GovGains US Agenda & Speakers

Speakers

Meryl Angelicola

VP, Industry Solutions at GovDash

With 20+ years in GovCon, Meryl has focused on fostering innovation and accessibility in the industry. As VP of Industry Solutions at GovDash, Meryl designs AI-driven tools that simplify workflows, enhance collaboration, and increase PWIN. Meryl leads a team of former Proposal Managers helping GovCon teams rethink business development by seamlessly integrating emerging technology and adjusting workflows to leverage it for a competitive advantage.

Jon Barker

VP of Pricing, Strategic Growth Partners

With over 20 years’ experience in federal government contracting (GovCon), Jon has managed and negotiated thousands of proposals and overseen contracts worth over $5.5 billion. His expertise spans program control, contracts management, consulting, and pricing, consistently overseeing annual business exceeding $150M. As a subject matter expert in the full procurement lifecycle, Jon excels in market research, contract execution, and close-out processes, ensuring proposals meet rigorous Government “fair 2& reasonable” standards. He is committed to helping businesses optimize pricing strategies, maximize win probabilities, and improve margins. Jon's extensive network within federal agencies and prime contractors, combined with his leadership at SGP, enables small businesses to navigate the GovCon market effectively. Active in numerous professional organizations, including the NCMA and APMP, Jon also mentors through various programs, supporting innovation and small business growth.

Morgan Barker

Director of Proposals at Leidos

Morgan Barker is a seasoned proposal leader with over a decade of experience driving high-stakes public sector pursuits and leading large-scale proposal operations. As the Director of Proposals at Leidos, she focuses on digital modernization and proposal innovation, bringing cutting-edge solutions to the federal contracting space.

Previously, as the Americas Proposal Leader at AWS, Morgan managed a 40+ person team, spearheading process development, personnel management, and strategic resource planning. She leveraged data-driven decision-making and scalable tools, including GenAI, to support a 20% year-over-year increase in complex pursuits.

Noura Bashshur

Senior Director, Growth, Vultron

Noura is a business growth catalyst, serving in the intersection of federal contracting, generative AI, and GovCon business development, strategy, and growth. In her current role, Noura is responsible for market development, growth initiatives, strategic partnerships, provides thought leadership and advisory services on the best practice use of generative AI in the government proposal development process, and helps GovCon companies implement these practices to optimize their delivery of quality and value.

Prior to joining Vultron, Noura spent seven years on the federal prime contractor side, in roles spanning business development, capture, program management and oversight, compliance, operations, and proposal development. She stood up federal health practices (Federal Civilian agencies) in two organizations, co-led a high-performing team to win a coveted $130M federal IDIQ, and served on the leadership team of a prime contractor’s $29M federal program that achieved large scale healthcare quality improvement and value-based care transformation in hospitals across the country.

Her healthcare expertise focused on the development and delivery of technology-enabled healthcare services and clinical programs in academic medical centers, such as telemedicine, eHealth, and virtual care. Her background also includes providing advisory services to early-stage healthcare-tech and life science companies through developing growth strategies and initiatives, business plans, and investor pitches, to accomplish each organization’s market development objectives.

Noura holds a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan, a Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University, is a published author in the field of telemedicine, and reviews manuscripts for the peer-reviewed Telemedicine and eHealth Journal.

Tommy Benz

Principal + Lead Strategist at GrowthLab

Tommy has spent the last fifteen years working in federal government contracting. He has worked broadly throughout the federal civilian and defense sectors, both bringing in business and managing the work. Tommy has stood up new verticals within companies and doubled the federal portfolio in multiple agencies. His entire career, Tommy has served as an executive within small businesses, and he has extensive experience in growth strategies and strategic planning for that sector.

Tommy is also an expert in the SBA Mentor-Protege Program, and he is passionate about helping small businesses grow in that capacity. Tommy is an advisor and instructor at the Bowie State Government Contracting Center of Excellence, the Bowie Innovation Center 8(a) Accelerator, and the Veteran Institute of Procurement. He also serves as an advisor for the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

Eric Coffie

The Govcon Giant

Eric Coffie, is an entrepreneur, author, speaker and host of the Govcon Giants podcast and YouTube channel. He is also the creator for the GCG Contract Connections Summit held each year in Miami connecting small businesses from around the world. Mr. Coffie interviews some of the world’s most notable federal contract experts, SBA award winners, contract officers, procurement specialists and Top DOD firms for his show. The prism from which Govcon Giants operates has a singular focus of helping 2,000 small businesses achieve $5M in annual revenues. Widely considered one of the world’s leading experts on procuring federal contracts, Mr. Coffie regularly speaks at national conferences and events on how companies can increase their chances of successfully landing a slice of the multi-billion dollar behemoth.

Brenda Crist, CPP APMP Fellow

VP, Capture and Proposal Manager, Lohfeld Consulting Group

Brenda Crist brings 25+ years of experience as a senior capture, proposal manager and program director, specializing in civilian health, IT, and scientific markets. As Vice President of Lohfeld Consulting Group, she helps businesses win government contracts through effective strategy development and proposal management. Brenda is certified at the APMP Professional Level, is an APMP Fellow and teaches APMP Certification, Boot Camp, and Proposal Writing classes.

Bruce Feldman

Vice President, Lohfeld Consulting Group

Bruce Feldman brings 30+ years of experience as a subject matter expert (SME) in business development, capture management, and proposal development, specializing in defense and intelligence programs. As a Lohfeld Consulting Vice President, Bruce leads the company’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives and is the lead trainer for our Generative AI for Proposal Professionals and Capture Management classes. Bruce was the senior vice president of business development for SAIC’s $3B national security and space sector. He also served as Chief Growth Officer for Engility and Senior Vice President of QinetiQ North America.

Drew Hartley

SVP - Solutions Engineering, pWin,ai

Drew Hartley, VP of Solutions Engineering at pWin.ai, is a technology leader with a passion for bringing solutions to customers. As a former Director at a top insurance company, he led engineering teams in building core insurance platforms. He was also Managing Director at a cloud, data, and AI consulting company. Prior to joining pWin.ai, Drew was Director of Generative AI at Applied Information Sciences.

Daniel Heuman

CEO and Founder, PerfecIt

Daniel’s inspiration for the software came from his proposal-writing background and years of frustration checking documents for details such as acronym definitions, hyphenation, house style, industry terms, and spelling variations. He realized that there had to be a more efficient way of handling mechanical editing tasks. An add-in for MS Word, PerfectIt is trusted by professionals and global organizations, from independent businesses to Fortune 500, government, and transnational institutions.

A recognized thought leader, Daniel has shared his expertise at leading industry events including APMP, AMWA, ACES, CIEP, Editors Canada, SENSE, and the Editorial Freelancers Association. His innovative approach continues to redefine quality control and efficiency in document preparation, empowering teams to achieve consistent, high-quality documents.

Paul Irby

Manager, Research, Deltek

Paul Irby is Manager of Deltek’s GovWin SLED Market Analysis team which provides research and thought leadership around contracting trends in the state, local and education marketplace. He is an award-winning researcher with a graduate degree emphasizing public policy and economics and has been studying the SLED market since 2014 where he served as the lead market analyst for Onvia before it was acquired by Deltek. His quarterly and annual reports have been downloaded and used by hundreds of the leading contractors, vendors and suppliers. Paul’s research has been featured in such outlets as CNBC, American City & County, Institutional Investor, Washington Technology, Route Fifty and the Smart Cities Council. 

His work at Deltek was recently cited in a report published by Harvard. He’s been a guest presenter at NIGP Forum, Deltek’s ProjectCon, and the annual event of one of the top national cooperative purchasing organizations. Paul has over 25 years of professional research experience, including time spent with two market research agencies and with Russell Investments, a leading global investment firm. He not only has years of experience competing for and winning government contracts at the city, county and state levels in projects such as voter satisfaction and economic development but also has prior experience working in city government.

Gerald Jones

Senior Consultant at La Puerta Productions

Gerald Everett Jones has managed major proposal and business analysis projects in government, healthcare, and commercial sectors. He is author of more than 25 business and technical books, including How to Lie with Charts and PMP Certification for Dummies, as well as 14 novels. He has an extensive background in IT systems development. His past presentations at APMP Bid & Proposal Con have been consistently top-rated. He is also host of the GetPublished! Radio and Thinking About Thinking podcasts.

Dana Katalinas

Vice President, Account Executive, Lohfeld Consulting Group

Dana Katalinas is a proposal management professional with over 20 years of experience overseeing business, capture, proposal management, and training. As Vice President at Lohfeld Consulting, she assists companies in capture and proposal development and oversees Lohfeld Consulting’s grant support practice. Dana is an APMP member and previously served on their Board of Directors. Dana recently received her certification as an AI Proposal & Business Development Professional Level 1 from Procurement Sciences. 

Brian Lindholm

Managing Principal, FedSavvy Strategies

Brian Lindholm is a veteran, an entrepreneur and a seasoned federal business developer over a 25-year career. Since starting FedSavvy Strategies in 2012, he has supported both some of the largest federal contractors and small businesses alike pursuing federal contracts. His experience with clients spans strategic planning, market analysis, capture management, business development process improvement and competitive intelligence.

Krystn Macomber, CP APMP Fellow

Founder + CEO, Summit Strategy

Krystn brings more than 20 years of experience helping small and large organizations improve performance and operations to create high-performing marketing, pursuit, and business development teams. Often commended for the ability to strategically make an impact in a short period, Krystn successfully cultivates powerful relationships to break down organizational silos and align goals. She brings a unique client-centric focus to branding and marketing strategies, resulting in significant sales growth and improved win rates.

Krystn is a past board chair for APMP. She is an advisory board member of the UCI Customer Experience Program. In 2022, she was recognized as one of the 20 Most Inspiring Women Leaders by the Women Leaders Magazine.

Krystn is the founder + chief executive officer of Summit Strategy, an integrated marketing + proposal consulting firm helping B2G/B2B firms win more business through strategic planning, proposal development, branding, and training.

Melissa Palmer, CF APMP

VP of Proposals, Strategic Growth Advisors

Since 2008, Melissa has been a dynamic force in the proposal industry, dedicated to helping businesses optimize their proposal processes and resources for more efficient success. In 2014, she launched Palmer Consultants, which quickly became a leading business development consulting firm in the GovCon space, gaining national recognition before its acquisition by Strategic Growth Advisors (SGA) in 2022. As SGA’s VP of Proposals, Melissa has driven a remarkable 600% increase in annual revenue within two years. She leads a team of 30 professionals, focusing on individual growth, work-life balance, and mindful leadership, while implementing strategies that streamline proposal development and improve outcomes. Her commitment to fostering entrepreneurship and community success extends beyond her team, serving as an International Board Member for the APMP, where she advocates for diverse affinity groups and promotes access to critical resources. A sought-after speaker on topics like work-life balance, imposter syndrome, and self-advocacy, Melissa empowers organizations and individuals to thrive.

Deniece Peterson

Sr. Director, Federal Market Analysis at Deltek

Deniece Peterson is Sr. Director of Federal Market Analysis at Deltek, leading an analyst team responsible for GovWin's strategic research and analysis of federal budgets and spending, market trends, technology and acquisition policy, and business development best practices. Peterson has nearly 25 years of experience in government contracting, market research and management consulting. Prior to her role with Deltek, Peterson worked for small businesses as a business and go-to-market strategy consultant, market research manager, and federal marketing course curriculum developer and instructor. Peterson holds a BA in Economics and an MBA from the University of Denver.

Larry Pitts

Director of Customer Success, Procurement Sciences AI

Larry Pitts leads the Customer Success and Account Management team, driving strategic initiatives that enhance client engagement and satisfaction in the government contracting sector. As a Committee Member with the Maryland Tech Council and a member of AFCEA and APMP, Larry is deeply involved in industry advancements and networking, contributing to the growth and innovation within the tech and proposal management communities. Larry also serves as a member of the "Procurement Improvement Committee" for the State of Maryland. Honored as a 2024 Rising Star by APMP, Larry holds multiple certifications, including "ChatGPT: Using AI For Market Research." His credentials underscore his expertise in market planning and AI-driven solutions. With a CyberReadyMBE® Certificate of Completion from Industry Workforce Solutions, Inc., Larry combines his knowledge in cybersecurity with his role as an AI Proposal & Business Development Professional, ensuring comprehensive and secure business development strategies

Bill Powell

VP Growth Advisor, Strategic Growth Partners

Bill brings over 35 years of expertise in the GovCon market, driving success in complex, multimillion-dollar projects worldwide. As a certified BICSI RCDD, he combines strategic leadership with deep technical knowledge, ensuring every initiative aligns with client goals and delivers measurable value. Known for his collaborative, people-first approach, Bill excels at guiding teams, managing risk, and fostering strong client relationships, making even the most challenging projects feel seamless and achievable.

Kel Raleigh, CF APMP

Proposal Manager at K2 Inc.

Kel brings more than five years of proposal industry experience, complemented by a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Baltimore and a diverse professional background spanning aquatics, poetry, marketing, and publishing. Kel is the author of The Skin & Bones of It, a book of poetry crafted during their MFA program, and hosts a writing and brunch salon out of their home, fostering creativity and community.

After three years teaching in higher education, Kel now approaches proposal management with a blend of innovation and storytelling to deliver exceptional results. In addition to government proposals, they provide grant writing and editing assistance to nonprofits in the Baltimore area. Passionate about the art and strategy of proposal development, Kel is dedicated to sharing knowledge and empowering others in the proposal industry.

Arthur Runno

Co-Founder/CEO of Turingon, Inc.

With nearly two decades of experience in government contracting and proposal management and having led bids securing billions of dollars in federal contracts, Arthur brings a wealth of practical expertise and strategic insights into leveraging technology to drive innovation. He is an active thought leader in AI's role in government contracting and has a passion for empowering professionals with tools and strategies to excel in the evolving landscape of bids and proposals..

Chip Schaller, CF APMP

Chief of Capture & Proposals, AutogenAI

Chip Schaller is AutogenAI’s Proposal & Capture Subject Matter Expert, bolstering the company's leadership in AI solutions for enterprise and federal proposal writing. With over thirty years of global experience, Schaller brings expertise in capture and proposal development, operations management, and business development. Previously at Maximus and DynCorp, Schaller led teams in securing multimillion to billion-dollar contracts for US Federal agencies and international organizations.

Mitchell Sutika-Sipus

Chief Solutions Architect, AutogenAI

Dr. Mitchell Sutika-Sipus is AutogenAI's Chief Solutions Architect. With nearly two decades of AI and data science experience across U.S. government agencies, he's well-positioned to help businesses secure more federal contracts through AutogenAI's technologies. His career began in Afghanistan and Somalia, providing GIS datasets to governments. He foresaw the security threat of disinformation in machine learning systems in 2011 and co-founded two AI companies, including Tulco Labs, later acquired. In 2016, he was a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, working on federal changes for the National Security Council, EPA, and State Department, contributing to federal technology growth and contracting opportunities.

Ryanne Spigelman

Senior Competitive Analyst at Citrin Cooperman

Ryanne specializes in Competitive Intelligence and Market Analysis, bringing over seven years of experience delivering actionable insights across diverse market domains. She has supported programs valued between $50 million and $5 billion for both Defense and Civilian customers, spanning areas such as vehicle and soldier weapon systems to large-scale IT initiatives.

Guy Timberlake

Chief Executive Visionary and Co-Founder at The American Small Business Coalition, LLC (The ASBC)

Go-To-Guy Timberlake brings over 35 years of federal contracting experience, knowledge, and relationships to every client, cohort, and community engagement. He’s developed his acumen while supporting civilian, defense, and intelligence agency programs, starting with Operation Desert Shield in 1990. He is the chief executive visionary and co-founder of The American Small Business Coalition (ASBC), and he’s referred to as “Professor” and ‘Edutainer’ for his ability to make mundane discussions about business essential topics interesting and practical. Guy is also the creator of Ethical Stalking for Government Contractors®, the curriculum and philosophy that has guided hundreds of small and large companies to realize more than $5 billion federal contract and subcontract revenues since 2010.

Kurt Walters

Growth Strategy, Business Development

With over 15 years of executive leadership, Kurt has driven growth and innovation within tribal 8(a) businesses for several tribal nations, championing economic development initiatives that foster sustainable, long-term growth. He possesses a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities tribal enterprises face and leverages his expertise to advance the prosperity and self-sufficiency of tribal nations. Kurt excels in strategizing and operationalizing initiatives, establishing scalable systems for smooth expansion, navigating complex financial landscapes, and streamlining operations to drive efficiency and stability. Committed to strengthening tribal communities, he actively seeks connections with like-minded professionals who share his passion for economic empowerment.