Chris D'Agostino
Chief Executive Officer
Chris D'Agostino is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Near Infinity Corporation. Chris formed Near Infinity in 2002 with the goal of establishing a place where engineers could focus on solving some of industry's most challenging software problems. Chris' vision for Near Infinity is to build a company that truly changes the way its clients build software, and he believes that Near Infinity employees represent some of the best minds in the industry. As CEO, Chris oversees daily operations and sets the strategic direction of the company. He is a firm believer in leading by example, and is committed to leveraging technology to help run an efficient, fun, and friendly company.
Chris has over 20 years of technical experience in the industry. He began his career with TRW as a Systems Engineer working on government contracts for the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Chris held several technical leadership positions and focused on local and wide area network (LAN/WAN) design and implementation. In 1998, he began developing C and Java applications for a small technology company in Washington, D.C. Over the last eight years, Chris has stayed current with technology so that he can effectively lead the company and continue to work with customers to ensure that the right solution is being delivered at the right cost. He has developed applications in Ruby on Rails and Objective-C for the Apple platform. He currently teaches iPhone development at George Mason University as part of Near Infinity's outreach to local universities.
Chris holds both a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Jeff Kunkle
Chief Technology Officer
Jeff Kunkle is Near Infinity's Chief Technology Officer. Jeff joined Near Infinity in 2003 and is dedicated to building a company where the best and brightest software developers come to share ideas, create innovative software solutions, and actively participate in shaping a company. He has spent the past ten years leading Agile-focused development teams and creating web-based systems and applications. The majority of his programming experience lies in Java/JEE, Groovy/Grails, and Ruby/Rails, with Objective-C and iPhone development being a personal spare-time learning pursuit.
Prior to joining Near Infinity, Jeff worked for Lockheed Martin and held several Systems and Software Engineering positions during his participation in the Engineering Leadership Development Program. Much of his time spent at Lockheed involved designing portal architectures and developing JEE web applications.
Jeff holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University and an M.S. in Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Jeff Borst
Chief Systems Engineer
Jeff Borst is Near Infinity's Chief Systems Engineer. Jeff joined Near Infinity in 2006 and is dedicated to building and maintaining a company that focuses on developing great software through the right mix of technology, talent, innovation and process. Jeff has spent the last ten years leading software development projects and coaching teams on Agile development techniques. While certain projects enjoyed tremendous success, others failed miserably. The sum of his experience has solidified his belief in Agile Methodologies. As Chief Systems Engineer for Near Infinity, Jeff helps our customers and employees transform their development organizations thereby returning value to their missions through the effective application of process.
Jeff began his career with American Management Systems working on a financial system and custom data warehouse web application for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He was exposed to Business Process Re-Engineering and web content management design when working for IBM Business Consulting Services. Prior to working for Near Infinity, Jeff led a development team at BAE Systems that was pioneering the use of J2EE within the Federal Government. While at Near Infinity, Jeff has coached organizations through the adoption of Agile development practices and currently leads a development team that is building an enterprise level search and retrieval system.
Jeff holds a B.S. in Commerce with concentrations in Management Information Systems and Finance from the University of Virginia. He is also a Certified Scrum Master.
Matt Wizeman
Chief Scientist
Matt Wizeman is Near Infinity's Chief Scientist. Matt joined Near Infinity in 2003, and is dedicated to creating a company where people excited about technology can help change the way customers build software. Through technical presentations, training sessions, and day-to-day work, he believes that Near Infinity is in a unique position to pave the way for change. Matt is the co-creator of intelliPrints, Near Infinity's J2EE auditing solution.
Prior to joining Near Infinity, Matt worked for Lockheed Martin as a lead developer and technical expert, designing portal architectures and developing J2EE portal applications. His core area of interest is aspect-oriented programming (AOP), and he has worked with a number of aspect frameworks including AspectJ, AspectWerkz, and dynaop. Matt has spoken on the use of AOP for enterprise auditing at both the International Conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD.05) and the Northern Virginia Software Symposium.
Matt holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton. He is a Sun Certified Java Programmer and Web Component Developer.
Scott Leberknight
Chief Architect
Scott Leberknight is Near Infinity's Chief Architect. Scott joined Near Infinity in 2002, and is dedicated to ensuring that Near Infinity is a company where the best developers can work on challenging and interesting projects, share their knowledge and ideas with others who have the same passion for software development, and continue to seek new and better ways of developing software.
Scott has been developing software professionally for 16 years. He started writing FORTRAN and C code on a VAX, moved into Visual Basic and PowerBuilder, wrote a bit of PERL, and since 2000 has been doing web and enterprise development using many different enterprise and web-related technologies such as Java, Ruby, Groovy, and Python. His main areas of interest include object-oriented design, system architecture, test and build automation, and frameworks of all types including Spring, Hibernate, Ruby on Rails, mobile development, and most recently Hadoop, Hive, and HBase for processing large amounts of data.
Scott holds a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech, and an M. Eng. in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland. Scott speaks frequently at the No Fluff Just Stuff Software Symposiums and various other software development conferences.
David Singley
Director of Information Technology
David Singley is Near Infinity's Information Technology director. David joined Near Infinity in 2004 and has been spending money on computers ever since. As IT Director, he is responsible for the selection, configuration, and maintenance of Near Infinity's growing business operations, development, and end-user systems, applications, and network infrastructure. With Near Infinity's office move in 2008, Mr. Singley began migrating NIC's servers into a VMware Virtual Infrastructure environment.
In addition to his IT role, he works on contract developing software applications in Java, Groovy, and Ruby; practicing SCRUM; implementing continuous integration processes; building database-level security; and configuring Oracle (formerly BEA) WebLogic server.
Before coming to Near Infinity, David worked for SAIC writing software, operating web portals, and administering networks.
David holds B.S. in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Gary Kedda
Chief Operating Officer
Gary Kedda is Near Infinity's Chief Operating Officer. Gary joined Near Infinity in 2006. As the Chief Operating Officer, Gary oversees the Company's day-to-day operations, human resources, contracts, cash management, financial reporting and budgeting, forecasting, and strategic planning.
Gary has over 23 years of experience in accounting and finance in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining Near Infinity, Gary was the Corporate Controller at Reston, Virginia-based Learning Tree International, Inc. Before Learning Tree, Gary worked for the public accounting firms of Coopers & Lybrand in Los Angeles, CA and Ernst & Young in Pittsburgh, PA. At Coopers & Lybrand, Gary worked on federal, state and local tax issues as part of their corporate tax consulting group. At Ernst & Young, Gary worked on audit engagements as part of their audit and accounting service group. Gary was also a manager in the Corporate Tax Department of Manor Care, Inc. in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Gary holds a Masters of Business Administration from The George Washington University in Washington D.C. and a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and Business Administration from Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. He is a CPA and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Karen Upton
Director of Human Resources
Karen Upton is the Director of Human Resources for Near Infinity Corporation, where she provides leadership in the areas of resource planning, compensation, benefits, employee development, community outreach, and security. She has developed an employee-focused HR strategy, and has led programs and initiatives which have contributed to the company's high employee retention rate.
Prior to joining Near Infinity Corporation, Karen spent twelve years in the field of software training and development, where she managed large-scale training efforts for Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Northrop Grumman. As a training leader, Karen worked closely with both software development teams and the customer to ensure that successful training programs were developed and deployed to end-users around the world.
A graduate of George Mason University, Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts in English. She is SPHR-certified by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), is a member of the World at Work professional organization, and is a Board Member for the Equal Footing Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on youth development and education.
Nancy Bond
Director of Contracts
Nancy Bond joined Near Infinity as the Director of Contracts with more than 15 years of experience in procurement for both government and commercial sectors. Nancy provides full contract administration for both prime and subcontracts; prepares cost and pricing estimates, oversees the invoicing process, and assists with Security.
Prior to joining Near Infinity, Nancy managed several large contracts and subcontracts with large government contractors, including Northrop Grumman - TASC and Raytheon. She has built key relationships with experts in the government contracting community.
Nancy earned her B.S. in Business Management from Miami University; she is a current member of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) and an active participant with Deltek.
Caroline Wizeman
Director of Marketing and Communications
Caroline Wizeman is Near Infinity's Director of Marketing and Communications and has been with the company since 2006. She manages NIC's brand, marketing and communications strategy, and public website as well as product marketing efforts for NIC Labs. She works to showcase the company's fun, tech-savvy culture in all of NIC's communications.
Prior to joining Near Infinity, Caroline worked for 10 years in marketing and communications at Lafarge North America and Winholesale Inc. Her focus has been on intranet/web design, online communications, creative direction, and graphic design. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Dayton.
Marisa Beard
Business Development Manager
Marisa Beard joined Near Infinity as the Business Development Manager with 14 years intelligence community experience and knowledge. She oversees the development and growth of profitable new business and develops and maintains effective key government and commercial relationships.
Prior to joining Near Infinity, Marisa worked for BAE Systems as a Senior Program Manager managing multi-million dollar IT programs supporting the IC.
Marisa holds a B.S. in Management Science and Information Technology with a concentration in Decision Support Systems from Virginia Tech.