Featured Speakers

Welby

STEPHEN P. WELBY

Mr. Stephen P. Welby was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering in September 2009. He is the principal systems engineering advisor to the Secretary of Defense and is responsible for establishing and executing engineering policy and oversight across the Department. His responsibilities include pre-acquisition development planning; engineering support to design, development, and manufacturing; and independent engineering review, technical risk assessment, and engineering analysis across the Department's portfolio of major acquisition programs. He provides functional leadership to more than 40,000 Defense acquisition professionals in the DoD systems planning, research, development, and engineering (SPRDE) and production, quality, and manufacturing (PQM) workforce.
Mr. Welby has more than 22 years of government and industrial experience in technology and product development, including senior leadership positions at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). His experience includes development of leading-edge aeronautical and space systems, robotics, advanced weapons, high-performance software, and military sensor systems.
Mr. Welby holds a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a master's degree in business administration from the Texas A&M University, and master's degrees in computer science and applied mathematics from The Johns Hopkins University.

Morton

JOHN MORTON

John Morton was unanimously confirmed as the Director, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the U.S. Senate on May 12, 2009. ICE is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government. Created in 2003, the agency has a budget of $5.7 billion dollars and more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 48 foreign countries. The agency’s primary mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration.

Prior to his appointment by the President, Mr. Morton spent 15 years at the Department of Justice. At the Department, Mr. Morton served in several positions including Assistant United States Attorney, Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division.

During his tenure at ICE, Mr. Morton has strengthened ICE’s investigative efforts, with a particular emphasis on border crimes, export controls, intellectual property enforcement and child exploitation. Mr. Morton has also sought to prioritize ICE’s immigration enforcement efforts around the removal of criminal offenders, recent border violators, and those who ignore orders of removal or obtain immigration status by fraud.

Torelli

NICHOLAS M. TORELLI, JR.

Mr. Torelli serves as Director of Mission Assurance in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering. He is the focal point for human capital strategy and planning for improvement of Defense Acquisition technical management career fields (Systems Engineering, Production, Quality and Manufacturing, and related Software (SW) curriculum). His Specialty Engineering responsibilities include reliability, maintainability, manufacturing, software, supportability, Human Systems Integration (HSI), system safety, and management of the Value Engineering (VE) and Reduction in Total Ownership Cost (R-TOC) programs.

Mr. Torelli has over 35 years of experience supporting national defense. His career spans the U. S. Navy (submarines), over 25 years in the defense industry with several major corporations, and a prior tour in OSD. After departing the Naval Submarine Force, he held increasingly responsible positions in the defense industry starting as a systems engineer, progressing to program manager and plant manager. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Production Resources) in late 1990, managing weapons systems transition to production, the defense industrial base, quality, specifications and standards, and concurrent engineering. In his most recent job in industry, Mr. Torelli worked for the Raytheon Company, where his responsibilities and accomplishments included executing critical post-merger company consolidations and leading the Six Sigma transformation of the $4B Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence business. He comes to OSD from the highly successful MIND program, winner of the OSD “Top 5 Program” award in 2006, where he managed program development for this large intelligence program.

He received a Bachelor of Science from the U. S. Naval Academy (1972) before naval nuclear power training and submarine duty. He retired from the U. S. Naval Reserve with the rank of Commander, having served as a qualified Battle Group Command Watch Officer and Tactical Training Group (Atlantic) instructor.

Mays

COLONEL EDWARD J. MAYS

Colonel Edward J. Mays began his career with a degree from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Geophysics in 1984. He has served in a variety of positions in the Marine Corps ranging from logistics billets while stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to the Marine Corps Combat Development Command where he served as the Program Objective Memorandum Officer in Quantico, VA.

Accepted to the Naval Post Graduate School in 1995, Col Mays graduated in 1997 with a Masters in Computer Science moving on to serve as the Assistant Program Manager and Marine Corps Liaison Officer to several programs within the U. S. Army’s Program Executive Office for Intelligence Electronics Warfare & Sensors (IEW&S) and Command, Control & Computer Systems (C3S).

Excelling in the area of Program Management, Col Mays has held several positions highlighting his expertise including the Quarter Master and Logistics Officer at Marine Barracks Washington. He used program management to facilitate historic structure modernization and led the planning and designing for the new Marine Barracks Annex and Band Support Facility.

Subsequently in 2005, Col Mays served as an Acquisition Professor, Program Management and Leadership Department, with the Defense Acquisition University. He was selected for Command in 2007.  Promoted in 2008, he assumed the Military Deputy/Director of Future Operations and Sustainment at Global Combat Service Support System-Marine Corps (GCSS-MC), where he created the Common Integrated Logistics Modules (CLIMs) concept.  Early in 2011 he accepted his current position as the Assistant Commander, Product Support at Marine Corps Systems Command.

Aksit

CIHANGIR AKSIT

Major General (ret.) Cihangir Aksit was born in Istanbul, Turkey 1953. He graduated from the Army Staff College, Istanbul in 1984.
Between 1984 and 1994, he was assigned to various Staff and Infantry Command positions in the Turkish Army and within NATO (HQ COMLANDSOUTHEAST (Izmir) and AFSOUTH (Naples)). In 1987, he attended Course 70 of the NATO Defense College, Rome.
In 1994 Aksit was assigned to the HQ Turkish General Staff (TGS), to serve as the Head of the Management Section. He played a major role in the initiation and establishment of Total Quality Management (TQM), the renewing of the personnel performance & evaluation system and establishing new educational-social systems for the military.
In 1997, Aksit was assigned as Commander of the Presidential Guard Regiment, Ankara for a two-year period. During this time, he applied change management and TQM to his regiment, acquiring the first ISO 9000 certificate in the Turkish Armed Forces. He has given conferences and lectures on modern management, strategic planning and TQM in universities and extended and deepened the cooperation with other civilian actors in this domain.
He was promoted Brigadier General and assigned to command a Mechanized Infantry Brigade, at the eastern border in 1999. Just a few days before 9/11 in 2001 Aksit returned to NATO as Chief of the Plans & Ops Branch, SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), Mons, also for two years.
In 2003 Aksit was promoted to Major General and assigned as the Chief of Training & Exercise Division in the Turkish General Staff, Ankara, playing a key role in major projects such as the establishment of strategic planning in the TUR Armed Forces, and the NATO Defense Against Terrorism Center of Excellence (Ankara). He and his team also managed the Turkish Partnership for Peace Training Center and initiated the CO-War Academies projects for Albania (Tirana) and Afghanistan (Kabul).
After a tour as Commander of a Infantry Division, 2005-2007, Aksit was assigned the Deputy Inspector General of the Turkish Land Forces Command on operational and material standards and procedures. He retired in 2008.
After his retirement, Aksit was assigned to President’s Defense Consultant in 2010 and then to the Consultant Expert at the permanent Mission of Turkey to NATO in Brussels. He took the role of Director NSA on 1 July 2010, focusing on agency reform.
In parallel, he is at the final thesis phase of the PhD program on International Security Strategies in Strategic Research Institute (SAREN) in Istanbul.

ZortmanJIM ZORTMAN

Jim Zortman is Sector Vice President, Life Cycle Logistics and Support, for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, a premier provider of manned and unmanned aircraft, space systems, missile systems and advanced technologies critical to our nation's security.
Supporting the strategy of "design anywhere, build anywhere," Zortman provides sector-level leadership of the full spectrum of logistics and product support functions. He is responsible for ensuring that the same excellence in integration present in design and production at Aerospace Systems is also fully exploited in anticipation and fulfillment of product support requirements.
His most recent previous assignment was as sector vice president, Global Sustainment, at the former Integrated Systems sector.
Zortman joined Northrop Grumman in January 2008 following a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy, where he ultimately attained the rank of vice admiral. He served as Commander Naval Air Forces and CEO, Naval Aviation Enterprise. In this role, he led a combined team of more than 180,000 military, government civilian, and contractor personnel responsible for operations, readiness, and full life-cycle management of 3,800 aircraft and 12 aircraft carriers.
His prior assignments include commander, Naval Air Forces, Pacific Fleet; commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic Fleet; commander, Task Force Fifty; commander, John C. Stennis Battle Group; director, Operations and Politico-Military Affairs; and executive officer to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has earned the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (4), and the Bronze Star.
Zortman earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and completed a fellowship in strategic studies with the Naval War College. In addition, he has completed courses in executive business and strategic planning at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and the University of North Carolina Business School at Chapel Hill, respectively.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

ZortmanEUGENE GHOLZ

Dr. Eugene Gholz is senior advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy (MIBP). He leads MIBP's sector-by-sector, tier-by-tier (S2T2) assessment of the industrial base. He has also focused on supporting Mr. Lambert on MIBP's contribution to the Better Buying Power initiative and on IR&D policy.

When not working in AT&L, Dr. Gholz is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he directed the master's program in global policy studies from 2007-10. He is also a research affiliate of MIT's Security Studies Program, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and associate editor of the journal Security Studies. He is the coauthor of two books, and his PhD is from MIT.

Saunders

GREGORY E. SAUNDERS

Gregory E. (Greg) Saunders is the Director of the Defense Standardization Program Office (DSPO). This office is the Secretary's Executive Agent for the Defense Standardization Program. Greg is responsible for policies and procedures governing development and use of Military Specifications and Standards, Qualified Products/Manufacturers Lists, use of voluntary standards, Data Item Descriptions and parts management. He oversees the Government Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) and DoD activities to mitigate the impact of diminishing manufacturing sources. Greg is the vice-chair of the Defense Standardization Council chaired by the Director, Systems Engineering.
Prior to this assignment, Greg was the Deputy Director for Acquisition Practices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he was responsible for many of the same issues and was one of the principal proponents of commercial acquisition. He served on two Defense Science Board Studies chaired by Secretary of Defense William Perry, and was responsible for implementation of their recommendations, has testified before congress, and has served on numerous study groups, committees, and boards.
Before 1986, Mr. Saunders was a member of the Defense Materiel Specifications and Standards Office where he was responsible for DoD's program to adopt and use voluntary standards and for various other aspects of standardization policy.
He is an engineering graduate of the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. Greg is a past Chairman of the Board of Directors of ASTM International, serves on the Board of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and chairs their Government Member Forum, serves on the Board of Directors of SAE International and chairs their Technical Standards Board. He has also chaired or served on various other committees, councils and boards both in industry and government. He is the U.S. representative to NATO's Committee on Standardization Representatives, chairs the Standardization Management Working Group and represents the U.S. on the European Defense Agency's Materiel Standardization Harmonization Team. He is also the DoD Representative on the Interagency Committee on Standards Policy.
Mr. Saunders has won numerous awards including the Vice President's Golden Hammer Award, the Department of Defense Civilian Service Award, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, ANSI's Howard Coonley Medal and their Meritorious Service Award, ASTM's William T. Cavanaugh Memorial Award, the SAE Aerospace Chair Award, the Standards Engineering Society's Leo B. Moore Medal of Honor, the Silver Star of the Polish Army, and industry's Equal Partner Award.