« ParksAssociates.com Hosted by Parks Associates

CONNECTIONS™ Speaker Biographies


QUESTIONS ABOUT SPEAKING?
Please contact Mindi Sue Sternblitz-Rubenstein at Parks Associates or call 972-490-1113. Submit to Speak.

Keynotes


Anthony Dohrmann Anthony Dohrmann, Founder and CEO, Electronic Caregiver (ECG)

Anthony Dohrmann is the founder and inventor of Electronic Caregiver solutions. Anthony Dohrmann’s latest invention is Addison, the virtual caregiver. She is a state-of-the-art, 3D animated, connected caregiver designed to transform a residence into a digital Smart Health Home, providing chronic care management, rehabilitation, aging in place, behavioral health, and care coordination for patients of all ages.


Morgan Hertel Morgan Hertel, Vice President of Technology & Innovation, Rapid Response Monitoring

Morgan Hertel, with over 40 years of experience in the electronic security industry, is a well-respected leader who has served in many executive leadership roles for independent security integration companies and monitoring centers. Currently, as Vice President of Technology & Innovation for Rapid Response Monitoring, Morgan evaluates and harnesses the synergy between the latest technological advancements and the industry’s leading service providers to further advance the unmatched Dealer services of Rapid Response.
 
Morgan serves as President of The Monitoring Association (TMA) and is actively involved in many local and national industry associations and initiatives, and he dedicates countless hours to the work of several forward-thinking committees throughout the industry, as well. 
 
Morgan holds the following certificates and licenses:
NICET Level III Fire Alarm Technology, California Alarm Company Qualified Manager, Oregon Certified Trainer, Oregon Executive Manager, TMA Level I and II Central Station Operator, SIA Certified Operator and ESA Certified Alarm Installer.


Lon Huber Lon Huber, SVP, Pricing & Customer Solutions, Duke Energy Corporation

Lon Huber serves as senior vice president of pricing and customer solutions for Duke Energy. With a focus on revenue generation and carbon savings, Lon leads the strategy and delivery of product & service portfolios spanning all customer types. To further meet evolving customer needs, Lon also oversees the development and implementation of innovative rate designs, advanced customer load analytics, and creative regulated solutions across eight different jurisdictions.

Prior to Duke, Lon worked for state commissions, clean technology companies and consumer advocates across the country as a consultant. Lon has also held various positions in the public and private sectors ranging from economic development to state government and the solar energy industry.
Lon has received numerous awards for his creative solutions to the electricity industry’s most pressing issues, including awards from Public Utilities Fortnightly, the top honor from the Energy Storage Association as well as Utility Dive’s Innovator of the Year award. Lon is also a regular instructor at FRI’s Advanced Rates Seminar at the University of Washington.
 


Speakers


Brendan Armstrong Sr. Brendan Armstrong Sr., President & Owner, Trinity Wiring & Security Solutions


Dean Avgiris Dean Avgiris, Executive Director - Xfinity Home, Comcast

Dean Avgiris leads the Xfinity Home business. He is responsible for all aspects of product management and development, revenue optimization, and go-to-market strategy across Xfinity Home's suite of security, monitoring, and smart home solutions. Prior to his work with Xfinity Home, Dean held various roles in strategy, finance, and product operations across Comcast NBCUniversal.


Shawn Barry Shawn Barry, VP Strategic Sales, Alarm.com

Shawn Barry is North American VP, Strategic Sales at Alarm.com headquartered in Vienna, VA.  Alarm.com creates innovative technology that deepens the connection between people and the things they care about most – their families, homes and businesses.  Millions of people trust Alarm.com every day for better security, intelligence automation and dependable services.  Alarm.com services are exclusively sold, set up and supported by a nationwide network of authorized service providers.  Shawn’s strategic sales team focuses on fast growing vertical markets such as healthcare, builders, property management, utilities and insurance.
 
He also worked at MicroStrategy, an enterprise business intelligence software company and former parent company of Alarm.com.  Shawn has his undergraduate degree in Finance from Virginia Tech.  He resides in the Vienna, VA area with his wife and children.


Mark Benson Mark Benson, Head of SmartThings, Samsung SmartThings
Twitter ID: @smartthings

Mark Benson is Head of Samsung SmartThings. Mark oversees all aspects of the organization including product management and software development teams that are responsible for delivering the user interfaces, cloud platform services, embedded software, and partner tools at the heart of Samsung's innovative connected product portfolio. Prior to joining SmartThings, Mark was Chief Technology Officer at Exosite, a leading Industrial Internet of Things enterprise software company focused on helping businesses launch connected products to market with a cloud software platform, embedded firmware, partnership ecosystem, and white label user experience to help predict and respond to production issues before they happen. Mark also spent 11 years with Logic PD, most recently as Director of Software Strategy where he led software and systems engineering for dozens of v1 product launches for consumer, medical, industrial, military, and aerospace applications. Mark was also responsible for corporate software strategy and for co-leading the cultivation of the company's IP portfolio. Mark is a recognized speaker on the value of connected products to users and businesses and has authored several technical papers on strategic planning, organizational behavior, competitive strategy, product management, software engineering leadership, data analytics, and information security. Mark is also the author of The Art of Software Thermal Management for Embedded Systems (Springer 2014). Mark earned a Master of Science in Software Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Bethel University.


Jean Anne Booth Jean Anne Booth, CEO, UnaliWear

A serial entrepreneur, Jean Anne started UnaliWear after selling previous startups to Texas Instruments and Apple. Jean Anne was the founder of Luminary Micro, the creators of the Stellaris microcontroller platform and the first to market with ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontroller solutions, purchased by Texas Instruments in May 2009 Jean Anne retired from TI in 2012 after serving as the general manager for TI's Stellaris family of products. Jean Anne was also a founder at Intrinsity, the creators of the graphics chip in Apple iPad products. Intrinsity sold to Apple in 2010. Jean Anne holds a BSEE from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MSCE from National Technical University.


Michael Crane Michael Crane, VP Business Development, Imprint Energy
Twitter ID: @imprintenergy


Clint Cushing Clint Cushing, CEO, Nomo Hub


Jason Dudley Jason Dudley, Director, Product Development and Implementation, GreenMarbles


Aaron Emigh Aaron Emigh, CEO and Co-Founder, Brilliant
Twitter ID: @BrilliantTech

Aaron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Brilliant, a leading Smart Home and Smart Apartment company and recipient of the CES Innovation Award, the CTA TechHome Mark of Excellence, the IoT Breakthrough Award, and the CEDIA BEST Award. Aaron is an accomplished Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and investor, who previously served as the Co-Founder and CTO of shopkick, the #1 mobile retail application that pioneered the use of in-store beacons at dozens of top retailers such as Target, Macy’s, and Best Buy. Aaron was previously the EVP and GM of Technology at Six Apart, now known as SAY Media, and held founding leadership roles at Radix Labs and CommerceFlow, which was acquired by eBay. Aaron is an inventor on over 100 issued patents and has been recognized as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.


Nick English Nick English, CEO North America, Kaadas
Twitter ID: @KaadasOfficial

Nick English serves as CEO, North America for Kaadas Smart Door Lock. A security industry veteran, English is an accomplished management professional with extensive experience successfully running multi-million dollar strategic alliance partnerships, building and leading high-performance sales and management teams, and navigating key vertical markets. Prior to Kaadas, English held positions as both a District Sales Manager and Director, Marketing, National Strategic Partnerships for ADT before serving as Sales Director for Kwikset. Over the course of his career English had cultivated a proven track record of maximizing sales growth, exceeding performance expectations, and providing world-class customer service. Within his most recent roles as CEO, North America for Kaadas, English is responsible for leading the company's expansion operations as well as leveraging strong manufacturing capabilities and engineering talent to bring high-quality, innovative products to a new market.


Scott Ford Scott Ford, CEO, Pepper IoT
Twitter ID: @scottpford

Scott Ford is the CEO of Pepper, the leading U.S.-based consumer IoT platform that enables retailers, insurance carriers, OEMs and more to build, deliver and monetize secure IoT solutions. Scott applies more than 25 years of wireless industry and operations experience to drive Pepper's vision forward, and he is the co-founder and managing director of OpenAir Equity Partners, a wireless and IoT-focused venture capital firm. Prior to Pepper, Scott served as founder and general manager of Sprint Nextel Ventures, Sprint's corporate venture capital unit. He is also a decorated Desert Storm Veteran and has flown more than 300 combat hours (3,000 total) aboard Navy P-3C aircraft.


Peter Giacalone Peter Giacalone, President, Giacalone Associates, LLC
Twitter ID: @cctglobal

A successful forty year career in the electronic security & telecommunications industry that includes building and leading the largest security, life safety, PERS and video contract monitoring center in the US, with a proven executive track record in increasing revenue and opening new market verticals. Over a ten year period of focus and effort resulted in growing the company from a forty five thousand account regional center to over five hundred thousand accounts with fifty million dollars in annual revenue. Created the business plan, solicited the financing and secured a one hundred million dollar credit facility to fund the start up of King Capital Financial Services, which grew to become one of the longest running Dealer Financial & Acquisition Programs in the security industry. Providing Subject Matter Expert advisory for litigation, M&A and operations both domestically and internationally for the past 20 years.


Mason Hall Mason Hall, Head of Connected Products, Moen
Twitter ID: @moen

Mason Hall is head of connected products for Fortune Brands Innovations. He joined Fortune Brands and Moen in 2020 and is responsible for leading and growing the development of smart home technology across the Moen brand and rest of Fortune brands. Prior to joining Fortune Brands Innovations, Mason was at GE Lighting - where he spent more than a decade across various GE business units in roles supporting GE's consumer and commercial digital transformation and strategic business development. Mason also holds Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Business Administration degrees from John Carroll University.


Warren Hill Warren Hill, VP, Marketing, Alula

Warren Hill has spent 15 years in the security industry with experience in Marketing, Product and Program Management. He is currently the VP of Marketing and Partner Development for Alula. Prior to joining Alula he spent time with GE Security and Interlogix. He enjoys hiking, biking, golfing and a number of other outdoor activities.


Troy Iverson Troy Iverson, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, AvantGuard Monitoring Centers, A Becklar Company
Twitter ID: @AvantGuardMon

Troy Iverson is Vice President of Sales & Marketing at AvantGuard Monitoring Centers and part owner of Becklar, the holding company of AvantGuard and mobile PERS industry leader, Freeus. His passion is in helping people, protecting property and providing first class customer service. Troy has enjoyed being part of the monumental growth at AvantGuard and has contributed significantly to the company's success over the last decade. AvantGuard is nearing a major milestone of 1 million monitored accounts and is excited to have a 3rd location currently under construction. As a sought-after presenter, Troy has represented the monitoring services industry at many national trade shows and hosted multiple PERS Summit events. He has been a board member for the Utah Alarm Systems Security Licensing (DOPL) since 2013. Away from the office, Troy is an avid golfer, snow skier, pickleballer and loves coaching his 4 children in all their sporting activities.


Abe Kinney Abe Kinney, Senior Director, Product Management, Alarm.com

Abe is responsible for the management of several Alarm.com solutions, including energy management, home automation, and security partner integrations. Since joining the company in 2012, he has worked across the service provider and customer experience areas to deliver dependable technology that connects people with the things they care about most.


Mitchell Klein Mitchell Klein, Director, Alliances Strategy, Silicon Labs; Executive Director, Z-Wave Alliance LLC, Silicon Labs/Z-Wave Alliance
Twitter ID: @Mitchell_Klein

Mitch Klein is Director Alliances Strategy at Silicon Labs, driving global adoption of smart home, smart cities and commercial applications. An IoT leader with 30 years experience, he is a CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, recognizing his innovative leadership in technology design and integrator industry. At Silicon Labs Mitch is active in many alliances, such as Executive Director, Z-Wave Alliance and Secretary on the Executive Committee at the Wi-SUN Alliance. 


Geoff Martin Geoff Martin, President & Co-founder, vipHomeLink
Twitter ID: @vipHomeLink

Geoff Martin is President & Co-founder of vipHomeLink. He is a strategic and growth-oriented leader with significant CFO, corporate M&A, capital raising and partnerships expertise. With more than $10.5B in executed corporate transactions and substantial boardroom and executive leadership experience, Geoff co-founded vipHomeLink with Alfred Bentley in 2018. As a homeowner himself, Geoff is passionate about simplifying the experience of homeownership, helping people protect and improve their largest asset, and delivering value to vipHomeLink's members and partners. Geoff received his MBA from New York University, and his Bachelors from Penn State University. He currently resides in Charleston, SC and enjoys tennis, golf, and traveling with his family.


Nathan Matney Nathan Matney, Director, IoT Products, Keurig Dr. Pepper


Bruce Mungiguerra Bruce Mungiguerra, CEO, Riverbend Sandler Pools

Bruce is a C level operations and sales professional whose success in a diverse set of roles has enabled him to excel in every challenge he has faced. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, driving sales and operations teams at all levels from call centers, field operations to outside sales, Bruce has continued to provide top level leadership along the way. Bruce spent 20 years in the home security and connected home space leading various organizations. Bruce worked for both Brinks Home Security and Monitronics for over 16 years and was the Chief Operations Officer during his last 5 years at Monitronics. After a long career on the operations side of the home security industry, Bruce joined Nortek Control as the SVP of Sales and Marketing. Bruce helped lead the sale of Nortek to Nice, and after the sale he moved back to Dallas and began a new career in the swimming pool industry. Bruce is the CEO of Riverbend Sandler Pools and in his first 18 months, he and his team have made 7 acquisitions in TX and are now the second largest pool company in the US. Bruce joined the pool industry from the eyes of a customer, knowing the space lacked technology and felt it was the right time to enter the space and drive technology to our end users. Many of the home automation and security platforms today have the capability to connect to the newer pool equipment in the industry, providing just one more opportunity to create a sticky connected home customer.


Benjamin Myers Benjamin Myers, National Sales Manager, Kwikset

Benjamin Myers is the National Sales Manager for Kwikset, an industry leading door lock manufacturer. He has been in the building industry for almost 20 years, with experience in a variety of channels including, but not limited to: retail, wholesale, smart home, single family residential, and multifamily residential. In his current role he leads the Residential Access Solutions team which encompasses smart home, proptech, access control and intrusion amongst others. Benjamin has a bachelor's degree from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in Marketing and minored in Speech Communication. His professional passion is developing himself and others, which has led to him guiding or participating in many leadership development & mentorship programs throughout his career. 


Lars Oleson Lars Oleson, CEO, Xailient, Inc.

Serial entrepreneur, award-winning SW architect, ex-head of engineering for billion-dollar SW enterprise; 20-years in SW industry, co-founded 4 companies, 3 exits (1 overlap). Invented products at startups & public co's - Gartner "magic quadrant" in 2 different sectors & dozens of awards in consumer and enterprise. Exited as CEO to Alipay Indonesia then go-to-market CPO in the world's 4th most populous country. 


Keith R Puckett Keith R Puckett, Founder | CEO, Ubiety Technologies, Inc.

Keith is the Co-Founder | CEO of Ubiety Technologies, Inc. Keith comfortably explores the space where opportunity and uncertainty are alive and vibrant. Keith's personal mission at Ubiety is to take difficult actions for the progression of a bigger purpose. Ubiety was born from the fundamental belief that hope and opportunity have been a casualty of an exponentially violent crime epidemic. HomeAware delivers home, commercial and community security, and aims to heal communities, families and households. Keith believes that Things That Matter Are Hard. Prior to Ubiety Technologies, Inc., Keith spent the last decade founding several gig-economy, labor marketplace companies, most recently as Co-Founder | CEO of BookedOut (Acquired in 2016). BookedOut was an on-demand hiring marketplace serving the episodic labor demands of experiential marketing agencies and was one of the country's first gig economy platforms. Prior to BookedOut, Keith was Co-Founder | CEO of Method Models, a technology enabled staffing firm focused on improving the clumsy distribution model of labor management for large scale enterprises including Pepsi, Cricket Wireless, Heineken USA, Frito-Lay, and Gatorade. Prior to entrepreneurship, Keith spent nearly a decade as an Investment Banker with Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York City. Keith was a Vice President in the Technology, Media and Telecom group within the firm's Investment Banking division. He specialized in mergers and acquisitions in the aerospace | defense and technology sectors. Keith executed over $65 Billion of M&A transactions and approximately $10 Billion of equity and debt financings.


Sai Reddy Sai Reddy, CEO, CamerEye

Sai is the Founder and CEO of CamerEye, a leading AI Smart Pool platform and recipient of the Best Smart Pool Products Award at PSP Expo 2022. Sai is an accomplished technology entrepreneur, who previously was part of the founding team at PXISE, an AI based data software that pioneered the use of prediction and smart controls for large renewable power plants. PXISE was acquired by a giant automation manufacturer, Yokogawa in 2020. Sai is a passionate water lover, an avid swimmer, surfer and sailor whose vision is to bring game-changing tech solutions to the outdoor space. Sai is an inventor of 8 patents, 15+ publications and sits in various advisory committees and boards such as ASTM, NDPA, PHTA etc. 


Andreas Rudyk Andreas Rudyk, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Smartfrog & Canary
Twitter ID: @canary

Andreas is a serial entrepreneur. He founded his first company, the online gaming enabler lionix, at the age of fifteen. He then founded IM Trading, a stock market newsletter publishing business, later acquired by a Swiss private equity firm. Subsequently, Andreas bootstrapped and co-founded ewido networks, a consumer cyber security company. Withover 7 million users worldwide, the business scaled rapidly to a category leader and was awarded, "Best newcomer of the year" by Digital River's ICE. In 2006, ewido merged with AVG Technologies, a leading antivirus and cybersecurity provider where Andreas led business development and later corporate development of the group worldwide. Andreas helped to grow AVG from 40 to over 110 million customers, scaling the team from 100 to 800 employees (including 450 software engineers) and taking the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012. Andreas co-founded Smartfrog as a consumer IoT SaaS pioneer in 2014. The company's mission is making modern technologies useful, easy, affordable and safe providing IoT for everyone. In 2018, the company acquired the US-based Canary Connect Inc. The two businesses were later merged into Smartfrog & Canary, headquartered in NYC. Andreas leads the group as Co-CEO. To date, the business has raised over $150M in funding and is one of the category leaders.


Ben Weintraub Ben Weintraub, CEO, Kajeet
Twitter ID: @Kajeet

Ben Weintraub is the CEO, board member and founder at Kajeet. An entrepreneur, inventor and wireless industry expert, Weintraub has over 20 years of experience founding and leading successful high-growth technology companies in the telecom sector and is a named inventor on over 30 U.S. patents in the fields of wireless technology and systems. Weintraub started his entrepreneurial journey in the wireless industry in 1997 with the founding of Simply Wireless, one of the nation's largest authorized wireless retailers, offering service from carriers including AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, Sprint PCS, Nextel, Ntelos and Suncom. Before that, he served nearly six years in the U.S. Navy, working as a project manager before becoming an assistant program manager in the nuclear surface ship propulsion program.


Brock Winzeler Brock Winzeler, President, Freeus, A Becklar Personal Health & Safety Company

Brock is President of the Freeus, Becklar Workforce Safety and Becklar Connected Wellness businesses. He joined Becklar in 2015 to lead the newly acquired Freeus business. Since that time, Brock has had the privilege of assembling and leading a world class team that is responsible for the accelerated growth and award winning platform and services of his companies. Brock is known for his ability to drive accelerated growth through caring relationships with internal stakeholders and industry partners.


Stefan Witkamp Stefan Witkamp, Founder, Commercial Director, Athom, maker of Homey
Twitter ID: @homey

Stefan Witkamp is the co-founder and commercial director of Homey by Athom B.V, the company he founded in 2014. As commercial director of Homey, Stefan is responsible for operations, sales, partnerships and public relations. 
 
Stefan has been a tech, retail and business enthusiast since his youth, with a broad range of experience in non-profit boards, representation and commerce prior to founding Homey. He loves the combination of tech and commerce, and is focused on making great products reach as many people as possible. Stefan has been entrepreneurial since high school and holds a BSc in Creative Technology from the University of Twente in The Netherlands.


Matt Wootton Matt Wootton, Co-Founder and CTO, Ivani

Matt is an entrepreneur, innovator, and the Co-Founder and CTO of Ivani where he leads the technical team and drives overall technical strategy. With over seventy granted patents and many pending applications, he has a wealth of experience creating intellectual property. Throughout his career, Matt has driven various market innovations in both the defense and commercial sectors. After graduating from Olin College of Engineering, he has added an MBA alongside other professional certifications both in Systems Engineering and TRIZ.


Moderators


QUESTIONS ABOUT SPEAKING?
Please contact Mindi Sue Sternblitz-Rubenstein at Parks Associates or call 972-490-1113.