Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certification
Languages
References
Timeline
Generic

Dawn Meiers

Stafford,VA

Summary

Exceptional manager and leader. Honed my leadership and management skills through ten years as a US Navy Officer in the field of C4ISR. Lead systems integrator for a key government agency test organization collaboratively working with them to ensure a modernized strategy to improve the way the agency can deliver quality software capability to their customer. Project lead for a team conducting testing and integration for this same government agency test organization, leading a team of 32 system engineering test directors, test engineers, and system engineering managers working together to ensure mission success.

Overview

37
37
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Senior Manager Systems Engineering

Peraton
Springfield, VA
06.2021 - Current
  • Lead Project Director for key government agency Assurance Office Test Organization for a team of 32 system engineering test directors, test engineers, and system engineering managers supporting this Agency
  • Manager of managers leading and guiding 3 managers on the team
  • Provides key advice and recommendations on testing resources for the organization
  • Responsible for the mentoring and training of a diverse group of system engineers ranging from junior team members to more senior team members
  • Provides career recommendations and guidance to all team members and five subcontract team members
  • Provides key recommendations on various new testing processes like integrating agile, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure methods into our testing process
  • Authors the Agency’s Test and Evaluation Master Plan document, which documents the overall strategy for all government acceptance testing, quality testing, and security testing
  • Provides invaluable recommendations on the best risk assessment strategy to apply to the Agency’s test strategy in order to provide key risk mitigation to the government Program Management Offices, who are deploying changes into the operational baseline

Systems Engineering, Senior Manager

Perspecta Inc.
Springfield, VA
06.2020 - 05.2021
  • Lead Systems Integrator for key government agency Assurance Office Test Organization and Project Leader for a team of 32 system engineering test directors, test engineers, and system engineering managers supporting this Agency
  • Manager of managers leading and guiding 3 managers on the team
  • Provides key advice and recommendations on testing resources for the organization
  • Responsible for the mentoring and training of a diverse group of system engineers ranging from junior team members to more senior team members
  • Provides career recommendations and guidance to all team members and five subcontract team members
  • Provides key recommendations on various new testing processes like integrating agile, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure methods into our testing process
  • Authors the Agency’s Test and Evaluation Master Plan document, which documents the overall strategy for all government acceptance testing, quality testing, and security testing
  • Provides invaluable recommendations on the best risk assessment strategy to apply to the Agency’s test strategy in order to provide key risk mitigation to the government Program Management Offices, who are deploying changes into the operational baseline.

Systems Engineering, Manager

Perspecta Inc.
Springfield, VA
01.2015 - 06.2020
  • Lead Systems Integrator for key government agency Assurance Office Test Organization and Project Leader for a team of 18 system engineering test directors and test engineers supporting this Agency
  • Provides key advice and recommendations on testing resources for the organization
  • Responsible for the mentoring and training of a diverse group of system engineers ranging from junior team members to more senior team members
  • Provides career recommendations and guidance to all team members and two subcontract team members
  • Provides key recommendations on various new testing processes like integrating agile, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure methods into our testing process
  • Authors the Agency’s Test and Evaluation Master Plan document, which documents the overall strategy for all government acceptance testing, quality testing, and security testing
  • Provides invaluable recommendations on the best risk assessment strategy to apply to the Agency’s test strategy in order to provide key risk mitigation to the government Program Management Offices, who are deploying changes into the operational baseline.

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

Vencore, Inc.
Springfield, VA
01.2013 - 12.2014
  • Test Director at the Assurance Office Test Organization, responsible for the testing of Resource Tasking and Marketplace system
  • Selected as the Agile Test Lead, responsible to fully understand the agile development process and Agency agile testing process and express this to various government program offices, assisting them in the deployment of an agile development program
  • Created an agile process that is used for testing applications that are deployed to common marketplaces
  • Prepares test documentation in preparation for government acceptance testing
  • Reviews and understands system requirement documents and user CONOPS in order to create and articulate a clear objective set for IV&V testing
  • Leads the test execution for the first IV&V for Resource Tasking and Marketplace, ensuring that test engineers and users were well trained to test in a day-in-the-life fashion
  • Coordinated the creation of automated scripts to test out a major interfacing segment for Resource Tasking and Marketplace, more realistically
  • Captured the test procedure set in the test management tool used by government testing organization.

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

The SI Organization, Inc.
Newington, VA
10.2005 - 12.2012
  • Test Director at the Assurance Office Test Organization, under Agency Acquisitions Engineering Office
  • Responsible for the testing of a major tasking management system (which includes the retirement of many legacy heritage systems from the agency such as Requirements Management System, to include delivery of the following documentation test plan, test procedures, and test reports
  • Completed a successful series of Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) for Geospatial Information Management Services, due to this testing, minimal high priority discrepancies found after GIMS Initial Operating Capability (IOC)
  • Provides insight to senior government readiness team members on the progress of this major system’s delivery at various Readiness Reviews
  • Coordinates TEMs with both the system integrator, developer, and government directorates to ensure that the enterprise testing is integrated into the delivery cycle from the start
  • Expected to provide sound, expert advice to the enterprise on the process of government acceptance testing
  • Provides keen leadership and subject knowledge to the test engineers that are part of the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Test team
  • System’s Test Director through three major builds and multiple regression tests during the O&S period of the system
  • Provided expert advice and risk mitigation to both the government for each build brought to the agency for testing
  • Effectively coordinated with the government Program Management Office to set up a system where monthly builds could be tested and have those builds expertly tested based on a risk based assessment of the build, this process became the basis for the government’s current risk based testing approach to IV&V’s and regression tests.

Systems Engineering Manager

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
Chantilly, VA
06.2005 - 09.2005
  • Program Manager responsible to support two transition projects within government agency and the Intelligence Community Multi Acquisition Program (IC MAP) program office
  • Specifically responsible for leadership of the system engineering development effort, FAT training for various FAT witnesses, and the development of an initialization Integrated Product Team at IC MAP
  • As, Program Manager, responsible for two diverse projects, one team responsible for deployment and training coordination and another team responsible for IV&V activities for the Intelligence Community
  • Provided key leadership to the systems engineering and analysis division at the IC MAP government Program Office
  • Effectively worked with both the developer and the government to assist the developer to understand all issues pertaining to design completion
  • Provided and extensive analysis of the design at Critical Design Review to the government
  • As part of the system integrator team, gained an extensive knowledge of Microsoft project and a good understanding of the aspects of program management such as contract management, finances, program metrics, and scheduling, facilitated progress and ensured completion of all tasks on projects.

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
Chantilly, VA
06.2004 - 05.2005
  • Systems Integration team member of Sygenex CORP, which is a company newly acquired by Lockheed Martin
  • Provided systems engineering support and integration to the Intelligence Community Government Program Management Office
  • Provided advice and assessment on an exploitation/dissemination program development and deployment readiness events
  • Coordinated with the agencies test organization to ensure that the required independent test assessment were scheduled as necessary to meet the program schedule
  • Provided insight of the parent company to this new company joining Lockheed Martin.

Systems Engineer

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
Ft Belvoir, VA
12.1998 - 05.2004
  • Research Data Analysis
  • Provided database integrity for a large database and coordinates re-initializations and resynchronizations for customer databases
  • Interfaces with the customer and other Requirements Management System external segments to define and provide resolution of conflicts between requirements and problem solutions
  • Maintains and coordinates effort between various segment databases to ensure reliable and continuous data exchange across all databases
  • Provides anomaly investigation and initiates timely contingency plans in the event of a component or subsystem malfunction
  • Responsible for developing automated processes for customer requirements in order to obtain reliable and fast solutions (included web applications)
  • Manages all of the software rules for the Multi-Displine Interaction for the customer and provides technical advice on capabilities of the software rules to the mission operations team
  • Team Lead for one of the teams that manage the mission operations group (5 to 6 person team)
  • Involved in operations, maintenance, and engineering in support of a real-time complex computer system
  • Interface with the customer and other external segments to define and provide resolution of conflicts between requirements
  • Assists in anomaly investigations and initiates timely contingency plans in the event of a component or subsystem malfunction
  • Performs rudimentary programming, system maintenance, and provides presentations on the performance of the system.

USN Military Officer

U.S. Navy
Various
06.1987 - 10.1998
  • Senior Administrator of Communications, responsible for the professional development of 11 junior military officers and senior enlisted personnel and 74 junior enlisted personnel within 6 divisions (4 divisions standing 24/7 rotational shift)
  • Managed an operating fund and plant property valued at over one half million dollars
  • Plans and Quality Assurance Officer, responsible for providing project management skills to 73 on going telecommunications projects in various stages of development
  • Manager of communications, responsible for the development of two senior enlisted personnel and 45 junior enlisted personnel
  • As CMS custodian, responsible for the proper handling of over 1500 line items of cryptographic products and keying material.

Education

MS in Systems Engineering - Systems Technology in C4I

Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA
06-1995

BA in Political Science -

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University
Blacksburg, VA
06-1987

Skills

  • Resource Allocation
  • Talent Development
  • Strategic Planning
  • Data Analytics
  • Organizational improvement
  • Data-driven decision-making
  • Cross-functional team leadership
  • Innovation management
  • Operations Management
  • Organizational Development
  • Operations Planning

Certification

  • ITIL Certified
  • SAFe 6.0 Certified

Languages

French
Limited

References

References available upon request.

Timeline

Senior Manager Systems Engineering

Peraton
06.2021 - Current

Systems Engineering, Senior Manager

Perspecta Inc.
06.2020 - 05.2021

Systems Engineering, Manager

Perspecta Inc.
01.2015 - 06.2020

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

Vencore, Inc.
01.2013 - 12.2014

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

The SI Organization, Inc.
10.2005 - 12.2012

Systems Engineering Manager

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
06.2005 - 09.2005

Senior/Staff Systems Engineer

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
06.2004 - 05.2005

Systems Engineer

Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC)
12.1998 - 05.2004

USN Military Officer

U.S. Navy
06.1987 - 10.1998

MS in Systems Engineering - Systems Technology in C4I

Naval Postgraduate School

BA in Political Science -

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University

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