Speakers

Netta Squires was appointed as Maryland’s first Director of Local Cybersecurity, for the Department of Information Technology. In this role Netta is responsible for fostering a Whole of State approach to cybersecurity by coordinating and collaborating with Maryland’s counties, municipalities, public school systems, community colleges, and other localities, with the goal of attaining cybersecurity maturity and resiliency. Prior to joining the state, Netta spent 6 years at the local level with Montgomery County, MD, in the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, where she worked on creating and implementing a wholistic approach to cybersecurity preparedness and response by integrating the technology and emergency management approaches and disciplines at the local, state, and regional levels.

Netta teaches Emergency Management at the Mid Atlantic Center for Emergency Management & Public Safety and teaches Cybersecurity Technology and Emergency Management for the University of Maryland Global Campus. Netta is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) by the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and a Certified Cybersecurity Resiliency Professional (CCRP) by the Disaster Resiliency Institute (DRI). She is admitted to practice law in Maryland.

Netta was elected as an Executive Committee Member of the MS-ISAC and started her 3-year term this October, 2023. She participates in efforts to foster cybersecurity and cyber resilience across the State, region, and nationally.

Bill Zielinski is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the City of Dallas. In this role, he directs Information Technology (IT) operations for the 9th largest City in the United States, serving a population of more than 1.3 million people. 

Prior to joining the City, Mr. Zielinski worked for the US Federal Government for more than 30 years serving in executive roles with the US Social Security Administration (SSA), US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), US General Services Administration (GSA) and in the Executive Office of the President (EOP).

As the CIO for the Social Security Administration, Bill was responsible for delivery of IT solutions which allowed the Agency to effectively manage more than $800 billion in annual benefit payments to more than 60 million people around the world.

As the Director for Retirement Services with OPM, Bill delivered a full range of retirement benefits to more than 2.5 million Federal retirees and Employee Health benefits to more than 2 million active Federal employees.

During his time within the Executive Office of the President, Bill was the Acting Unit Chief for Agency Oversight in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer. In this role, he oversaw the Federal Government’s IT Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process, issuing guidance on the formulation and execution of the US Government’s $100 Billion annual IT budget.

As the Assistant Commissioner for the Office of the IT Category in the US General Services Administration, Bill managed a portfolio of government-wide IT acquisition contracts providing $30 Billion in IT products and services from more than 5,000 providers to government at the Federal, State and Local level

Brian Galloway is the Solutions Architecture (SA) Security Leader for US Education, State & Local Government at Amazon Web Services. As a security leader, he establishes strategic oversight for the field facing security program.  He also serves as a trusted advisor to senior leadership and builds consensus and alignment across multiple organizations. Brian holds a M.S. in Information Technology from the University of Maryland Global Campus and a B.S. in Computer Science from Howard University. As a security practitioner, he is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

​​Tina Thorstenson, VP of the Executive Strategist Team at CrowdStrike, provides strategic advisory services related to enterprise cybersecurity solutions across all industry verticals and specifically including Government, Education and Healthcare.  Just prior to joining CrowdStrike, she served as the Chief Information Security Officer & Deputy CIO for Arizona State University capping a career of public sector service spanning 25+ years where the last 11 of those years she held the title of CISO. She’s passionate about the mission to stop breaches.