Wyatt Starnes of Harris Corp. Selected as CLOUD2 Commissioner
Wyatt Starnes, vice president of Advanced Concepts for Harris Corp.'s Cyber Integrated Solutions business unit, has been named to a national commission of thought leaders that will provide recommendations on how government should deploy cloud—or virtual computing—technologies, and identify public policies to help drive U.S. innovation in the cloud.
The TechAmerica Foundation's Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2) brings together leaders in industry and academia. The commission's three-month mandate is to provide the Obama administration with recommendations for both government and commercial advancement of the cloud. Recommendations for government deployment will be presented to Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. Commercial-facing recommendations will be shared with Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Commerce Under Secretary Pat Gallagher.
"We are thrilled to welcome Wyatt Starnes as a commissioner on the TechAmerica Foundation CLOUD2 Commission and are confident he will make a significant contribution," said David Sanders, Dallas Advisory Partners Founder and TechAmerica Foundation Chairman. "Wyatt is a leading technology innovator and entrepreneur, creating new levels of trust and control in the cloud and promoting enterprise cloud adoption."
Wyatt Starnes has more than 37 years of experience in information technology with eight different startups. He was founder and CEO of SignaCert Inc., which was acquired by Harris Corp. in 2010. Prior to SignaCert, Starnes founded Tripwire Inc., and served as its president and CEO for seven years. Starnes is a former member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Visiting Committee on Advance Technologies and the Oregon Executive Council of the American Electronics Association. He has been awarded four patents on IT trust enablement methods.
"Cloud computing is rapidly becoming a matter of national competitiveness and security, and the TechAmerica Foundation CLOUD2 Commission can play a pivotal role in advancing the state-of-the-art of this important new IT service delivery model," Starnes said. "I am honored to serve as a commissioner on CLOUD2 and look forward to contributing to the ideas and recommendations the commission will produce."
As an established cyber integrator, Harris works closely with commercial and government organizations to move their operations to the cloud in the most efficient and effective manner. Its Trusted Enterprise Cloud service and Cyber Integration Center are engineered from the ground up to deliver the highest levels of performance, availability and security. Recently, Harris announced a strategic alliance with EMC Corporation and the Virtual Computing Environment Company to jointly develop and market new trusted multi-tenant cloud solutions to further accelerate the adoption of cloud infrastructure as a service.
"Cloud computing is all about gaining agility and efficiency, two things that IT organizations crave so they can focus more on innovation than keeping the lights on," said Pat Gelsinger, EMC president and COO, information infrastructure products. "Wyatt brings an informed, experienced and passionate voice to CLOUD2 to help drive the appropriate recommendations that guide IT organizations along their journey toward achieving these clear and strategic benefits."