Welcome to Region 4 Meeting

John Casler is a Lead Product Manager for L3Harris Public Safety and Profession Communications. Mr. Casler currently has product management responsibility for the L3Harris VIDA Core product offerings and Cybersecurity. He has over 25 years of experience in the Land Mobile Radio industry as a Customer Project Manager, Product Manager, and Engineering Program Manager. Mr. Casler is a retired US Naval Officer with a Surface Warfare Officer qualification and as a designated US Naval Aviator. He is a certified PMP. Mr. Casler is a graduate of James Madison University.

Dan Frein is a Senior Architect in West Monroe Partners’ Technology Practice. He brings over 15 years of experience providing IT/OT infrastructure expertise across several industries, especially in Energy and Utilities. Dan’s areas of focus include OT network design and infrastructure, as well as transport WAN design using IP/MPLS or MPLS-TP. He is also regularly involved in IT strategy and due diligence engagements across a variety of industries.

Dan continues to provide OT network architecture and technical guidance on several Nokia MPLS-based transport networks. These networks are built to provide secure, resilient, and scalable transport of SCADA, physical security, and other business traffic to support critical infrastructure operations consistent with NERC/CIP requirements. Using OT experience from Energy and Utilities, Dan has been involved with traditional OT network design in the manufacturing space, leveraging PERA/ISA-95 and Rockwell Collins CPwE frameworks to institute network segmentation to mitigate risks with network-based malware propagation, reducing the likelihood and duration of manufacturing downtime.

Dan has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management (BSIM) from Purdue University.

WHAT MAKES DAN DIFFERENT

In his free time, Dan likes to ride his motorcycles, try good beer, and travel to new places – although he is still partial to summers in the Chicago area.

WHERE DAN MAKES AN IMPACT

Dan enjoys providing technical architecture and strategy guidance to his clients; helping extract additional value from existing infrastructure assets and planning for future infrastructure growth to enable new business services. He also provides enthusiastic leadership within our Networking and Utilities Industry Leadership Team.

INDUSTRIES SERVED

• Energy & Utilities
• Manufacturing
• Private Equity
• Healthcare (Payer)
• Retail
• Capital Markets

SKILLS & SPECIALTIES

• OT secure network design and architecture
• Transport network design and implementation using IP/MPLS and MPLS-TP
• Traditional LAN/SD-WAN/datacenter build-out
• IT strategy and Due Diligence
• Cloud strategy and application disposition (AWS and Azure)

David Hattey is a seasoned strategic leader with thirty-plus years of successful executive assignments across IT, telecom, wireless, cloud services, and networking companies serving the Utility, Public Service, and Enterprise spaces. He is currently a consultant providing technology and strategy support through Lockard & White. David has held contributing and leadership positions in every area of business while working for companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100. He was awarded BS Electrical Engineering and BS Computer Engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, both Magna Cum Laude, as well as an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business where he was named a Fuqua Scholar. David is a named inventor on 11 US patents.

Larry Horner is a Principal Engineer and Senior Solution Architect at Intel. His efforts focus on accelerating the transformation of the global communication provider network. His work covers all aspects of the carrier transformation including virtualization from innovation to scale deployment from the enterprise edge premises equipment into the core of the CSP network.

His insights, breadth of experience, and ability to work directly and in depth in both the business and technical levels of the transformation taking place in this industry bring a sharp focus to the opportunity and challenges being addressed today by the industry.

Larry is a trusted advisor to a number of leading Global CSP operators and has worked in areas of transformation of the CSP network going back to the earliest days of the Mobile Network.

He leads training workshops, and training and has over 70 Intel Network Builders courses available, and works to accelerate innovative transformations with AT&T, Vz, T-Mobile, BT, Telefonica, NTT, DTAG, Orange, MTS, Singtel, Telstra, and others.

Larry holds degrees in Electrical Engineering and specialized in information and communication theory beyond the master’s level. He holds two U.S. patents relating to fundamental changes in the communication network transitioning to the all-IP network. He has held various senior-level positions in the Network Equipment Provider community in the design, operations, test, support, and influencer roles.

He has been a key technical and management contributor to the IP transformation of the communications community for decades. Larry has designed, developed, and supported critical systems for the CSP network that have gone into over 300 networks worldwide. Larry also has direct experience with a U.S.-based Tier 1 carrier. A Life Senior Member of the IEEE, member of the board of the local Communication Society, North America Region 5 ComSoc representative, and General Co-Chair on the board for the International IEEE NFV SDN conference. He is a regular speaker at conferences and has briefed the Office of the President of the United States on Telecom Security. In his spare time, he enjoys building houses and furniture.

Patrick Picquet leads the Business Development efforts focused on Mission Critical markets for Nokia microwave radio products in North America. Industry board positions include the National Spectrum Management Association (NSMA) and Fixed Wireless Communication Coalition (FWCC).

Over his thirty-one years in the Telecommunications industry, Patrick has held many roles ranging from Field Engineer, Deployment Manager, Network Engineer, and Product Manager to leading Customer Solutions and Product Management organizations and Regional Business Lines.

Mr. Picquet is a U.S. Navy veteran who holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington and an Executive MBA from Southern Methodist University.

I started with AEP in 1984 as a station mechanic, then in 1988 joined the Telecommunications team.  I have held a variety of positions in the Telecommunications profession with AEP.  Field Technologist, Field Engineer, Operations Supervisor, NOC Supervisor, Telecommunications SCADA Engineering manager, Transport Engineering Manager.  I have always found Telecommunications work interesting and the people great to work with.

Ivan Schonwald started his career as a technical specialist in 1985 at Ungermann-Bass; a technology startup pioneering the 1st multi-vendor computer networks utilizing Ethernet protocols and experiencing the fast-paced evolution of networking technologies and standards. Through many acquisitions, he has continued staying diverse with IP and other technologies through, Tandem, Newbridge, Alcatel, Alcatel-Lucent, and now Nokia. Through his tenure, he played a major role with wireless service providers in developing a backhaul strategy that evolved with their technology direction, later he directed business development in the Americas for new innovative technology startups within Bell Lab Ventures, and later took an active role in consulting and architecting smart grid solutions for utilities and developing mission-critical communication solutions for the Oil & Gas industry enabling next-generation automation and applications leading to increased production, lower costs, and overall safety improvements. Ivan most recently shifted his time and focus to working directly with energy companies developing plans to transition to 4th generation industrial solutions for now and the future.