Event Calendar

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Information and Technology Industry Update

Start Date: 12/2/2020 9:00 AM EST
End Date: 12/2/2020 10:30 AM EST

Venue Name: Zoom Webinar


Organization Name: SECAF

Contact:
Julia Nelson
Email: info@secaf.org
Phone: 703-574-1117

Wednesday, December 2, 2020
9:00-10:30am

Office of Veterans Affairs Office of Information and Technology Industry Update

Please join us to hear directly from the Department of Veterans Affairs' OI&T leadership team and gain insight into the strategy, priorities and focus areas for FY2021 and beyond.

Moderator:  Greg Giddens - Co-Founder and Partner, Potomac Ridge Consulting

Speakers:
  • Jack GalvinAssociate Deputy Assistant Secretary of Information Technology Operations and Services (ITOPS) in the Office of Information and Technology (OIT), VA
  • James GfrererAssistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer, VA
  • Luwanda JonesChief Information Officer, Office of Small Business Representative, VA
  • Denise KittsExecutive Director of the Multi-Channel Technology (MCT), VA
  • Drew Myklegard - Executive Director Demand Management Division (DMD), VA
Greg Giddens is co-founder and partner at Potomac Ridge Consulting.He was in the federal service for more than 35 years, with over 16 years as an executive. He worked in several different cabinet-level agencies where he led large,transformative acquisition programs as well as organizational change programs. Greg’s last federal position was the Chief Acquisition Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, responsible for over $20B in spend. Greg began his career at the Department of Defense and then served in the Department of Homeland Security at the headquarters level, United States Coast Guard, and at Customs and Border Protection before going to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Greg is a Strategic Advisor to Government Executives (SAGE) for the Partnership for Public Service, a Fellow at the National Academy of Public Administration, and a member of National Contract Management Association’s Board of Advisors. He has received several awards including the Presidential Rank Award and two FED100 awards.

Greg holds a Master of Science in National Resource Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, an MBA from Georgia College, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. 


Jack Galvin was appointed to the position of Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary of Information Technology Operations and Services (ITOPS) in the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in August 2018. In this role, Mr. Galvin focuses on delivering IT excellence through ongoing modernization efforts to best serve Veterans and VA employees.

Mr. Galvin has over 29 years of VA experience, most recently serving as Executive Director of the ITOPS End User Operations division where he directed the operations of information systems, technology and telecommunications at all VA field locations, including Veterans Health Administration Medical Centers, Veterans Benefits Administration Regional Offices, and VA Field-Based Program Offices. He is responsible for information technology (IT) on-site customer service support to over 140 VA Medical Centers (VAMC), over 1,200 VA community points of Veterans’ care and services, and 56 regional offices and leads a team of nearly 3,000 staff located throughout the nation.

Over the past year, Mr. Galvin served as the Executive Sponsor for two major ITOPS transformational initiatives: transitioning the Enterprise Service Desk to a fully managed services provider (MSP) and implementing the Enterprise ServiceNow platform. These efforts have resulted in the successful deployment of ITOPS’ new customer engagement portal, called “Your IT,” and the first fully operational 24×7 service desk provided in strategic partnership with an MSP. His focus and priority is on improving the end user experience and serving those that depend upon technology to serve the Veteran. These recent initiatives fall in-line with Mr. Galvin’s career-long focus on delivering innovation and advancement in IT service delivery and establishing a unified accountability structure for delivering customer support across all administrations within VA.

Mr. Galvin brings with him over 29 years of VA institutional knowledge. He began his career as a Biomedical Engineer at the Providence VAMC. Prior to this appointment, he has held positions of increasing responsibility, from facility to regional to national levels, always supporting technology for the improvement of Veterans’ services.

James Gfrerer was nominated by President Donald J. Trump to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer and was confirmed by the United States Senate on Jan 2, 2019.

As Assistant Secretary, he leads a team of more than 8,000 employees and 8,000 contractors in the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) to deliver technologies and services that improve the Veteran experience. OIT manages an IT budget of $4.2 Billion in support of the Veterans Benefits, Veterans Health, and National Cemetery Administrations and the entire $200 Billion VA System. In this largest centralized IT program in the Federal space, OIT executes the enterprise IT strategy, transforms the business, operates the network infrastructure, and secures all applications and systems.

Prior to joining VA, Mr. Gfrerer was an Executive Director with a Big Four professional services firm for over three years. As a leader in the firm’s Advisory and Cybersecurity Practices he and his teams assisted commercial sector clients in business process optimization, risk management, cyber risk transformation, and managed services outsourcing. He worked in numerous industry sectors including industrial products, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, and healthcare.

Ahead of his commercial sector tenure, Mr. Gfrerer was an active duty Marine Corps Officer, rising to the rank of Colonel. Throughout his 28 years of service, his assignments included specialties such as infantry, IT, training, and cybersecurity. He served as a Marine Corps-wide System Support Officer, supervising IT and decision-support systems, migrating legacy systems to web- and micro-based applications, and developing early mobile applications. In his operational tours, he commanded at every level, including four combat tours in Kuwait, Iraq, and Haiti. His final active duty assignment was as a DoD Detailee to the Department of State, where he was a Senior Executive in Counterterrorism Communications and a Senior Military Advisor and Cybersecurity leader for an Undersecretary.

Mr. Gfrerer earned his Master of Science in National Resource Strategy Management (Information Communication Technology Concentration) from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and his CIO Certificate from the Information Resource Management College at the National Defense University, both as distinguished graduate. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the U.S. Naval Academy. He is Lean Six Sigma certified and a member of the Information System Audit and Control Association (ISACA).


Luwanda Jones is responsible for providing executive level oversight and leadership for the development of plans and processes necessary to control, optimize and leverage the volume of acquisition actions associated with specific IT needs of the Department. She provides executive leadership and direction to a staff that is responsible for developing vendor relationships, facilities management, and implementing acquisition strategies and processes to ensure customer requirements are identified and implemented through the acquisition process; supporting OIT’s procurement actions valuing in over $4 billion annually. She is the Chief Information Officer’s Small Business Representative for all socioeconomic categories.

Ms. Jones also serves as VA Chief Information Officer’s lead for Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) implementation throughout the Department. A retired U.S. Army Colonel, she served for 28 years in various senior acquisition and information technology positions.


Denise Kitts is currently the Executive Director of the Multi-Channel Technology (MCT) directorate within the VA’s Veteran Experience’s Office. MCT is charged with developing VA’s Customer Experience (CX) Technology capabilities and serving as the data steward for all customer data in the department. In this role, Ms. Kitts leads VA's efforts to improve customer experience across all channels Veterans choose to engage with VA, and ensures that those channels are convenient, easy to use, and provide personalized and proactive services.  

As part of its focus, MCT sponsors VA’s digital modernization, contact center modernization efforts and leads VA’s efforts to provide authoritative customer data to Veterans and employees. Ms. Kitts is also responsible for leading VA’s effort to improve service member data interoperability between DoD and VA.

In her previous position as Director of Enterprise Operations, Ms. Kitts was a key member of the leadership team that established the Veteran Experience Office. Prior to joining the Veteran Experience Office, she led many major programs within VHA, VBA and OIT to improve services to our nation's Veterans.   

Ms. Kitts has over 24 years of experience as an IT consultant in the private sector, which includes ten years working at Nasdaq supporting major IT transformation efforts.
 

David “Drew” Myklegard oversees VA’s Demand Management Division (DMD), which provides a consolidated set of enterprise-wide services that enables VA to capture business needs, architect, engineer, monitor performance, ensure program alignment, and provide cloud solutions in support of VA information technology (IT) modernization.

Under Mr. Myklegard’s leadership, DMD is the “gateway” for IT initiatives throughout the VA IT enterprise, helping VA improve solution delivery and provide better outcomes for our Veterans. Within DMD, his work also enables developers to build mobile and web apps using standards-based software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) designed to serve Veterans.

Mr. Myklegard joined VA in October 2013 to lead Enterprise Solutions for the VA Center for Innovation (VACI). His team developed several web and mobile applications, including the on-demand telemedicine app CareNow, the enterprise-wide correspondence management app VIEWS, and a quality-control app to measure the speed and consistency of the claims process.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Myklegard was a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Capability and Strategic Technology Innovation Center of Excellence, where he focused on health care technology architecture.

Mr. Myklegard is a currently serving in the U.S. Army Reserves as a military intelligence officer.


Registration is required.
  • SECAF Members - Complimentary
  • Non-Members - $35

Please register by Tuesday, December 1st at 12:00pm.

 
Questions?  Contact us info@secaf.org

Online Registration

Registration is Closed
Closed: 12/1/2020 9:15 PM

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