Performance.  He is a respected youth basketball coach, leading teams both at the national travel and high school level. This experience is a key motivator for his passion in supporting the Education segment at Planet.

Kevin has over 20 years of technical industry experience in various systems engineering and consulting roles with organizations such as Verizon, Hewlett Packard, and Microsoft. Focusing early in his career on engineering Microsoft Exchange solutions, his passion for digital communications evolved over time into later versions of Exchange and then into the instant messaging, collaboration, and telecom capabilities of Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business. In almost six years working for Microsoft, Kevin has consulted on many complex on-premises, hybrid, and cloud engagements across commercial, federal and defense industries, has presented at many large Microsoft conferences, and writes his own Microsoft TechNet blog.

In late 2016 Kevin moved into a Partner Technical Architect role where he assists Microsoft Partners with designing technical customer solutions in Microsoft Office 365. He also helps partners and customers understand the many collaborative benefits of a digital transformation to Microsoft Office 365, the overall business value, and the realized cost savings.

Jennifer is recognized throughout the Microsoft community for being able to simplify Microsoft concepts. A Microsoft certified trainer and Customer Immersion Experience consultant, Jennifer spearheaded the launch of a one of a kind advanced training package leveraging  On-Demand Microsoft videos, Tips and Tricks sessions, user guides, and Office 365 help desk. With a background in cloud strategy and SharePoint, Jennifer regularly collaborates with Microsoft product teams to help provide them feedback and feature requests from the people she interacts with in business and within the community.  She is often invited as a guest speaker at major Microsoft events across the United States and Internationally, most recently she was a speaker at the Microsoft Ignite Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Bob Ballard is the Principal Cloud Strategist for Planet Technologies, who comes to Planet with nearly 14 years of experience at Microsoft, serving most recently as Chief IT Strategist for State and Local Government. He has led some of the most strategic victories for Microsoft in both the commercial and public sector, starting with enterprise wins versus IBM and Novell, leading early efforts in the unified communication business, and finally, as one of the first cloud-focused resources in the company covering Public Sector. Ballard has had his largest impact in the cloud business as a key contributor in many large-scale Office 365 deployments over the last 4 years totaling nearly 2 million seats. Bob is a graduate of the University of Maryland and based in the Mid-Atlantic Area.

Bob’s knowledge of both the Cloud business and how to leverage it with state and local government customers is well known in the industry. Jeff Tozzi, General Manager of the State and Local Government Business at Microsoft, says, “Bob’s deep knowledge of the U.S. State & Local Government vertical, combined with his experience working on some of the most complex cloud migrations, make him a strong asset to an organization looking to show leadership in the transformation of the future in government and technology…his impact on the industry is significant—whether he is driving strategy, handling complex sales processes or serving as a mentor.”

Tim Muhs is the Financial and Administrative Section Chief for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Mitigation Services. He has worked for the State of North Carolina for the past nine years. Prior to working for the State, he spent 15 years working in GIS and IT in the private and nonprofit sectors. He has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from SUNY Brockport and an MBA from Strayer University. Tim also served as a Security Police officer in the United States Air Force both on Active Duty and in the National Guard.

Tim is originally from Rochester, NY and currently lives in Apex, North Carolina with his wife, son and daughter. He is an avid Green Bay Packers and Carolina Hurricanes fan and would rather be fishing in his kayak than doing anything else.

Tony Lanzafame joined Microsoft in 2012 and is a Collaboration Solutions Specialist supporting State & Local Government customers. He helps customers leverage their strategic investment in Microsoft cloud services to realize their digital transformation goals. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked for a multinational utility and deployed SharePoint throughout the enterprise, managed desktop integration projects and transformed email & collaboration services. Tony earned his MBA from Syracuse University in 2014.

Thom Oaks is an 11-year veteran of Microsoft.  Thom has worked across all segments of our Federal Government Customers implementing various Microsoft technologies with security and compliance as a priority.  Thom has worked on well-known Microsoft platforms to include Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync.  As Microsoft’s cloud offerings came to market, Thom was one of the first team members dedicated to Azure in the Federal Market.  As a thought leader and early adopter, he was also one of our first dedicated to security, enterprise mobility and identity.

Thom Oaks is presently a Technical Solution Specialist supporting Enterprise Mobility and Security featuring Azure Active Directory, Azure Information Protection, Azure Rights Management and Intune.  His experience in both Sales and Services contributes to Thom’s insights on not just selecting the right technologies, but implementing, maintaining and evolving.

Jeff Fowler serves as the Sr. Federal Cloud Strategist for Planet Technologies, providing leadership and direction for technology, security, and management endeavors for customers.

Fowler’s career has included serving as the lead architect and project manager for several worldwide infrastructure, communications, collaboration, and security projects. He has also spent a number of years as an enterprise IT strategist and architect consulting within the Department of Energy’s Office of the Chief Information Office managing the Systems Engineering team. Most recently, Fowler worked as the Chief Architect and Program Manager for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) NNSA Classified IT Modernization project as part of a nationwide program for the introduction of cloud computing, communications and collaboration services, mobility, and virtual desktop infrastructure services.

He is the recipient of numerous awards, Fowler’s specialties include Enterprise Services Strategy, Solutions Architecture, Security, Project Management, and Program Management. Fowler graduated with honors from the University of Maryland, University College in Technology Management, and holds a Master’s of Science in Technology Management.

His unique ability to anticipate and respond to the evolving IT landscape, manage change, solve difficult problems, and think creatively on behalf of customers is at the core of Planet’s mission to deliver outstanding service to its clients.

Kelly C. Brown is a Modern Workplace Solution Specialist at Microsoft based in Washington D.C. She is aligned to the Public Sector – Federal Civilian organizations which includes Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. She also serves as the lead facilitator for the Customer Immersion Experience and bears expertise in Office 365. Her new areas of focus are Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security.

Kelly is a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana who received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from Southern University and A&M College. She eagerly joined the Microsoft team in June of 2016 as a strong advocate for encouraging inclusion and the empowerment of people who do not have access to technology and the opportunities it offers. Over the last few years of her professional career, Kelly has developed a keen eye for customer’s needs by working diligently to establish a detailed knowledge base regarding productivity and innovation. Her acquired knowledge and skills have allowed the opportunity to recognize the greater business value through the use of technology and formulate the perfect customer solutions.

Having consulted with government customers on industry best practices for almost 20 years, Brendan’s specialization is customer service and process management. A Microsoft consultant with certifications in ITIL and PMP, Brendan’s successful approaches to Office 365 have been successfully leveraged by government clients large and small. He has developed and led group initiatives with strategic and prescriptive communication plans, Wikis, flyers, and customized marketing and communication strategies.  As a recent keynote speaker at the Energy OCIO conference, he shared his team’s success story concerning the methodology and process used over the entire migration and delivery process. Brendan has been recognized for his efforts to enhance the customer acceptance of new technologies and has been lead project manager on multiple initiatives to adopt new technologies in government.

Brian Burns is a Microsoft Federal Modern Workplace Specialist with over 20 years of experience in the telecom field. Over the last 8 years he has focused his efforts supporting public sector agencies as they transform their communications infrastructure. In his previous role at Verizon Business he designed and deployed Cisco Unified Communications and Verizon SIP Trunking services. Currently Brian works with federal agencies as they look towards cloud services to enhance security, drive productivity and reduce costs.

Dave Reilly is currently Northeast Sales Manager for Planet Technologies.  Prior to joining Planet, Dave was Client Director for Microsoft’s State & Local Government division for over 12 years and was responsible for managing strategic account development and driving technology sales for US public sector customers across New England.

Prior to that, Dave served as the Chief Information Officer for the Human Resources Division (HRD) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. With over 20+ years of experience working with customers to implement transformational technologies, Dave is a recognized leader in the Northeast geography helping drive Planet’s reputation for exceptional customer satisfaction and as a trusted advisor in delivering Microsoft cloud solutions and services.

Michael Dunmire is a software engineer and technical project manager, focusing on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Dynamics 365.  Michael has assisted in the successful deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Dynamics 365 projects for partners and customers across the United States, including; Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, City of Birmingham, AL, and Howard County, MD.

He has been with Planet Technologies since 2010, based out of the Mechanicsburg, PA office near Harrisburg.  He previously worked in the IT field for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 2000 until 2010 and is also a contributing writer for Planet’s CRM/D365 blog page at www.PlanetXRM.com

Michael has also delivered numerous technology presentations, such as the North Carolina CIO Summit, Microsoft Technology Day in Montgomery, AL, Pennsylvania Inter-Governmental Technology Conference, and the Federal CIO Summit at the Microsoft office in Reston, VA.

Travis Moore is currently the Chief Architect, Microsoft Technologies at Planet Technologies. He brings two decades of operational experience delivering Microsoft messaging, infrastructure, and architecture services for numerous Fortune 500 companies and has a proven track record for delivering high quality services in high pressure global operations environments. Since coming to Planet Technologies, his guidance, expertise, and experience with the implementations of Office 365, Hybrid Cloud Solutions, and Cloud Security have been instrumental for the success of countless organizations adopting Microsoft Cloud Services. Many of the identity and migration solutions Travis innovated were leading edge at the time of implementation and have now become many best practices within the industry.