Past Conferences

2025 – Dallas, TX

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Kirk Offel
Founder, Managing Partner & CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical

Kirk Offel stands at the forefront of the Mission Critical and Data Center industries as the CEO of OVERWATCH Mission Critical. His company offers a unique combination of traditional Strategic Data Center Consulting and innovative full-service, Owner Representation professional services, catering to the Mission Critical and Telecom Industries. Kirk's journey in this field began in 1995 with his service in the US Navy on the Nuclear Fast Attack Submarine SSN-691, laying the foundation for over two decades of substantial contributions to the industry.

Throughout his career, Kirk has assumed key executive roles in several prestigious organizations, including Medtronic, Active Power, Eaton Corporation, Hewlett-Packard’s Technology Services Consulting practice (EYP), CyrusOne Data Centers, NOVA Mission Critical, and Aligned Data Centers. His diverse experience has enabled him to lead initiatives and drive innovation within these companies.

In addition to his executive pursuits, Kirk is the founder of the Data Center Austin Conference (DC/AC). This technical summit is dedicated to promoting discovery and collaboration among data center professionals, focusing on addressing the challenges of future capacity needs. This initiative underscores his commitment to fostering community and knowledge sharing in the industry.

Kirk also enriches the industry dialogue through the Data Center Revolution Podcast. As its host, he engages in strategic discussions with industry leaders and pioneers, offering deep insights into the evolving landscape of data centers. These conversations reflect his dedication to exploring and understanding the forces shaping the industry.

Recognized as a member of the “Class of 2010 Military Top 40 under 40,” Kirk's career is a testament to his enduring commitment to leadership and continuous learning. His work with a range of Fortune 1000 companies and some of the world's largest data center providers further highlights his influence and expertise in the field.

Currently based in Texas, Kirk continues to be a dynamic force in the data center and mission-critical space, constantly pushing the boundaries of innovation and leadership.

2024 – Cincinnati, OH

Featured Keynote Speakers:
Jeff Hutchins
Director, Team Member Health & Wellbeing at The Christ Hospital Health Network
Dr. Jennifer Manders
Board-Certified General Surgeon

Jeff is a deeply experienced Human Resources leader in the healthcare sector with expertise in the strategic design and deployment of initiatives to positively impact Workplace Culture, Health & Wellbeing of team members.  He has a rich background in connecting programs to analytical insights, all aimed at increasing productivity and engagement & retention as it relates to optimizing team member wellbeing. 

Dr. Manders is a fellow trained in Breast Surgery. She has been named a peer-nominated “Top Doc” every year since 2007 with Cincinnati Magazine. She is also involved in the Medical Staff Administration for The Christ Hospital Health Network.

Collaborating, Jeff and Jennifer will discuss Healthcare Employee Wellbeing; preventing Burnout, and “Taking Care of Yourself so You can Take Care of Others”. They will share the corporate culture and what Christ Hospital offers its employees, and the latest research and findings on best practices and programs to promote mental and physical wellbeing. From a clinical standpoint, they will offer ideas and methods on how to help prevent overworking and experiencing career burnout.

2023 – Washington, DC

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Joxel Garcia
Dr. Joxel García is a Puerto Rican physician and a former four-star Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. He completed his pre-medical studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez and graduated from the Ponce School of Medicine in 1988. Following his training as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at the Ponce School of Medicine, Dr. García completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, CT. He went on to also receive a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Hartford.

President George W. Bush appointed Dr. Garcia as the 14th U.S. assistant secretary for health. At the same time, he was appointed as a four-star admiral for the United States Public Health Service and as the U.S. Representative to the World Health Organization. During this time, and as our nation’s highest ranking medical and public health official, Dr. Garcia led more than 6,220 U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers in the U.S. and 88 countries in the protection, promotion, and advancement of health.

Dr. Garcia has served on several boards of nationally recognized health care organizations, including the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the National Dialogue on Cancer. He has received numerous awards and honors including the Secretary of Defense Award for Exceptional Public Service, the U.S. Public Health Service Distinguished Service Award and honorary doctoral degrees from Carlos Albizu University in Miami, Florida, the Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and Universidad del Este in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

2022 – Las Vegas, NV

Featured Keynote Speaker
Dr. Jeffrey Davidson

Dr. Jeff Davidson is an Emergency Medicine Specialist in North Las Vegas, NV and has over 32 years of experience in the medical field.  He received both his Bachelor of Science degree and Medical Degree from the University of Arizona. He interned and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at Maricopa Medical Center where he served as both Chief Resident and House Staff President. He is the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s (UFC) Chief Medical Physician and the Chairman of the Emergency Department at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas. Dr. Davidson was also “On Call”, and worked the night of the deadliest mass shooting in the modern U.S. More than 50 were killed and more than 500 injured after a man opened fire on a country-music festival from a window in his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, NV.

2021 – Orlando, FL

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Dr. William Cooper, MD, MBA
Georgia Hospital Heroes Physician Hero Award Recipient

Dr. William Cooper is a dedicated and detail-oriented cardiothoracic surgeon serving the community of Marietta, GA. Dr. Cooper obtained his medical degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He also completed his residency and fellowship at Emory University.

Dr. Cooper is board certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and a member of the Atlanta Medical Association, Southern Thoracic Surgery Association, and the Association of Black Cardiologists.

Dr. Cooper currently serves as the Medical Director of the Cardiovascular Surgery department at WellStar Health System, a position he has held since 2004. That same year, he established the heart surgery program at the health system and, since its inception, more than 7,000 heart surgeries have been performed. He is a staunch advocate for medical education, taking time to instruct medical students and inform the community. In addition, he also frequently gives talks in the community on cardiac care.

Dr. Cooper is not only well-respected as a surgeon, but he is also known for his warm bedside manner. To help ease patient fears, Dr. Cooper takes the time to thoroughly explain each procedure and treatment process. He begins with pre-operative discussions in which he makes sure patients understand the diagnosis. After the surgery has been performed, he explains all aspects of post-operative care, including discussions on the proper diet and exercise to ensure an optimal recovery.

Adding to Dr. Cooper’s impressive accomplishments as a surgeon is the fact that he is also a Lieutenant Colonel-Medical Corps in the United States Army Reserve. In his more than 30 years of service, he has served three tours of duty overseas and has been honored with several military awards, including the National Defense Service Medal and the Army Commendation Medal.

2020 – Cancelled due to Coronavirus

2019 – Rosemont, IL

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Andrew C. Bland, MD, MBA, MSPA, FAAP, FACP
Joint Commission Medical Director
Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation

Andrew C. Bland, M.D., is a medical director in the Division of Healthcare Quality Evaluation at The Joint Commission. In this role, he is responsible for leading annual strategic planning to engage national stakeholders, identifying key quality and safety improvement targets, and selecting strategies such as standards, survey methods, measures, and publications to address them. Dr. Bland promotes the scientific integrity of standards, survey methods, and performance measures by directing literature reviews, leading technical advisory panels, and developing rationale statements explaining the evidence for requirements in accreditation and certification programs. He also leads efforts to identify best practices and quality improvement tools for meeting new standards and performance measure requirements.

Most recently, Dr. Bland served as system chief quality officer at Hospital Sisters Health System, a multi-hospital system in Illinois and Wisconsin, where he was instrumental in quality improvement efforts. He is board-certified by the American Board of Medicine, in nephrology and internal medicine, and by the American Board of Pediatrics.

Dr. Bland received his Medical Degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, in Illinois, and completed his residency in combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, Peoria, Illinois. He received a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master’s in Predictive Analytics at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Bland is a current Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

2018 - Norfolk, VA

Featured Keynote Speaker:

C. Donald Combs, PhD

Donald Combs, Ph.D. serves as Vice President and Dean of the School of Health Professions at EVMS.  His responsibilities include direction of all EVMS health professions programs, academic planning, oversight of medical modeling and simulation, program development and accreditation liaison to Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Dr. Combs holds senior faculty appointments with the EVMS School of Health Professions and the Department of Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Engineering at Old Dominion University as well as the University of Paris-Descartes and the State Medical and Pharmaceutical University "Nicolae Testemitsanu," Chisinau, Republic of Moldova.  He has long-standing research interests in health and human services management, health workforce research, health professions regulation, organizational development, strategic planning, and medical modeling and simulation.  These interests are reflected in his professional publications and conference presentations; many consultancies with federal, state, and local agencies, non-profit service organizations and businesses, and $115 million in external funding.

He currently serves on several regional, state, and national boards and task forces that address national and international health policy.  Dr. Combs is active in the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) and in national policy discussions addressing health workforce planning, applied information systems and medical modeling and simulation.

In the international arena, Dr. Combs worked with colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School to develop and implement the International Health Resource Management executive education program that has served some 20 nations.  He holds degrees received with distinction from South Plains College (A.A.), Texas Tech University (B.A. and M.A.), and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Ph.D.).   He was also awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Moldova's State Medical and Pharmaceutical University in 2002 for his service in reforming its primary-care health system.

2017 - Arlington, VA

Featured Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Glenn W. Geelhoed

Dr. Glenn W. Geelhoed received his BS and AB cum laude from Calvin College and MD cum laude from the University of Michigan. He completed his surgical internship and residency through Harvard University at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital Medical Center. To assist in developing further volunteer surgical services in underserved areas of the developing world, Dr. Geelhoed completed master’s degrees in International Affairs, Epidemiology, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Anthropology, and a Philosophy degree in Human Sciences.
Dr. Geelhoed still works as a professor of surgery at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington D.C. and is a member of numerous medical, surgical, and international academic societies. He is an avid game hunter and runner. He has completed more than 135 marathons across the globe. Dr. Geelhoed is also a widely-published author accredited with several books and more than 500 published journal articles and chapters in books. He has two sons and five grandchildren.
Dr. Geelhoed has taken medical mission trips to points all over the globe for more than forty years. He and his team members provide health care and operations to some of the most destitute people of the world in some of the most desolate places on the planet. Dr. Geelhoed also provides medical training, both to his team and to representatives of the indigenous population, to guarantee the work done has a sustainable and culturally embedded future. Mission to Heal is an invitation to join him in his work to heal a wounded world.

2016 - New Orleans, LA

Featured Keynote Speaker:

Ruary O'Connel, MD General Surgeon

Dr. O’Connell is board certified in General Surgery and specializes in Esophageal and Gastric Bypass Surgery. He obtained a Medical Undergraduate Degree from University College of Cork/National University of Ireland and then interned at St. Vincent Hospital in Ireland. Relocating to the United States, he then completed a General Surgery Fellowship with the Harvard Medical School at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Dr. O’Connell has been a pioneer in many of the weight loss procedures currently being offered in the field of weight loss surgery and has performed nearly 5,000 surgical cases. He has special training in Laparoscopic and Robotic Morbid Obesity Surgery.

Dr. O’Connell is fluent in English and French, and holds an impressive passion for the history and lifestyle of New Orleans. He provided attendees with a crash course in the evolution of New Orleans, aka “The Big Easy, The Crescent City or The City that Time Forgot”. Founded in 1718 by the then French Governor of Louisiana, Bienville, and has been sold three times since on the International Market; first to the Spanish in 1763, then back to the French (1803), and finally to the United States that same year, as part of the immense Louisiana Purchase. This subsequently increased the size of the U.S. by 40%. The city prides itself on its value as a Port, via the Mississippi, its Creole traditions, Cuisine, and its value as a tourist destination. The history of this Grand Old City is full of intrigue, Voodoo and “Skullduggery”, and as such, welcomed everyone and assured them that NOLA is always well worth a visit.

2015 - Lexington, KY

Featured Keynote Speaker:

Scott D. Shapiro, Senior Advisor to Lexington Mayor Jim Gray

On behalf of Lexington, Ky. Mayor Jim Gray, Scott Shapiro manages large, strategic projects that include building a joint Lexington-Louisville economic-development initiative with the Brookings Institution, and making Lexington a gigabit city. Recently Scott led a major reform of Lexington’s long-troubled police and fire pension system. The effort saved the city $116 million, strengthened the fund that serves more than 1,000 retirees, and was called “the most effective reform the country” by a leading actuarial firm.
Graduating as Political Science major at New York University in 1995, Scott comes to the Mayor’s office having just earned a master’s in public administration degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he went, at age 40, to pursue a new career in public service. Prior to that switch Scott was largely in the private sector in New York City, where he built and sold a consulting company and was a senior executive in corporate communications with the publicly traded health care company Health Grades.
Scott is married to a high-risk obstetrician who practices at the University of Kentucky.

2014 - Washington, DC

Featured Keynote Speaker:

L.D. Britt, MD, MPH, FACS

L. D. Britt, MD, MPH, FACS, is a general and acute care surgeon from Norfolk, VA. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons since 1989, Dr. Britt is the Brickhouse Professor and chairman, department of surgery, Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA, a position he has held since 1999. He is the first African-American in the country to have an endowed chair in surgery. Dr. Britt is currently also director of the American Board of Surgery.

Dr. Britt completed both a medical degree and a master’s degree in public health at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, respectively, in 1977. He undertook an internship in the department of surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine’s Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Britt also completed an assistant residency, as well as a research fellowship in the islet transplantation laboratory, at Washington University School of Medicine. He served as a surgery resident at University of Illinois, Chicago, followed by a clinical fellowship in trauma and critical care at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Dr. Britt became a Diplomat of the American Board of Surgery in 1985, and, in 1987, he completed subspecialty certification in surgical critical care.

2013 - Norfolk, Virginia

Featured Keynote Speaker:

Richard V. Homan, MD

Richard V. Homan, MD, is Provost and Dean of Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk, Virginia. He joined the school in 2012 after holding several senior leadership positions during 24 years in academic medicine.
Dr. Homan earned his undergraduate degree from Brown University and his medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine. He completed residency training and was Chief Resident at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
In 1989, Dr. Homan began a 16-year affiliation with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas. He took on a series of responsible roles, managing all operations of the Texas Tech University School of Medicine, the Office of Managed Care, the Office of Correctional Health, the faculty practice plan and served as chief executive and academic officer with an operating budget of over $300 million. Dr. Homan was Dean and Vice President for Clinical Affairs at the time of his departure.
Dr. Homan was recruited to the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia in 2005 as Senior Vice President for Health Affairs and Annenberg Dean. He was appointed President and Annenberg Dean of the College of Medicine in 2010. His oversight included 16 affiliated teaching hospitals and three regional academic campuses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
A licensed medical physician and surgeon, Dr. Homan is a diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Family Medicine. He also holds certificates of added qualifications in Geriatric Medicine and Sports Medicine.
He and his wife, Rita Homan, have three children.