Big data, data analytics call for new backup and recovery strategies

Brandon Pustejovsky is the Chief Data Officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He leads the USAID Data Services team within the Office of the Chief Information Officer, providing a broad portfolio of data analytics, visualization, and digital curation services to USAID staff and partners worldwide. Mr. Pustejovsky has been leading international development and humanitarian assistance operations for over 15 years, in cooperation with organizations such as UNHCR, the International Red Cross, the World Food Programme, and multiple non-profits. His experience spans six continents and over 50 countries. Prior to working at USAID, he spent several years establishing humanitarian assistance operations in post-conflict and post-disaster environments. His exposure to these unstructured settings gave him a growing appreciation for the role of evidence and data in providing clarity of purpose and programmatic direction. Mr. Pustejovsky holds a B.A. in Foreign Service and French from Baylor University and an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University.

Dan Commons is the U.S. Department of Education (Department) office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) chief information security officer (CISO) and director of information technology risk management. FSA administers the federal student financial aid programs, which—in fiscal year 2018—provided more than $122 billion in federal grants, loans, and work-study funds to approximately 13 million students at nearly 6,000 participating schools. In total, FSA manages a federal student loan portfolio valued at $1.4 trillion representing more than 43 million customers.

Under Mr. Commons’ leadership, staff implements the FSA portions of the Department’s Federal Information Security Management Act and cybersecurity requirements. Such requirements include developing and maintaining specific information security and privacy services to assure the availability and confidentiality of the FSA portfolio, which contains personally identifiable information. As the FSA CISO, Mr. Commons is responsible for 80 percent of the Department’s High Value Assets hosted in multiple FSA-managed data centers, third-party facilities, and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program cloud facilities. Mr. Commons has initiated a tiger team to review, rewrite, or eliminate 150 process documents and guides that were out of date, redundant, or not required, while fostering a customer-focused, risk-based organization. The tiger team effort reduced the authority to operate processing time from nine months to three months.

Mr. Commons has served in a number of leadership roles at FSA, including as the acting director for information assurance services, as well as the chief for cybersecurity operations. Prior to that, he served in senior positions at the Defense Information Systems Agency, ARTEL, and as an active duty member of the U.S. Air Force.

With more than 34 years of federal service and 19 years of information assurance experience, Mr. Commons is recognized as a cybersecurity expert providing a broad-based set of skills encompassing the full spectrum of financial, acquisition, program management, and cybersecurity technical skills. He was recently recognized as a 2018 Cybersecurity Leader of the Year by FedScoop and has received major military awards, such as the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Medal, and the Air Force Commendation Medal.

Mr. Commons earned a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University and a master’s degree from Northern Montana University.

Tim Stanley, Vice President Commvault Federal Sales, has over 25 years experience working within Department of Defense to provide solutions to government technology challenges. In his current role, he leads the business strategy, development and partner engagement to drive the most customer value and outcomes. He joined Commvault in March 2017 as the Senior Director of Federal Engineering.

Prior to joining Commvault, Tim ran the Global Client Advisor program at Oracle where he defined and delivered on corporate strategy and operations goals. Tim also is an active member in the reserve forces of the United States Air Force where he is the Commander of a Space Command and Control Squadron.

Nick Psaki is the Principal Engineer, Americas - Public Sector for Pure Storage and is based in the Washington, DC area. Nick is Pure Storage's senior technical resource for government customers, providing deep technical knowledge of flash storage system architectures that enable business and technological transformation for government enterprises.

A 20-year veteran of the United States Army, Nick has extensive experience in designing, developing, deploying and operating information systems for data analysis, sensor integration and large-scale server virtualization. He was the Intelligence Architectures Chief for the Army G2 (Intelligence), and the Technology and Integration Director for Army G2 Futures directorate. He has served in multiple peacekeeping and combat operations ranging from the Balkans in the 1990's (Operation Able Sentry VI and Operation Joint Endeavor/Joint Guard) to Iraq and Afghanistan in the post-9/11 era. For the past several years, Nick has been focused on ways in which new and emerging technologies can enable more rapid and cost-efficient analysis of ever-growing bodies of data.

Tom Temin has been the host of the Federal Drive since 2006. Tom has been reporting on and providing insight to technology markets for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Federal News Radio, Tom was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines. Tom also contributes a regular column on government information technology.