Confirmed Speakers:
- Paul N. Jaenichen, Sr. - Maritime Administrator, MARAD
Paul “Chip” Jaenichen was appointed by President Obama and has served as Maritime Administrator since 25 July 2014. He previously served as both Deputy and Acting Maritime Administrator from July 2012 to July 2014. Captain Jaenichen was a career naval officer, who retired after 30 years as nuclear trained Submarine Officer in the U.S. Navy. His final assignment was as Deputy Chief of Legislative Affairs for the Department of the Navy from October 2010 to April 2012. He served as Commanding Officer of USS ALBANY (SSN 753) from 1999 to 2002 and as Commander, Submarine Squadron ELEVEN in San Diego, California from 2007 to 2008. His shore tours included assignments as Director, Submarine/Nuclear Officer Distribution where he was responsible for over 5200 officers; as Officer-in-Charge of Moored Training Ship 635, one of two nuclear powered training platforms in Charleston, South Carolina, where he was responsible for over 1200 officer and enlisted operators; and as Chief, European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Policy Division on the Joint Staff where he was responsible for military-to-military engagement with all 26 NATO member nations.
Jacqui Irwin - California Assemblymember
Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin has served on the Thousand Oaks City Council for nine years and as mayor for two terms before her election to the State Assembly in 2014. Her experience with state and local issues is extensive and
hands-on.
- Capt. Charlene Downey - Sector Commander, U.S. Coast Guard
Captain Downey assumed her duties as Sector Commander and Captain of the Port for U.S. Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles – Long Beach in 2016. From command offices on Terminal Island in San Pedro, the Sector coordinates operations in an area of responsibility stretching more than 350 miles along the California coast, from north of Morro Bay and south to San Clemente, out to 200 miles offshore, and includes the nation’s largest port complex. The Sector oversees four patrol boats, three multi-mission small boat stations, a marine safety detachment, a vessel traffic system and an aids-to-navigation team.
- Capt. Chris Janke - Commanding Officer, U.S. Naval Base Ventura County
In March 2015, Janke assumed his duties as commanding officer of Naval Base Ventura County, CA. After graduating the U.S. Naval Academy in 1991, he attended flight training and was designated as a Naval Flight Officer in March 1993. Early deployments included Iceland, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Italy. In 1998, Commander Janke began Aide duties for the Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Following this, he served aboard USS John F. Kennedy in the Arabian Gulf. Commander Janke later served in combat operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM, and eventually was charged with briefing and preparation of Sensitive Reconnaissance Operations details for Presidential approval under the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His awards include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Navy Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, Navy Commendation Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal and various operational awards.
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Bruce Stenslie - President & CEO, Economic Development Collaborative-Ventura County
The EDC-VC is a public/private partnership, providing business advising, training and capitalaccess services to promote regional economic vitality, business expansion and job growth. Prior to joining the EDC-VC, Bruce Stenslie served as Deputy Director for the California Workforce Association,Executive Director for Workforce Policy and Workforce Investment Board for the Mayor's office in LosAngeles, Deputy Director of the Ventura County Human Services Agency and Executive Director of Workforce Investment Board, and Executive Director of the Candelaria American Indian Council, providing workforce and community development services throughout 11 California counties. 
Will Berg - Director of Marketing & Public Information, Oxnard Harbor District
Will represents the Port of Hueneme as Director of Marketing & Public Information. He promotes Ventura County's quintessential niche port to, among others, the fresh produce and auto carrier industries and manages the Port's grantee status of Foreign Trade Zone #205. Will has a deep knowledge of the Port's operations, intrinsic community value, and its history that he is excited to share with a wide audience. Will is an Executive Board member of numerous local organizations.
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Ruben Duran - Attorney, Best Best & Krieger LLP
Ruben Duran represents exclusively public agencies as a partner in the Municipal Law and Public Policy and Ethics Compliance practice groups of Best Best & Krieger LLP. He provides both general counsel services and special counsel in the areas of New Markets Tax Credits, elections law, real estate, education law and complex conflicts of interest and open government issues. He serves as the general counsel for the Oxnard Harbor District, which owns and operates the commercial Port of Hueneme.
- Emily Chen - Planner and Developer, Taiwan International Ports Corp.
Emily Chen received a Master’s Degree in Merchant Marine in 2009. After graduation, she had been working in former Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau as a government officer responsible for land management and business contracts management until 2012 when the Bureau was transformed to a state-owned corporation named Taiwan International Port Company. Currently her job is involved in the comprehensive planning of Taiwan‘s International Commercial Ports, the negotiation with customers on the terminal business and market studies.
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Kristin Decas - CEO & Port Director, Port of Hueneme
Kristin Decas began her tenure with the Port of Hueneme in February 2012 and under her guidance, the Port's tonnage totals have grown every year since her arrival, marking the Port’s strongest sustained trade years since its inception in 1937. She also championed the first annual Port Banana Festival, drawing over 10,000 visitors to the Port. Prior to serving for the Port of Hueneme, Kristin served as CEO and Port Director for the Port of New Bedford, MA, the nation’s number one value fishing port. She is recognized by Trade Administration officials for her impressive work in promoting economic development through international trade promotion, and for her service on scores of federal level shipping and port committees.
- Jack Chong-Gum - Executive Director, Republic of the Marshall Islands Ports Authority
Jack currently serves as the Director of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Ports Authority, where he is responsible for the overall administration, performance, management and development of the Marshall Islands’s international airport and seaport facilities. Jack is an experienced senior manager who has direct oversight and contract administration responsibilities of multi-million dollar development projects for the country's international airport.
- Daniel Elroi - President & CEO, NorthSouth GIS LLC
Daniel Elroi is the President and CEO of NorthSouth GIS LLC. He began his career in the mid-80s deploying one of Esri’s earliest commercial installations for the City of Los Angeles. Since then he has been involved in GIS consulting in numerous fields, including local government, mining, pipelines, environment, nuclear waste disposal, and real estate. For the past seven years, he has been heavily involved in ports and airports, and is a frequent presenter and writer on the topic of Enterprise Geospatial Systems in ports. Mr. Elroi has been instrumental to the founding of four GIS companies around the world over the years.
- David P. Bender, Jr., Insurance Recovery Attorney
David P. Bender, Jr. is an attorney in Ventura, California. Mr. Bender, a long-time advocate of policyholder's rights, has helped lead an insurance recovery practice, representing public and private corporations, financial institutions, private and public educational institutions, and Boards of Directors in coverage disputes with insurance companies. He is also co-chair of a Hospitality Industry Practice Group. Mr. Bender has represented policyholders in international arbitration forums as well as European organizations in US-based insurance coverage disputes.
- Dr. Tiffany Morse, Director of Career Education, Ventura County
Office of Education
Dr. Morse has helped facilitate bringing more than $30 million in new funding for career education to the county. She also wrote and received a grant to start the first high school Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program in the state of California. Tiffany was selected by the National Association of Women Business Owners - Ventura County as the 2014 Education Advocate of the year and won a Workforce Development Board Collaborative Action award in 2015. - Steven Bash, Senior Vice President and Manager, International Banking & Trade Finance, City National Bank
Steve oversees the City National Bank’s trade finance, trade services, structured trade finance, risk mitigation and distribution, global correspondent banking, and trade advisory services. Before joining in 2009, Mr. Bash managed Wells Fargo Bank’s Global Financial Institutions and Overseas Client Management Group in San Francisco. From 1995 through 2005, he was a managing director at Wachovia Bank, where he held a variety of leadership roles in its global financial institutions, global government banking, and trade finance units. Mr. Bash began his banking career at Philadelphia National Bank. From 1989 to 1992, he was stationed in Hong Kong, where he opened a Philadelphia National branch office and established the first letter of credit outsourcing platform in the international trade banking industry. He is a past president of the Bankers Association of Finance and Trade, an industry advocacy organization in Washington, DC. A native of Trenton, New Jersey, Mr.Bash earned a bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and an M.B.A. from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Moisés Woll, General Manager, Woll Corp
Moisés Woll joined his family business in 2003, after spending more than 5 years working in Houston, USA and London, UK. He obtained his Masters in International Management from Thunderbird, Arizona in 1997 and a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Miami. Peru has experienced an impressive growth in international trade and has become a strategic player for perishable cargo. Mr. Woll is currently working on the development of a logistics project that will enhance trade between Peru and Port Hueneme.
- Kenneth Parkinson - Vice President, Transportation - Ports & Marine, AECOM
Ken has 29 years of experience in management, business development, and consultancy associated with planning, design, operations and modernization of ports, industrial facilities, transportation facilities, commercial centers and waterfront developments. At AECOM, Ken supports the Transportation/Ports & Marine global practice with the corporate management, business development, consultancy and operations with feasibility studies, planning, design, engineering, port operations and development of ports, logistic facilities, freight rail facilities and waterfront developments. His efforts have involved work along the U.S. coasts and inland waterway system and over twenty countries.
- Scott Brewer - Operations Deputy and Port Security Lead, Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Asymmetric Warfare
Scott is responsible for managing the integrity of design, conduct and reporting of Center for Asymmetric Warfare (CAW) projects by coordinating all aspects of project management including organizational products, services, project teams, and managing risk. Scott also supports the organization by identifying new business opportunities in order to form new partnerships, acquire an increased sponsorship base, and ensure program sustainment. Scott joined the NPS team in 2012 after supporting CAW for over eight years as a contractor for the Battelle Memorial Institute. Prior to his time with Battelle, Scott served in a number of critical emergency management roles including the Emergency Services Coordinator for the City of La Canada-Flintridge, Supervisor of Corporate Crisis Management for the Walt Disney Company, and Emergency Services Coordinator for the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services.
- Jordan Ferguson - Attorney, Best Best & Krieger LLP
Jordan E. A. Ferguson provides legal services to cities,
districts, and private clients across Southern California. He is well-versed in land use and planning laws, conflicts of interest, free speech regulations, privacy rights, sex offender regulations, the Brown Act, public safety regulations, marijuana regulations, and elections law matters. As an associate in the Municipal Law and Special Districts practice groups of Best Best & Krieger LLP, his practice involves city attorney and general counsel services and he is a frequent speaker and thought-leader on issues surrounding emerging technologies and the sharing economy.
- Val Noronha, President, Digital Geographic Research Corporation
Val Noronha has 30+ years of experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). His technical specialties are in GPS, transportation networks, spatial modeling, error remediation and remote sensing. He has extensive experience in project conceptualization, needs analysis, GIS strategy and cost-benefit analysis. In 1997 he established the Vehicle Intelligence and Transportation Analysis Laboratory at the Center for Spatial Studies (formerly National Center for Geographic Information Analysis, NCGIA), University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2000 and 2007, partnering with UCSB, he led winning teams for the National Consortia on Remote Sensing in Transportation (NCRST) research awards funded by the USDOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration. He served as Research Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Geographic Information Science and Applications, and has played a lead role in standards development in transportation.
- David Alba - Co-founder/CEO, Grid Logistics
A native Angelino and a port dock manager for many years at the
Port of Long Beach, Dave originated the design of the SuperDock™ to streamline the movement of ISO containers through the ports and beyond. David discovered his life’s purpose upon realizing that the innovations he envisioned created tremendous opportunities not only for the ports, but for the regional and national environment, economy and jobs creation. Dave graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in International Relations.
- Jamey Wyman, Attorney, Best Best & Krieger LLP
Jamey Wyman advises clients with right-of-way acquisition, project delivery and litigation as an associate in Best Best & Krieger LLP’s Special Districts, Litigation and Environmental and Natural Resources practice groups. Over his career, Jamey has worked on various aspects of major public infrastructure projects throughout the state. Included in his experience is real property valuation of industrial, commercial and residential property and entitlement to and valuation of loss of business goodwill.