MITS Highlights 'Portfolio Management in a Cloud Environment'

In May, the chapter hosted the annual Montgomery Information Technology Summit (MITS) at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Spa at the Convention Center in Montgomery, Alabama. The theme of this year's summit was "Portfolio Management in a Cloud Environment." The conference featured an assortment of presentations from many speakers, including Richard Aldridge, program executive officer (PEO), Business and Enterprise Systems, Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex, Alabama; Brig. Gen. Cedric George, USAF, deputy director of resource integration, deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering and force protection; Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess Jr., USA (Ret.), senior counsel for national security programs, cyber programs and military affairs, Auburn University; Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, USAF, commander and president, Air University (AU), Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; Maj. Gen. Dwyer Dennis, USAF, PEO, command, control, communications, intelligence and networks (PEO/C3I&N), Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts; David Smith, group vice president, Enterprise Software Research Group, Gartner; Herbert Hunter, director, Enterprise Services Division, PEO/BES, Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex; Conrad Bell, senior technical adviser, 26 Network Operations Squadron, Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex; and Lt. Gen. John Thompson, USAF, commander, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. MITS also featured two panel discussions. The first topic was "Challenges and Opportunities in Transition to a Cloud Environment." Toy Robinson, director of engineering, Maxwell-Gunter Annex Business and Enterprise Systems, was moderator of the panel, which included Tim Green, deputy director, Plans and Integration; Lisa Smith deputy director of logistics, civil engineering and force protection, Headquarters Air Material Command; Mason Tanaka, assistant secretary of information technology, Office of Information Technology, State of Alabama; John DeCastra, principal technical architect, cloud technologies, AT&T; Richard Puckette, vice president, IBM, Global Business Services; and Marc Jones, director of public sector outreach, Consortium for IT Software Quality. The second panel topic was "Cloud Transformation." The moderator was Dr. Tim Rudolph, chief technical officer, Air Force Integrated Information Capabilities, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and the panelists were Adam Clater, chief cloud architect, Red Hat; John Hale, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA); Justin Smith, director, Pivotal Software Inc.; and Michael Acton, chief technology officer supporting Air Force enterprise information technology programs for Lockheed Martin. MITS attendees also were invited to the chapter's annual Education Foundation Luncheon. At the luncheon, 12 hard-working students from the River Region were recognized for their achievements with more than $45,000 in scholarships and internship opportunities with local information technology companies.

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