SPEAKER PROFILES (In Order of Appearance)

Bonita Billingsley-Harris Media/Communications Relations Manager Dominion Virginia Power

Bonita Billingsley Harris is the Manager of Media and Community Relations for Dominion Virginia and North Carolina Power. She also served on the Chesapeake School Board from 2010 - 2014. Previously, she worked as the Communications Manager for the Norfolk Sheriff's Office and a reporter/anchor for WVEC-TV and Local News on Cable. Harris is a member of the Great Bridge Middle School PTA, Great Bridge Intermediate School PTA, the NAACP, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Jack and Jill of America, Inc, the Hampton Roads Emergency Services Media Council and Mt. Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church. Harris is a magna cum laude graduate of Spelman College, in Atlanta, Georgia where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and the University of Missouri – Columbia where she earned a Master’s School of Journalism. She and her husband Elisha "Cadillac" Harris have three daughters.

Laurie Simmons Public Information Officer Virginia Department of Transportation

Laurie Simmons is very familiar with both sides of media relations in Hampton Roads, as a former TV reporter turned PR professional. Since August 2014, she has served as one of the spokeswomen for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Hampton Roads District. From snow storms to potholes to tunnel backups, crisis communications is a large part of her job, delivering timely information to local media outlets so citizens are in the know. Before joining VDOT, Laurie started her career in Hampton Roads as an Investigative Reporter with WTKR NewsChannel 3. Her reporting there earned her several prestigious honors: she won an EMMY as well as an Associated Press “Best Investigative Reporting” award during her three years at the local CBS affiliate. Prior to arriving in Hampton Roads, Laurie also worked on-air for TV stations in Georgia and Florida. Laurie is a graduate of American University in Washington, DC and a proud Army wife, with her husband stationed at Fort Eustis.

Cathie France Chief Public Affairs Officer Virginia Port Authority

Cathie J. France is the Chief Public Affairs Officer at the Port of Virginia, where she oversees Economic Development, Government Relations and Community Outreach, Communications, and Maritime Incident and Emergency Response for the 3rd largest port on the East Coast. Ms. France is an experienced lobbyist with a background rooted on both the public and private side of government relations. Prior to her service at the port she served as deputy director for energy policy in the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, where she helped to implement Gov. Bob McDonnell’s energy policy initiatives in the Commonwealth. Before that, she worked as Director of Government Relations for Virginia Natural Gas, where she handled advocacy to state, local, and federal officials and the company’s civic and charitable sponsorships and donations, as well as overseeing its conservation programs. She also advocated on behalf of private companies while with the Vectre Corporation, where she worked with clients from a variety of backgrounds including telecommunications, healthcare, transportation and local government. She has also formerly served as a prosecutor in the City of Virginia and a Senate aide in the Virginia General Assembly. Ms. France has a proven track record of successful advocacy at the local, state, and federal level on a variety of issues and deep long-standing relationships with legislators on both sides of the political spectrum. In particular, she has a meaningful knowledge of the issues facing Hampton Roads and a strong relationship with the elected officials who represent that area. Ms. France also takes an active role in political and civic life in Hampton Roads. She serves on various Boards, such as the Virginia Aquarium, the Salvation Army, and the Future of Hampton Roads. She also Chairs the Virginia Beach Division and serves on the Executive Committee of the Hampton Roads Chamber. She is an active member in several other organizations in Hampton Roads in addition to serving on the steering and finance committees of many candidates for political office. Ms. France is a 2005 Fellow of the Sorenson Institute of Political Leadership and a 2009 graduate of LEAD Hampton Roads and has been named by Inside Business as one of the region’s Top 40 under 40 in 2005 and Top Women in Business in 2010. Ms. France earned her J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law and her B.A. in Political Science and Communications from James Madison University.

Christopher D. Lloyd Senior Vice President and Director Infrastructure and Economic Development McGuireWoods Consulting, LLC

Chris Lloyd leads the McGuireWoods Consulting Infrastructure and Economic Development team where he specializes in site selection and economic development incentives negotiations. Chris has also worked closely with clients on numerous public-private partnership projects for transportation and other infrastructure as well as playing a leading role in the development and passage of Virginia's public-private partnership laws. These statutes have since become model legislation for use in other states. As a result of this work, Mr. Lloyd has become a frequent speaker on economic development policy issues and public private partnership projects around the country. Chris served for nearly five years in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce and Trade under Virginia Governors Allen and Wilder. In this position, he was responsible for legislative, budgetary, and regulatory coordination and development for the fifteen agencies within that Secretariat which oversees the state's economic development programs.

Michael Woods Senior Manager Troutman Sanders Strategies

Mike Woods serves as Senior Manager for State Government Affairs with Troutman Sanders Strategies. Mr. Woods works with clients on business issues, including property and casualty insurance, tax policy, natural resources, public safety, procurement, economic development, privatization and public-private partnerships. Since joining the Troutman Sanders Strategies, LLC, Mr. Woods has represented a number of national business interests and associations before the Virginia General Assembly and the Executive Branch. He actively monitors legislative and regulatory issues before the Virginia General Assembly and various state regulatory agencies and provides analysis of their impact on our clients' and their business. With his extensive experience working with state government and in Virginia politics, Mr. Woods offers our clients a valuable resource in assessing the political landscape in Virginia. Additionally, Mr. Woods utilizes his vast experience for our clients to develop winning strategies for both business development and procurement opportunities.

Edna Baehre-Kolovani, Ph.D. President Tidewater Community College

Edna V. Baehre-Kolovani, Ph.D., became the fifth president of Tidewater Community College on July 9, 2012. Her experience as a community college president includes extensive work in strategic planning, expanding and diversifying college enrollment, and exemplary fundraising and public advocacy campaigns. From 2010 until April of 2012, Dr. Baehre-Kolovani was president and superintendent of Napa Valley College in Napa, California. Under her leadership, the college received federal recognition as a Hispanic Serving Institution, receiving a $3.8 million Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) grant as a result. In addition, the Napa Valley College Foundation embarked on a major gifts and capital campaign and developed a robust alumni program. Several initiatives to increase revenue were started, including The Institute for Business Excellence, which provides industry-relevant workforce training to Napa businesses. For 13 years, Dr. Baehre-Kolovani was president of Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Area Community College (HACC). In that time, she initiated several international educational endeavors in China and Europe; developed and implemented the college’s strategic and master plans; and secured appropriate funding and support for the college’s operations and new programs. Through collaborative public and private partnerships, Dr. Baehre-Kolovani led several capital and annual campaigns resulting in the construction of seven new buildings during a five-year period. During her tenure, the HACC Foundation became one of the largest community college foundations in the nation, with endowments and investments of more than $42 million. Previously, Dr. Baehre-Kolovani held leadership positions at Elgin and Highland community colleges in Illinois and Genesee and Jamestown community colleges in New York. She served on the board of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education for five years and was appointed by Pennsylvania’s governor to the Workforce Investment Board and to the Commission on College and Career Success. For ten years, she was on the board of the National Institute for Leadership Development for Women in Community Colleges. In addition to her academic and professional activities, Dr. Baehre-Kolovani serves on the boards of a variety of organizations, including Virginia Beach Vision, Hampton Roads Partnership, Downtown Norfolk Council, Greater Norfolk Corporation, Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, and the Urban League of Hampton Roads, Inc. Previously, she served on community boards in Napa and Harrisburg, including United Way of the Capital Region in Harrisburg, where she founded the Women’s Leadership Network. Dr. Baehre-Kolovani has received numerous honors, including the American Association for Women in Community Colleges’ 2013 Mildred B. Bulpitt Woman of the Year Award and the 2000 Carolyn Desjardins President of the Year Award. She is a proud recipient of the 2007 Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award for Peace from Morehouse College, and she was given the Shirley B. Gordon Award of Distinction in 2002 by Phi Theta Kappa, the honor society for two-year colleges. Dr. Baehre- Kolovani has also been recognized by the Harrisburg chapters of the YWCA, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and the NAACP, and she received the Compass Award from the Pennsylvania Immigration and Refugee Women’s Network. Dr. Baehre-Kolovani holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in German and comparative literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She received her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Pädagogische Hochschule in Heidelberg, Germany. She is trilingual in English, German and French and is acquiring Spanish proficiency.

Nicolas Pascaretti Executive Director Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority

Mr. Pascaretti is the executive director of Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority, a provider of broadband services on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Prior to being named Executive Director, he was the Director of Network Engineering. Mr. Pascaretti is an engineer by training who has done extensive work in both outside and inside plant work in telecommunications. He is also a proven talent in business development and sales. The additional experiences that make Mr. Pascaretti so unique are that he has performed both the engineering and sales role at journeyman and executive level in large extensively planned and standards driven companies, small regional companies and startups. The value of those experiences was especially evident at Hudson Valley DataNet where he led a startup organization’s operations and construction while instituting a solid quality and standards process which enabled DataNet to become one of AT&T’s preferred vendors within DataNet’s footprint. Largely due to Mr. Pascaretti’s leadership, DataNet completed an eighty mile overbuild of four telephone and three cable competitors in only eight months of construction. With his assistance and later directing role in sales, DataNet had paying traffic as soon as the ring was lit and became net profitable in 28 months from inception. Achieving true profitability is still almost unique among CLEC companies. Mr. Pascaretti has extensive background in information technology, telecommunications and engineering. He has over 20 years of managerial and executive leadership in telecommunications and information systems. At Warwick Valley Telephone, a regional incumbent, he served as senior vice president of business sales and operations and director of business development and network operations. His experience ranges from profitably providing small communities with broadband communications to strategic planning for large multinational telecommunication systems. Mr. Pascaretti has a broad and deep understanding of information systems and enterprise infrastructure that includes telecom, data and integration. His knowledge base is both academic and experiential and comes from designing, developing and deploying these technologies, as well as selling and servicing them. Having been in the field during the emergence and development of the Internet and the advent of truly distributed information systems, he has a strong working knowledge of Web-based solutions, network security, administration and billing systems, and the technologies required to develop and maintain them. Mr. Pascaretti has been involved with all aspects of IT and telecom including planning cycles, design, sales, and operational development. His extensive experience allows him to see both the production and sales sides of a business on a variety of scales and across multiple verticals, including education, government and healthcare, as well as small business. He has hands-on experience managing stakeholder expectations while negotiating the technical challenges of working with legacy systems and new and emerging technologies. He has provided consulting services to the communications industry, including detailed engineering, RFP preparation, contract management and negotiations, and construction management. Mr. Pascaretti attended the State University of New York and Polytechnic University. He has a B.A. in Physics, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and a M.S. in Information Systems Engineering.

Dennis J. Donovan Partner Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting

Dennis J. Donovan is responsible for worldwide site selection services at Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting (WDGC). He is one of the firm’s partners. WDGC has been advising corporations on office and industrial facilities location for 39 years. Its client base captures about 1/3 of the Fortune 500. Additionally, WDGC has consulted with a wide array of middle market companies. Client assignments have spanned an array of industries (e.g., manufacturing, distribution, business services) and functions (e.g., headquarters, back offices, R&D centers, warehouses, and production facilities). Among companies that Dennis has advised on site selection are Amerigroup, Amylin, Apria Health, Bank of America, Barclays, BOC/Linde, Brembo, Canon Information Technology, Covance, Chubb, Gardner Denver, Genentechl/Roche, Harbor Freight Tools, Marriott, Pitney Bowes, and Target. Middle market clientele have included Metalized Carbon (carbon graphite), Plibrico (refractory materials), Grafco (plastics), Indo-Mim (precision metals), and PFERD (brushings). Dennis has assumed a leadership position in the industry’s primary trade association -- CoreNet Global. He created and teaches the organization’s site selection course both for certification and professional development. Additionally, Dennis was a member of CoreNet Global’s 2020 Strategy of Place Task Force, which assessed future trends in the design and execution of global location strategy. Dennis is a frequent CoreNet workshop presenter and earned one of the organization’s luminary awards for the “Around the World in 90 Minutes” sessions. He is also a prominent speaker and author on the subject of corporate site selection. Recent articles written by Dennis have addressed manufacturing location trends, the latest in customer service site selection, metalworking location dynamics, food processing site selection, aerospace location strategy, and headquarters relocation. Dennis is a founding member of the Site Selectors Guild. This is an organization that was created to advance the site selection profession and provide knowledge sharing for the economic development community. A geographer by trade, Dennis earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He was awarded a master’s degree in economic geography from the University of Rhode Island.

George Faatz Director of External Affairs Virginia Natural Gas

Virginia Beach native, George Faatz is the Director of External Affairs for Virginia Natural Gas and serves as the liaison with the local government and legislative bodies and the community. Prior to joining Virginia Natural Gas in 2011, George was the chief of staff to the House Majority Caucus Chairman, Delegate Tim Hugo, and ran two successful re-election campaigns. George currently serves on the Virginia Beach Mayor’s Energy Advisory Council, Business Consortium for Arts Support, TNCC Education Foundation and the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce’s Norfolk Board. He holds a bachelor's degree in public administration from George Mason University and lives in Virginia Beach with his wife, Christen.

Bryan F. Smith Economic Development Manager Dominion Virginia Power

Bryan Smith grew up in Abingdon, VA before attending Virginia Tech, where he received a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1982. He then received an M.B.A. from Wake Forest University in 1985. Bryan began his career with Dominion in 1985. He has served in several capacities at Dominion including engineering design, distribution planning, operations, energy efficiency and key accounts. He currently works in the Economic Development department at Dominion where he has been for over 15 years.

Dave Hansen Deputy City Manager City of Virginia Beach

Dave Hansen as Deputy City Manager for the City of Virginia Beach assists City Manager James K. Spore by leading the development of the City's annual budget, its Capital Improvements Program and all financial forecasting, analysis and management through his oversight of the Departments of Finance and Management Services. He is directly involved in the immediate and long term status of the City’s infrastructure as he supervises the Department of Public Utilities and the Department of Public Works. Dave also oversees the Department of Communications and Information Technology to provide and support communications, information and technology solutions to enable City businesses, inform the community and its leadership, improve and promote quality of life and public safety. The City’s efforts to reduce energy consumption through efficiencies and cost saving initiatives is also managed within Dave’s assigned responsibilities. Dave's career in financial, technology, infrastructure, and capital improvement management has spanned over three decades. He joined the Virginia Beach government team in April 2006 following his assignment as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Resource Management for the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command headquartered at Fort Monroe. An officer in the U.S. Army, he also held positions as commanding officer and district engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk district; director of public works for Fort Eustis and Fort Story; senior combat engineer trainer at the Army's National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif.; engineer battalion commander in the 1st Cavalry Division; and executive officer to the Director of the Army budget at the Pentagon. Dave holds a Master of Science degree in Strategic Studies and Logistics from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, a Master's in Business Administration and Contracting from the Florida Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Accounting from the University of Central Florida.

Freda Burns Right-Of-Way Administrator City of Norfolk

Freda Burns has been the City of Norfolk's Right of Way Administrator since 2007. As Right of Way Administrator she is the city's liaison to local utility companies and is directly responsible for utility coordination for public and private construction. Known for being a dedicated, firm but fair, problem- solver and process control & implementation specialist, she has devised solutions to overcome the challenges older cities face with aging infrastructure. Prior to Norfolk, Ms. Burns worked for over 10 years as a private sector consultant and senior project manager on new developments, infrastructure, and emerging markets. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication from James Madison University and a Master's degree in Public Administration from Old Dominion University.

The Honorable Karen Jackson Secretary of Technology Commonwealth of Virginia

Karen Jackson currently serves as the Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth. Prior to her appointment, she served as the Commonwealth’s Deputy Secretary of Technology and Vice President of Broadband Programs for the Center for Innovative Technology. Ms. Jackson serves as a senior advisor to the Governor on technology matters including innovation, modeling and simulation, telecommunications, cyber security, and unmanned aerial systems. She is also responsible for overseeing the Commonwealth’s IT infrastructure. As Secretary, she is responsible for policy and legislative initiatives as well as developing programs to facilitate innovation, entrepreneurship, technology development and adoption. Ms. Jackson also serves as the Virginia lead for the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP). Ms. Jackson has been actively engaged in the federal policy initiatives including the development of the National Broadband Plan. She received a 2009 IP3 award from Public Knowledge for her work in information policy and was named to Government Technology's 2010 list of the top 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers. Ms. Jackson serves on a number of Boards including the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Center for Innovative Technology, the Policy Committee of the National Modeling and Simulation Coalition, and the National Center for Collaboration in Medical Modeling and Simulation. She holds a bachelor's of science in business management from Christopher Newport University and a master's of business administration from The College of William and Mary.