Josh Peltz is a successful cybersecurity executive with 20+ years of experience in emerging and disruptive technology solutions in cybersecurity, data and analytics and AI/ML. He's held security leadership positions at Duo Security, Cisco, ArmorCode, and currently the Vice President of the West for Zero Networks, a leading microsegmentation provider. 

Josh has a unique distinction of having been on the "Miracle on the Hudson" Flight 1549 piloted by Captain "Sully" Sullenberger, opening the emergency exit door and helping his fellow passengers to safety. He's been highlighted on CNN, The New York Times, NY Post, LA Times, The Guardian UK, has appeared on the Dr. Phil show, The Oprah Winfrey show, and featured on dozens of podcasts and Keynotes in the years since. Josh is happy to share some of the never-before shared events during and after the Miracle on the Hudson and has an engaging way of relating these experiences and lessons to what CIOs, CISOs, and IT professionals contend with during critical incident responses. 

Jeff Fryer, Sr. Web & ADA, Town of Manitou Springs

As Colorado municipalities race to meet the July 2025 deadlines for HB21-1110 and ADA Title II, a critical "governance gap" has emerged: standard cybersecurity controls are inadvertently creating accessibility barriers. This session explores the "Security-Accessibility Antagonism"—specific instances where necessary hardening measures (like strict CSP headers, MFA, and session timeouts) lock out residents using assistive technologies, exposing cities to civil rights liability despite passing security audits. Presenting data from a comparative study of Colorado municipalities , we will demonstrate how legacy scanning tools generate up to 80% false positives by failing to account for this overlap. We will introduce a "Dual-Evidence Validation" approach that filters out this noise, distinguishing between benign security features and actual accessibility blockers. Attendees will leave with a "Conflict Mitigation Roadmap" to align their CISO and ADA compliance teams, ensuring their digital infrastructure is both secure by design and accessible by default.

Ash Kann, Sr. Systems Analyst, Douglas County

For this presentation, my goal is to equip attendees with the knowledge and inspiration needed to go and create their own Copilot chatbots or agent. My session offers a practical introduction to building and deploying a Copilot chatbot or agent. Attendees will learn the core requirements, including necessary licensing and environment setup, followed by a guided overview of how to create a Copilot agent and write effective agent scripts. I will also explore several local government use cases with the session concluding with a live demo of a Copilot chatbot or agent.

Local government entities are rapidly exploring AI solutions to improve internal efficiency and citizen services. A Copilot chatbot provides that value by automating routine inquiries, supporting staff with immediate access to information, and delivering consistent, accurate responses across departments. These agents can help reduce workload, increase speed of service, and expand organizational capacity without adding staff. By giving counties a clear, practical understanding of what’s required and what’s possible, this session helps them make informed decisions about requirements, costs, and the possibilities available with Copilot. 

Keith Fuscher, Division Manager of Business Innovation, Arapahoe County

This presentation moves beyond the speculative "hype" of artificial intelligence to explore its "helpful" reality as a trasformative tool for modern municipalities. We will demystify common misconseptions by shifting teh focus from AI asa. replacement for human oversight to AI as a catalyst for more responsive, equitable, and efficient public services. Attendees will gain a clear understanding of how Arapahoe County is currently leveraging machine learning and generative tools to solve tangible problems. 

This session also provides a practical roadmap for navigating the ethical and operational complexities of AI adoption. We will dive into the essential "human-in-the-loop" framework, addressing critical concerns such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the necessity of transparent governance. By focusing on low-risk, high-impact pilot porjects, this presentation equips city leaders and public servants with strategies needed to build resident trust while modernizing the local government toolkit for teh 21st century. 

Jesse Dubin, IT Manager, City of Wheat Ridge

Artificial Intelligence is already inside your organization, whether you’ve planned for it or not. The real question isn’t if you need an AI policy. It’s whether you’re going to design one intentionally or let your users make your decisions for you.

We’ll walk step-by-step through how to build an AI policy that actually fits your organization’s needs. We’ll start with a quick reality check (spoiler: your staff is already using AI), then get into the nuts and bolts so the policy you write is both usable and enforceable.

We’ll review leading public-sector examples, extract the pieces that resonate with your values, and align them to your mission. We’ll explore how to evaluate AI tools through a privacy and governance lens and discuss risks you may want to be on the lookout for. 

After that, we’ll discuss how to take what you’ve written and decide how to focus on your organization’s priorities to start building tools that will make the most impact to your staff and residents.

Christian Zajac, Innovation Fellow (Tech and Productivity)

Across government, the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t technology, but culture. IT teams often promote new tools with showy demos, but for non‑technical staff, these rarely address real concerns or everyday pain points. This session explores a different approach: using radical empathy and plain language to drive meaningful, sustainable adoption of AI and other emerging technologies in public‑sector organizations.

Drawing on Jefferson County's AI Pilot, this session breaks down how to address shadow AI, navigate reactions ranging from skepticism to reckless enthusiasm, and support employees who worry about job impact or aren’t sure where AI fits in their work. Instead of pushing tools, we focused on understanding users’ fears, workflows, and goals; using that insight to drive cultural change.

Attendees will learn practical methods for teaching complex technology, framing AI around real tasks, demystifying limitations, and empowering staff through hands‑on learning. They'll leave with a repeatable, department‑agnostic framework for turning AI pain points into productivity gains by putting culture above features and people at the center of the process.

Amanda Bay, IT Customer Relations & Project Manager, Innovation & Technology , Eagle County Government

A Fireside Chat is a facilitated group discussion. Come to learn and or to share. The tension between public transparency and community safety has reached a breaking point. For decades, the gold standard for local government has been "radical transparency" posting everything from planning files and financial information, contracts to RFP's online for easy, self-service access. However, this open-door policy has become a goldmine for bad actors. In the wake of sophisticated community development scams, criminals are now using AI-powered bots to scrape public portals, harvesting applicants' names and contact details to launch hyper-convincing phishing attacks that defraud residents of thousands of dollars. Beyond personal scams, this "transparency trap" poses a significant threat to internal IT security. When agencies post detailed RFPs or contracts that specify exact network hardware, access control systems, and security protocols, they are inadvertently handing a "blueprint for the castle" to hackers. This session explores the urgent need to redefine public access in the age of AI. We will discuss whether the administrative ease of self-service documents is worth the escalating risk, how to distinguish between the public’s "right to know" and a scammer’s "ability to exploit," and what practical steps organizations can take to gatekeep sensitive information without sacrificing accountability.

Larry Hibbs, Business Relationship Manager, City of Aurora

Building and shaping dynamic value-driven relationships across a diverse organization is difficult but not impossible.  In this session, we will start with self-discovery and purpose then look at the growth stages and events through the beginning and development of a dynamic business relationship.  As we progress to develop a relationship we will look at BRM tools for each stage and how they will ensure a solid foundation and growth in a business relationship.  As a backdrop to our session, we will look at examples from the movie How to Train Your Dragon.  How did Hiccup and Toothless’ relationship change their village (organization) future?  Come and experience the growth, tools, and some fun examples that you can use in your daily life.

Renee Bruneau, IT Business Analyst Sr. 

Jefferson County has recently completed an initiative to implement a comprehensive framework for effectively regulating, monitoring, and optimizing our approach to short term rentals. The project encompassed an end-to-end solution which included short term rental identification, automated issuance of certified compliance letters, implementation of a 24/7 hotline to support resident concerns and a citizen-facing portal to replace our previous time-intensive licensing application, review and approval processes. The project hinged on development and adoption of new regulations and ordinances to support the evolving landscape of short-term rentals. From an operational standpoint, the solution enhanced compliance tracking and revenue recognition while driving significant process improvements for both applicants and staff. The solution provides systematic tracking of neighbor complaints for increased transparency and responsiveness, while automation and streamlined workflows reduce both applicant and administrative burden. Overall, the project demonstrates how integrated systems and thoughtful process design can improve governance, community trust and operational efficiency within the short term rental space. This session will deliver a practical overview of the project’s implementation, key challenges encountered and lessons learned, offering insights for organizations considering or planning a similar initiative.