Moderator: Severe Weather and Natural Disasters – How Satellites Support Warning, Response and Recovery

Steve has more than 20 years of technical, operational, consulting and executive management experience in the global telecommunications industry while working throughout North America, the Middle East, and Africa. His specialty is the management of complex telecommunications and ICT projects, often in challenging or austere environments. He currently owns a consulting practice, Resudox Solutions, where he works with both public and private sector clients. Steve also works as the Director of Response & Recovery with Tactivate, a company that specializes in “expeditionary entrepreneurship”, and applying the Special Operations mindset to disaster response.

He launched a global initiative to improve the satellite industry’s support of disasters in the aftermath of the Haith earthquake, which he continues to manage. Based upon open collaboration across the industry, and has resulted in a more effective and more efficient response and support for the humanitarian community.

In addition to his telecommunications work Steve has nearly a decade of experience in disasters and crisis management. He served as an adjunct high-angle rope access instructor in the IDF Counter-Terror School and is a former member of a wilderness search & rescue team. He currently serves as a volunteer Firefighter/EMT and Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) technician in Maryland.

Steve holds multiple certifications in disaster response and crisis communications, including Firefighter and Structural Collapse Rescue Technician. He has deployed to numerous disasters in the United States and globally with a range of teams, including leading the NetHope team to Vanuatu in 2015, where he also served as the UN ETC NGO Coordinator. In 2013 he was received the White House Champion of Change award for his work as a founding member of the FEMA Innovation Team during the Hurricane Sandy response.

Steve also serves on the US National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications, the US Department of State ACICIP International Disaster Response Sub-Committee, and the US Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate’s First Responder Resource Group.