2009 Keynote Speakers

The 2009 WLC featured three keynote speakers:

Friday evening

Teresa Smith is an experienced leader who has excelled in her 26 year career in the software industry. As Sr. Vice President of world-wide Product Development and Support for the Intergraph Security, Government & Infrastructure Division, she leads teams responsible for bringing products to market and supporting mission critical solutions utilized to protect millions of people globally and to manage and protect infrastructure.

After earning her degree in Industrial Management from Georgia Tech in 1983, she joined Management Science America (MSA), which was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet and since then has had the opportunity to work for several software solution providers including Indus International and Solution6. Teresa earned her MBA in Management from Georgia State University in 1988.

Throughout her career in technology, Teresa has led teams through many challenges and tremendous change, including multiple mergers and acquisitions, changes in technology direction and economic challenges. She strongly believes in the importance of truly partnering with customers, building strong teams and mentoring team members.

Saturday breakfast

Beverly J. Seay is a Senior Vice President with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). SAIC is a FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering and technology applications company that uses its deep domain knowledge to solve problems of vital importance to the Nation and the world, in national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure, and health. With over 30 years of experience in the research, development, and management of large-scale Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial systems, Ms. Seay manages the Analysis, Simulation, Systems, Engineering & Training (ASSET) Business Unit (BU). The ASSET BU comprises a workforce of 2500 people, generates annual revenue near $600 million with major locations in McLean, Va., Orlando, Fl., Suffolk, Va. and Omaha Ne. as well as Boston, Ma. and Brussels, Belgium.

Major clients of Ms. Seay's organization include: DoD, the military services, many other departments and agencies of the U.S. Government and several foreign governments. Her SAIC team holds a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 5 rating in systems engineering and in developing software for composable systems that create common product line architectures (PLA) for virtual and constructive simulations.

Ms. Seay's comprehensive view of business and customer relationships are manifested in her development of the Customer Lifecycle Architecture (CLCA). This patent-pending business method provides linkages between different business phases, models and customers, providing insights into areas for investment and discovery, and has opened up new business domains for SAIC.

As a leader in modeling and simulation (M&S), Ms. Seay has produced pioneering work in M&S. Recently, Frost & Sullivan reported, Ms. Seay's engineering team have established SAIC as one of the top three companies in Constructive Simulation. She led SAIC's development of two 85,000-squarefoot facilities in Orlando that included the Integrated Simulation Center. This simulation center showcases SAIC's product line of virtual training simulators and rapid simulator prototyping capability. The successful expansion of the SAIC Orlando business emanates from Ms. Seay's vision of applying software technology to the constructive training domain.

Within the national security policy and the operational C2 arenas Ms. Seay's business unit holds a dominant position. While maintaining a constant focus on support for the Warfighter, Ms Seay's team of national security issue thought-leaders frequently provide support and necessary expertise to senior-level Government officials. Her work in C2 and Cyber has been ground-breaking and has assisted the defense sector in creating its initial concepts and appropriately structuring new organizations to deal with a fast changing security and threat environment.

The ASSET BU has received numerous honors, such as being selected by a panel of industry experts as one of the U.S. Government's Top-5 Software Projects under Army's OneSAF Objective System Program. Additionally, Warfighter Simulation (WARSIM), for whic the ASSET BU is a key software contractor, was selected by the National Defense Industrial Association as one of the Top-5 DoD Software Development Programs. Ms. Seay and her staff have been presented 13 SAIC Achievement Awards for excellence in categories ranging from Excellence in Public Service to Excellence in Science in Technology, to Excellence in Program Performance.

Recently, Ms. Seay led the acquisition of Icon Systems, specialists in live training systems, completing the integration of SAIC's offerings across the three training simulation domains and assisting the ASSET BU in carrying out its expansion of M&S and systems technology beyond training into national security and policy, and operational command and control, including applications in the cyber domain.

Ms. Seay holds positions on a number of select boards to include the U.S. Strategic Command's Strategic Advisory Group (SAG). Additionally, she serves on the Georgia Tech President's Advisary Baord as well as their College of Computing Diversity Advisory Board; University of Central Florida's College of Engineering & Computer Science Dean's Advisory Board; the Board of Directors for the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition; the Peter Kiewit Institute Advisory Board at University of Nebraska and the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) Board of Governors Sunshine Chapter. She is also a board member emeritus for Kids House of Seminole, helped co-found the more than 2,000-member SAIC Women's Network and was the creator of SAIC's Mentoring Connection. Ms. Seay is recognized as a champion of computing and engineering education for minority and diversity candidates.

Ms. Seay holds a BS Degree in Mathematics and an MS in Information and Control Engineering from the University of Michigan. She is married to Stephen Seay and has two daughters: Michelle, a computer science graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Tiffany, a computer science graduate of the University of Central Florida.

Saturday lunch

Betsy Myers most recently served as a senior advisor to Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign. She joined the campaign in January 2007 as the Chief Operating Officer and is known for establishing the campaign with a business operational model and customer service mentality.

Myers also represented the campaign as Chair, Women for Obama. She traveled extensively in 2008 speaking to undecided voters and concentrating on women's outreach. These efforts included a working partnership with Women for Obama and the DNC's Women's Leadership Forum. She also spent significant time working on unity efforts - meeting with Clinton supporters across the country to hear their concerns and invite them to join the Obama efforts.

Prior to this appointment, Myers was the Executive Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She came to CPL in 2003, bringing with her a proven track record of building, growing, funding and strategically realigning organizations. Motivated by her strong belief that the hardest person we will ever manage is ourselves, Myers is known for bringing a focus to the Center's teaching and research around personal leadership and the fully integrated person. She also increased the Center's efforts around women and leadership and worked closely with the Harvard's Women's Leadership Board (2000-2007).

A senior official in the Clinton Administration, she was the President's senior advisor on women's issues. As Deputy Assistant to the President, she was the first Director of the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach (1995-1997). In this capacity she helped ensure that such issues as domestic violence, reproductive choice, breast cancer, and women in business figured prominently on the Administration's legislative agenda.

Myers worked in the U.S. Small Business Administration, first as Director of the Office of Women's Business Ownership (1993-1995), and later as Associate Deputy Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development (1997-1999). She was responsible for the agency's technical assistance, management, and distance learning program as well as implementing the agencies national requirements under President Clinton's welfare to work initiative.

Prior to joining the Clinton Administration, Myers spent 6 years building Myers Insurance and Financial Services based in Los Angeles. She specialized in the small business and women's market providing insurance and retirement planning.

A Public Service Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School, she graduated with a M.P.A. in 2000, and then served as the School's Director of Alumni Programs and External Relations before coming to CPL.