Wayne Esser, Founder and Managing Partner for Blue Ocean Advisory Group, LLC, has over 35 years of success in Federal contracting. He formed Blue Ocean in February of 2019 to provide advisory services in the areas of management and strategy development, capture and proposal development and technology use as well as consulting on strategic growth. Prior to Blue Ocean, Mr. Esser was President of Chenega Security International were he started and ran the Electronic Security Systems line of business since 2013. Mr. Esser had been with Thales Security and Defense since 2008 as V.P. Homeland Security. He was responsible for the development and execution of a strategy to establish Thales in the U.S. Homeland Security market. Before retiring from Boeing in September 2008 Mr. Esser was director, Boeing Security Solutions on the Secure Border Initiative (SBInet), for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. He was also the capture manager for the SBInet program, one of the largest contracts awarded by the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Esser has been in homeland security since 9/11 starting with DHS’s Explosive Detection System deployment as part of the program management team for Boeing. His earlier career includes management of Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. Mr. Esser was awarded the 2019 Statesman Award by the Security Industry Association.

Ilia Rosenberg, Managing Director, is an executive with a track record of delivering strong results across a wide range of functions, geographies, and business models. In his current role as Managing Director for Blue Ocean Advisory Group and ISR GeoSensing he is responsible for managing programs related to national defense, security and energy sectors and responsible for leading our Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning practice. In 2016-2019 he was VP Programs at a Silicon Valley AI company Cogniac where he was leading technical developments and commercial negotiations with a variety of gov’t and private customers and successfully placed Cogniac AI technology within DoD and intelligence community. In 2011-2015 he served as Chief Technologist for AGT International Global Delivery Organization in its Headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland leading the worldwide engineering team to assure effective development of new products and creative solutions for Smart and Safe Cities and Smart Borders programs. Before joining AGT International in 2011, Ilia Rosenberg served as the Director of Technology Assessment for the Boeing Company Security Solutions division in Arlington, VA. Before joining Boeing he worked in the field of atmospherical physics and completed his postdoctoral studies at the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He published extensively in the peer review journals and his projects were covered by the New York Times, Time Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, New Scientist, The BBC, Discovery Channel, and Washington Technology.

Christopher “Chris” Hernandez, Senior Director, has over fifteen years’ experience leading global teams responsible for the delivery of programs focused on assessment, development, integration, production and transfer of critical protection technology to multiple Federal Agencies, Law Enforcement and the Department of Defense. 

Chris is currently serving as chief engineer responsible for building cross-competency teams by providing guidance on requirements development, design, integration, installation and testing of Electronic Security Systems (ESS) & Emergency Management (EM) Systems. He is a liaison to various experts and organizations (i.e. industry and academia technology experts) regarding the technical and programmatic aspects of ESS/EM related programs and projects.

Chris leads technical reviews of all ESS and EM projects. He is especially skilled in the realignment of projects and organizations to maximize productivity and cross-organizational integration resulting from corporate re-organization, acquisition/merger and the most common impact to organizations—evolutionary irrelevance. He develops technical roadmaps of future ESS technology to guide the organization’s research and development efforts.

Chris speaks regularly at industry conferences and is a leader in the development of international standards as a long-time member of the Security Industry Association Standards Council and in the development of Department of Defense standards as a member of the Security Equipment Integration Working Group. His contribution to Federal technical guidance includes participation as a subject matter expert for the development of NIST Special Publication 800-116 which provides guidance for the implementation of HSPD-12/FIPS 201 for physical security.  

Chris obtained his International MBA at the University of South Carolina, a Master’s in Industrial Engineering Technology; and undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering Technology and Exercise Science from Purdue University.  He holds certifications as a Project Management Professional from PMI, Certified Systems Engineering Professional from INCOSE, and Physical Security Professional from ASIS.