Leadership Team
Brian Derfer, Chief Technology Officer
Brian blends nearly 20 years of hands-on experience in the software industry with a background in cognitive anthropology in order to bring a unique perspective to technical problem domains. He has been involved in several start-up ventures as founding partner or early associate, and worked as an architect in the development of key systems within the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) as well as Fortune-100 companies, in vertical markets that include family services, healthcare, education, and social media. His main areas of focus include agile process, software development best-practices, artificial intelligence, organizational learning, web and mobile development, cloud computing, and test-driven design. Mr. Derfer holds a Master's Degree in Cognitive Anthropology from UCSD, and is a Certified Scrum Master through the Scrum Alliance. He is listed on one US patent. His other interests include soccer, sailing, music, history, and human cognition.
Robert Ramirez, State and Utilities Advisor
Robert completed a 35 year career with Southern California Edison (SCE) where he held numerous managerial positions in a wide variety of business disciplines. After starting his career as a Software Engineer, Robert moved into Project Management, Budgeting and Procurement, Organizational Development and Regulatory Compliance. Robert brings a wealth of experience in implementing Information Technology to solve large scale problems and has significant experience working with governmental agencies such as the California's Public Utilities Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Robert is a graduate of California State University at Dominguez Hills with a BA in Psychology. Since retiring from SCE in 2014 he moved with his wife of over 37 years to the city of Beaumont. An active church member, Robert believes that the talents we are given are to be used to help others. He agreed to join Agile Six because he is committed to the mission of improving the lives of Veterans.
Isaac Shepard, Technology Advisor
Isaac has over 15 years of experience developing large-scale software solutions and innovative user experiences. He earned his BS and MS in Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara, and in the late 1990's, Isaac joined Benefit Software and led the creation of a SaaS benefits-enrollment and total-compensation system for Fortune 500 companies. In 2006, Isaac joined Reflexive Entertainment to build up the company's front-end and back-end systems. After Amazon acquired Reflexive Entertainment in 2008, Isaac served as a Senior Software Development Engineer and worked on many of Amazon's special high-profile initiatives, such as Amazon's Test Drive cloud streaming technology and Amazon's Fire Phone Dynamic Perspective technology. In addition, Isaac served as a lead game development engineer for several Amazon Game Studios games, including launch titles for Amazon's Fire Phone and Fire TV. He holds five patents and has another ten patents pending. Isaac is also a professional music composer who has created the soundtracks for over a dozen games and charted at #1 on iTunes in the New Age category for his solo piano works.
Dr. Andy Wilke, Medical Advisor
Andy is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine. He has worked in University Hospitals, Community Hospitals, VA hospitals and Indian Health Service. Andy has a wide variety of experience across the Country. He was a founding member of a Family Practice/Pediatrics Clinic group and then went on to setup and successfully run a solo Family Practice Clinic. Andy has worked in large urban Emergency rooms. Currently he is enjoying the hands-on and more personal approach in a rural Emergency Room setting. Andy has been married for 22 years. He and his wife, Sarah, have 4 children. Sarah is a breast cancer survivor. This experience has galvanized Dr. Wilke's desire to see health care from the patients' point of view---and thereby make health care better.
Robert Rasmussen, President and CEO
Robert is a proud Navy Veteran who has delivered multi-million dollar programs in several countries in the fields of Telecommunications, IT and Enterprise Software. Robert’s gift is for bringing diverse technical teams together to solve problems. Whether for the benefit of mobile operators like TeliaSonera, Hutchinson 3, Ventelo, TDC and Telenor or for US military commands like Military Sealift, Army MEDCOM, Army IMCOM, Air Force Medical Ops and Naval Special Warfare, Robert seeks purpose in the mission and builds pride in his teams. Most recently as a Sr. Vice President at VetAdvisor, LLC, Robert has enjoyed a long history of representing purpose-driven companies like DefenseWeb Technologies (Humana), NetCracker (NEC), Ericsson and SAIC. Robert holds an MBA from National University, is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Scrum Certified Professional (CSP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). In his free time Robert enjoys spending quality time with his wife of 25 years and their two grown children.
Ernie Ramirez, Chief Operations Officer
Ernie is an experienced entrepreneur having played a central role in co-founding 4 successful businesses. After earning an MBA from UC Irvine's Paul Merage School of Business, Ernie worked at Price Waterhouse and Disney Interactive in Accounting and Finance. Next, he was a founding member of Reflexive Entertainment, Inc. a video game developer where he served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Producer for over 10 years. In 2008 Ernie and his partners sold the business to Amazon.com. During a six year tenure with Amazon, he served in the capacity of Executive Producer and then Studio Head of Amazon Game Studios, Orange County overseeing the development and release of over 20 game titles including Amazon's first internally developed games for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, Kindle e-readers, Kindle Fire Tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone. Ernie is also a founding investor in the 3D printing company Matter Hackers where he continues to serve on the Board. Finally, he is a founding financial backer of the successful 501(c)(3) non profit firm Creative Kids Playhouse Children's Theater of Orange County. Since its founding in 2011, the theater has produced over 65 shows and introduced thousands of children to the self confidence building benefits of performing in theater arts.
The Honorable Tim McClain, Advisory Board Chairman
Tim has over 35 years of experience in executive leadership and management positions. He served as General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from 2001-2006, a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointment position, serving two Cabinet secretaries and managing an office comprised of nearly 400 attorneys. In 2005, Mr. McClain served concurrently as General Counsel and as Chief Management Officer for VA with overall responsibility for the Cabinet department’s budget formulation and execution, procurement policy and acquisitions management, and business process oversight. Mr. McClain is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, and California Western School of Law, San Diego, California. He is a retired Naval officer, where he served as a Surface Warfare Officer and in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
James Edward Teeple III, Chief Information Security Officer
Edward is a proud Navy veteran with over 20 years experience delivering secure Information Technology. His systems engineering and information assurance background has contributed to one of the US Navy’s largest networks (ONE-NET) and to pioneering virtualization solutions within the Office of Naval Intelligence - SCI-Networks. These virtualized systems now reside on various US Navy ships, submarine and US Coast Guard ships. Within Cyber Security, Edward has transitioned systems from DITSCAP to DIACAP and now to NIST RMF. He has worked with the US Navy, US Marines, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guard, and DHS on accrediting systems that deliver Defense Health Information, Logistical and National Intelligence. He comes to the mission with a B.Sc. in Information Systems and several certifications including CISSP and VMware Certified Professional with a focus on Virtual Infrastructure, vSphere and Data Virtualization. After serving in the Navy, Edward was a key contributor at AMSEC, SAIC, X-Feds, Deloitte & Touche and Three Wire Systems.
Board of Advisors
