Potomac Officers Club

Greg Taylor serves as Defense Department area vice president at CenturyLink and joined the firm in May 2008.

In this role, Greg and his team sell and provide CenturyLink solutions, which include voice, data, video and professional services to the DoD agencies worldwide.

Before joining CenturyLink, Greg spent more than 26 years in the telecom industry in various sales and management positions. He began his telecom career in 1982 in the Washington, D.C. office of ITT.

In 1989, he joined Sprint as the senior national account manager for the U.S. Army and in 1993 was promoted to branch manager.

Subsequently, in 1999 Greg assumed responsibility as manager, European sales based in Frankfurt, Germany. Under his leadership Sprint expanded their role as a telecommunications supplier in Europe and the Pacific Rim.

He returned to the U.S. in 2003 as the branch director responsible for all sales to the U.S. Navy, Marine, DISA and U.S. Air Force.

Greg is a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Greg is a member of the Association of U.S. Army, the Navy League, and the U.S. Air Force Association and is a long standing member of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

Greg Frank serves as the general manager of Bechtel‘s defense and security business line.

In this role, he oversees a portfolio of complex government projects in the areas of chemical demilitarization, missile defense, Defense Department base operations and global nonproliferation.

He also has responsibility for project performance and customer satisfaction and shares in the accountability for winning new work in the business line.

Frank has more than 30 years of experience in government and commercial R&D management, along with technology commercialization.

During his career, he has established a solid record of developing and setting strategic goals and delivering results based on those goals for several organizations.

Frank joined Bechtel in February 2011 from the South Carolina Research Authority, where he served as chief operating officer. As manager of the authority’s day-to-day operations, he oversaw its mission to lead the state in knowledge-based economic development and applied research and commercialization.

Before joining the South Carolina Research Authority, Greg served as managing director and operating partner of a leading private equity firm based in New York. In this role, he focused on growth equity and control investments in medium-sized U.S. companies.

During the previous 22 years, he worked at Battelle in a series of increasingly complex management positions that culminated in his role as executive vice president for Battelle Science and Technology International.

His accomplishments as general manager of the organization included guiding annual revenue growth to $1 billion from $400 million.

Frank also served as a captain in the U.S. Army. His chemical officer assignments included test officer at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, platoon leader in the 12th Chemical Company and assistant S-3 operations officer for the 34th Armor Battalion. He also worked on the M1 tank program and the ground-launched cruise missile program.

He earned a B.S. in Chemistry and an M.A. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of South Dakota. He also completed the Advanced Management Program at Duke University.

Frank serves on the board of the National Defense Industrial Association, and formerly held a position on the Defense Science Board.

George Batsakis serves as senior vice president for SRA‘s Defense Group.

In this role he leads the company’s defense-related business unit and is responsible for new business acquisition and contract execution in the Defense market space.

The Defense Group comprises 1,000 employees serving clients around the world working in five market-facing business areas: U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, Defense Agencies and Defense-related international operations.

The more than 20 year industry veteran joined SRA in 2007 from Northrop Grumman, where he served as an operating unit vice president leading business development activities.

Prior to that, he held increasingly responsible positions in information technology, communications and networking and logistics systems at Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Teledyne Industries, Inc. 

After graduating from Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Mich., where he studied political science and history, Batsakis attended the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School and served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army and in various command and staff positions at the Company and Field grades in the U.S. Army National Guard.

He holds a master’s degree in business from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., with specialization in operations research and systems analysis, as well as program management certification in acquisition management from the Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, Va. He also has attended executive education programs at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Whit Cobb

Whit Cobb serves as senior vice president and general counsel of PAE.

He has been in the position since February 2012 and provides legal advice to the company’s leadership and oversees the company’s legal staff, including PAE’s international trade compliance office.

Whit is also responsible for maintaining the proper compliance environment for the organization, including through PAE’s office of ethics and business conduct.

Prior to joining PAE, Whit served as the deputy general counsel of BAE Systems, Inc., a position he held from 2004 to 2012. In this role, Whit advised the company’s senior business and functional leadership, assisted the general counsel in managing the Inc. legal department, and supported the operating group of general counsels.

Whit served as the deputy general counsel of the Defense Department from 2001 until 2004. While at the Pentagon, Whit was the chief litigator for the DoD. He also supervised the military commission process and criminal justice issues relating to the war on terrorism. His other responsibilities included overseeing the security clearance adjudication process, providing legal advice with respect to congressional inquiries, and supporting the DoD public affairs office.

Prior to his service with the DoD, Whit was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Jenner & Block, where he focused on government contracts and telecommunications issues.

Before joining Jenner & Block in 1996, Whit was the judicial fellow at the administrative office of the United States Courts. From 1991 to 1995, he served on active duty in the U.S. Army as an attorney in the Army General Counsel’s Office, where he worked on intelligence and classified program issues.

Whit, his wife Mary, and their four children live in Maryland. He graduated summa cum laude from Duke University, which he attended on an ROTC scholarship.

Cobb, a 1990 graduate of Yale Law School, was Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Luanne Pavco

Luanne Pavco is the general manager of IBM public sector services.

In this role, she leads an organization of 5,000 management consultants and information technical specialists who serve the federal government, state and local government, healthcare, and education industries.

Pavco’s organization provides a range of consulting and IT services, including application management, enterprise architecture, finance and risk management, strategy and change, human capital management, supply chain management, and business analytics and optimization.

For 20 years, Pavco has driven technology services and since joining IBM has held a number of leadership roles in the areas of client service, business development, account management, and business strategy. Prior to her role as general manager for public sector services, she served as vice president leading the consulting services for IBM’s public sector.

Before that, she was the sector’s growth and strategy executive, leading business development for IBM’s Public Sector, during which she grew business in adjacent markets and consistently improved the organization’s win rate. She has also managed profit and loss  for IBM’s U.S. Army account, which she grew by 30 percent during her tenure.

She has also played a key role in establishing and executing IBM’s public sector growth platform and enhancing capture capabilities and effectiveness.

She also leads the IBM center for the business of government, which provides thought leadership on public sector issues.

Pavco was born in Wilmington, DE. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Georgetown University and a Master of Business Administration from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Mike Teegardin of BAE Systems

Mike Teegardin currently serves as communications director for BAE Systems‘ intelligence and security sector.

Teegardin joined BAE in 2008, and has held a variety of communications positions, such as communications director of armament systems in Minneapolis and global tactical systems, located in Houston.

Before coming to BAE, Teegardin served as a member of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s administration.

Prior to working in the governor’s office, he worked at Weber Shandwick public relations in Minneapolis for eight years.

In addition, he also served as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army during the Iraq war.

Teegardin has won two Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil awards and was also recognized as BAE’s communicator of the year.

Glenn D. Baer currently serves as vice president of corporate contracts and procurement for ARINC Inc.

In this position, Baer is responsible for running ARINC’s corporate contracts and procurement department, which includes proposal development, contract establishment, negotiations and administration of sound and profitable contractual requirements. This position also directs the company procurement, export compliance and subcontracting mission areas.

Baer currently serves as chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association‘s government policy advisory committee. He has also previously chaired the NDIA Procurement Planning Committee, Washington Procurement Committee and the Contract Acquisition Management Subcommittee.

Throughout his tenure, Baer has assumed a leadership role in many government acquisition reform initiatives. He previously chaired a Pentagon-directed multi-industry association working group, and also led a multi-industry association effort to seek revisions to the organizational conflict-of-interest regulations.

Baer has testified and briefed government and industry forms on a broad range of acquisition policy issues. He served as a principal NDIA representative in the regulatory implementation of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, participated in the Section 800 Panel on Contract Formation, Industry’s FAR Part 15 Rewrite and Past Performance in Source Selection task forces.

In addition, he also serves on the board of directors for NDIA, TechAmerica and the Professional Services Council. He is a member of the NCMA Executive Advisory Council.

Baer is a current member of the Acquisition Reform Working Group, and a veteran of the U.S. Army. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting and a M.B.A from the University of Maryland.