Chief Executive Officer, EVI Holdings

Retired - Enterprise Risk Officer Leidos Corp. & Senior Vice President for Risk and International Security at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

A native of northern Minnesota, Ennis graduated from Concordia College in 1971 after spending his senior year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, with degrees in International Relations and French. 

Upon graduation he enlisted in the Marine Corps and 37 years later retired with the rank of Major General.  During that time he served as a Presidential Translator on the Washington-Moscow Hotline; liaison to the Soviet Forces in East Germany;  assistant Naval Attache in Moscow; Director of Intelligence for the Marine Corps; Director of Operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and lastly, the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Community Human Intelligence, CIA. 

He received his Masters Degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University; graduated from the Marine Corps Command & Staff College; and did a one year military fellowship with the Center For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Upon retirement from the Marine Corps in 2008, he worked 5 years as a Senior Vice President for Risk and International Security at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) which had, at the time, over 5,000 employees working in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

In 2014 Ennis retired to his log home on a small lake in a large forest in Virginia’s Northern Neck Peninsula.

Former Vice-President of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems/ Independent Consultant

Rick Matthews is the founder of Rick Matthews Consulting, LLC. He is the former vice president and leader of Northrop Grumman’s Manned Aircraft Design Center of Excellence. He was also the global operations representative and global supply chain program manager lead for the Aerospace System Sector’s Military Aircraft Systems Division. Mr. Matthews served as a member of the state board’s Target Industry Cluster Task Force, helping Florida attract aerospace businesses while supporting the talent and infrastructure needs of existing businesses within the industry. He joined Northrop Grumman in 2007 following a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Force.

Former Deputy Director of U.S. National Counterterrorism Center

Mr. Mulligan is a 39-year veteran of the U.S. Intelligence and National Security Community, primarily the National Security Agency (NSA)/Central Security Service (CSS).

Prior to joining the National Counterterrorism Center, he was responsible for the NSA’s overall counterterrorism program. His role included integrating NSA capabilities with other US government agencies to detect and disrupt terrorist threats around the world.

Mr. Mulligan began his career as an intelligence analyst and served in a variety of field and operations management positions. While serving oversees in his role as a Senior Representative, he championed development of data analytic technology to discover and disrupt terrorist networks. His many recognitions include being awarded the National Intelligence Sustained Superior Service Medal and the Presidential Rank Award, for Meritorious Executive Service.

A native of Chicago, John received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Florida.

Investment Advisor, Lawyer, Inventor, Economist, and Author

James Rickards is the Editor of Strategic Intelligence a financial newsletter. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The New Great Depression (2021), Aftermath (2019), The Road to Ruin (2016), The New Case for Gold (2016), The Death of Money (2014), and Currency Wars (2011) from Penguin Random House.

He is an investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, and has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. In 1998, he was the principal negotiator of the rescue of LTCM sponsored by the Federal Reserve. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates.

He is an op-ed contributor to the Financial Times, Evening Standard, The Telegraph, New York Times, and Washington Post, and has been interviewed by BBC, CNN, NPR, CSPAN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rickards is a guest lecturer in globalization and finance at The Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, Trinity College Dublin, The Kellogg School at Northwestern, the U.S. Army War College, the National Defense University, and the School of Advanced International Studies.

He has presented papers on risk at Singularity University, the Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is an advisor on capital markets to the U.S. intelligence community, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Rickards holds an LL.M. (Taxation) from the NYU School of Law; a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School; an M.A. in international economics from SAIS, and a B.A. (with honors) from Johns Hopkins.

Corporate Executive and Retired Air Force Officer

A native of Brandon Florida, Colonel Richard “Scoop” Jackson, USAF (retired), has held key executive management, operations, and technology positions over a 40-year span in the Department of Defense and commercial sectors. 

A command pilot with more than 4000 flight hours including combat tours flying the U-2 Dragon Lady in Desert Storm and Commanding a U-2 Reconnaissance Squadron in Operation Enduring Freedom / Operation Iraqi Freedom, he has held senior executive positions as the Director of System Engineering for the Nation’s Signals Intelligence Satellites, Deputy Director of Advanced Communications for the National Reconnaissance Office, and the President’s Senior Military Diplomat to the Government of Bolivia, as well as executive positions as a US Diplomat to Australia and Commander of one of the nation’s premier reconnaissance units.  Since retiring from the United States Air Force he has held leadership roles in business environments ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to fortune 500 corporations, with market experience in the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, and International Commercial & Military sectors.

Mr. Jackson has extensive cross-functional executive expertise in leading the development and introduction of transformational, award-winning hardware, software and systems solutions. His experience includes state-of-the-art airborne, space, land, maritime, & cyber platforms; communications and information systems; Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance products; Electronic Warfare solutions; communications-on-the-move networks; satellite communications systems; integrated security solutions; RF products & services; acoustic sensors & ocean systems; enterprise command & control networks; artificial intelligence applications; and advanced robotics technology hardware and software development.

Mr. Jackson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Central Florida, with Master of Arts degrees in Military Operational Art from the Air War College, National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College, and Information Systems Management from Webster University.

Scientific, Engineering, and Technical Advisor, DARPA Microsystems Technology Office / Former Professor and Entrepreneur

Over the last 25 years Dr. McIlrath’s research interests have spanned many fields, including computer vision, image sensor design, 3D integrated circuits, Electronic Design Automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and for the last 15 years, Hardware Security. This varied background has allowed her to bridge disciplines in Computer Science and Hardware Engineering and investigate problems that require an understanding of both.

Dr. McIlrath was the President & CEO of R3Logic, Inc., a small company that she founded in 2000 and successfully ran for 14 years. The early mission of R3Logic was to develop architectures, process technologies, and design tools for 3D-integrated microelectronics. As part of this effort, the company created an extensive set of EDA tools with a novel technology database able to incorporate multiple process design kits for heterogeneous processes. The first DARPA TRUST program in 2007 marked R3Logic’s entry into Trusted and Assured Microelectronics. As part of the TRUST, and follow-on IRIS, programs, the company developed several tools for reverse engineering and functional behavior extraction from integrated circuit design files. Following the licensing of R3Logic’s core technology, Dr. McIlrath held senior technical positions at Raytheon/BBN and Draper Labs before coming to the University of Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) as a Research Associate Professor in 2019. Since late 2020, she has been at DARPA in the Microsystems Technology Office supporting programs on 3D manufacturing, high-energy lasers, and hardware security.

Dr. McIlrath received the Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT, holds a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor of science degree in Physics from MIT.