Key Personnel for Knowledge Center®

The leadership team for Knowledge Center® combines experience in emergency preparedness planning, emergency management, product management, software development, and business development to design and build best-in-class products.

John Degory, Director

John has over 20 years of experience in managing technology companies. Prior to SSI Knowledge Center, he was CEO of Cyrusoft International, the makers of the pioneering IMAP email client Mulberry, and the President and COO of Dormont Technologies, Inc., overseeing a successful sale of its product line. John has held senior management and business development positions with Medrad, Inc. (medical devices manufacturing), Texas Instruments, Sure-Max Systems Inc. (healthcare fee analysis and management software consulting), Industrial Maintenance Systems, Inc. (machine alignment instrumentation and software), Trimarchi, Inc. (mass storage systems), and Astrotech International (technology holding company). John has extensive experience with developing companies from early stage through exit.

Mariss Mednis, Product Manager

Mariss has over 10 years of experience as a project leader in the software industry. Prior to SSI Knowledge Center, he was Director of Product Management for Cyrusoft International, focusing on software solutions for the emergency management community. As a senior software developer for 8 years, Mariss architected the development of a number of successful financial services systems. Most recently he led a number of thriving projects with Market Axess, the industry leader in corporate fixed income transaction systems with billions of dollars in daily trading. Mariss holds a B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from The Cooper Union, and an M.B.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business.

Chuck Lewis, Project Manager

Chuck has over 20 years of experience as a project manager and instructional technologist. Prior to SSI Knowledge Center, he was the Homeland Security Planner for Butler County, focusing on preparedness planning, emergency operations management, and incident command. As the President and Ambulance Commander of the Saxonburg Volunteer Fire Company, Chuck continues to bring his real world first responder experience to the SSI team.

Robert Rectenwald, Chief Architect

Bob has over 20 years of experience in both hardware and software systems development. He is uniquely qualified to design and implement our incident management and facilities management technical needs. Prior to SSI Knowledge Center, he was database administrator for the First Energy nuclear facility at the Beaver Valley Power Station. While at Beaver Valley, he was also a senior engineer responsible for nuclear procurement and quality assurance. Bob understands 24/7 requirements. He applies his experience from the power industry to architect robust and reliable systems in our classified and unclassified deployments.

Deborah Camp, Systems Administrator

Deb has over 15 years of experience in LAN administration of multiple OS platforms including corporate email, network security, enterprise anti-virus protection, data backups, and disaster recovery. She has extensive experience in the configuration, management, and support of corporate-level development and production environments involving database, graphics, programming languages, file sharing, and web-based applications. Prior to SSI Knowledge Center, Deb was part of the team that provided 99.99% network availability at Beaver Valley Power Station, a 24/7 facility with two nuclear powered generating units. Deb applies her substantial experience with critical facilities to ensure the reliability of our products and systems.

Jeremy Smith, Senior Software Developer

Jeremy has over 10 years of experience architecting and implementing a wide range of information services including database development and systems software engineering. In addition, Jeremy brings an extensive knowledge base of asset and resource management to SSI from his extensive work with facilities management services. Jeremy continues to teach graduate-level information systems classes as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Nick Vagni, Software Developer

Nick has over 10 years of experience working with a variety of software technologies and applications. From an extensive consulting background in the government and healthcare industry, Nick brings significant capabilities with GIS and .NET applications to SSI Knowledge Center, Inc.

Adrian Vargo, Software Developer

Adrian has over 5 years of experience in web development and systems implementation. Adrian brings extensive .NET systems development capabilities to the SSI team.

Tom Thomas, Quality Assurance Analyst

Tom has over 10 years of experience in quality assurance (QA). Prior to joining SSI, Tom supervised product assurance activities in the medical products industry, including Respironics, Renal Solutions, and Medrad. Most recently, Tom was a software QA analyst for Vocollect and McKesson.

Rebecca Deitz, Product Support Specialist

Rebecca has over 5 years of experience in customer support and services. Prior to joining SSI, Rebecca held leadership positions in a variety of service-related industries, including roles with personnel training and resource allotment responsibilities.