SMART TECH CHALLENGES FOUNDATION - Key Persons


Bess Evans

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Member of the Smart Tech Advisory Board
Bess Evans served as Senior Associate Director and Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Office of Public Engagement and Domestic Policy Council, where she managed outreach on the President's priorities in health, including the Affordable Care Act, behavioral and mental health, substance use disorder, public health, and gun violence prevention. Previous to that role, Evans served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Bess previously served at the Department of Justice in the Office on Violence Against Women and in the White House Visitors Office.

Bill Wolfe

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
Bill Wolfe brings a unique combination of technological expertise and firearms engagement. He has brought his leadership skills to a diverse set of companies including Cisco Systems, Verisign, The Rubicon Project as well as a number of pre-IPO companies. Bill Wolfe is active in his local gun club as a volunteer Range Safety Officer as well as a bullseye shooter.

Dan Zimmerman

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • CEO and Managing Editor of the Truth about Guns
Dan Zimmerman is CEO and managing editor of The Truth About Guns, the nation's largest online gun publication with over two million monthly readers. Dan grew up in St. Louis Missouri and attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis, earning a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. He now lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, son and two Labrador retrievers.

David Paine

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • CEO of PaineLab
David Paine is CEO of PaineLab, which provides entrepreneurs with positioning, branding, product launches, fundraising, and general business operational expertise. David is the co-founder of 9/11 Day, which he helped grow into the nation's largest annual, federally recognized National Day of Service held each year on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Elizabeth Brook

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Member of the Smart Tech Advisory Board
Elizabeth advises Smart Tech on philanthropy strategy and provides pro-bono support on grant applications. Currently, she works for Noodle Analytics, using big data and artificial intelligence to solve complex business challenges for enterprise clients. Previously she worked as a campaign director with CCS, a global fundraising and development services firm, managing large capital campaigns for nonprofit clients.

Eric L. Adams

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Member of the Smart Tech Advisory Board
For the past three decades, Eric L. Adams has served the residents of the city of his birth as a police officer, state senator and coalition builder. In November of 2013, he was elected to represent all of Brooklyn as borough president. Born in Brownsville and educated in the City's public school system, borough president Adams is committed to ensuring Brooklyn's bright future by helping each and every Brooklynite reach his or her full potential. In his career as a police officer with NYC Transit and the NYPD, borough president Adams made the kind of life-and-death decisions that reflect his insight, expertise, and poise under fire, resulting not just in his promotion to captain, but earning him the reputation for going above and beyond the call of duty. In 2016, Borough president Adams kicked off his Smart Gun Design Competition, calling on teams from colleges and universities in New York City to create the technology that will prevent unauthorized users from firing a gun.

Greg Suhr

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • San Francisco 's Chief of Police
Greg Suhr served as San Francisco's Chief of Police from 2011 to 2016. Before his tenure as chief, Suhr spent 30 years as a police officer including two years as captain in the Bayview district where homicides dropped nearly 50 percent during his tenure. Speaking about smart gun technologies in 2016 Suhr commented: "If law enforcement had guns that were only of use to the officer identified with the gun that would be a good thing. What if every gun that fell into the wrong hands was of no use to anybody?

Mark DiOrio

Job Titles:
  • Executive
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Member of the Smart Tech Advisory Board
As an experienced executive and leader in the design and manufacture of microelectronic devices, Mark most recently led the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales of electronic laser aiming systems for a premium brand weapon accessory business unit. Customers included US Military, International Militaries, Law Enforcement Agencies and commercial product distribution. Mark has been a trustee of the American Red Cross and a Loan Board member of California Coastal Rural Development Corp.

Rebecca Bond

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Member of the Smart Tech Advisory Board
  • Co - Founder of Evolve
Rebecca Bond is the co-founder of Evolve, a not-for-profit dedicated to getting everyone in America to actively engage in more discussions and personal choices around gun safety and responsibility. Similar to ‘Don't let friends drink and drive'; Evolve works with some of the smartest thinkers, makers, and doers; using high-impact creative campaigns, branded content, partnerships and social media.

Stephen P. Teret

Job Titles:
  • Member of the Advisory Board
  • Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Law
Stephen P. Teret is Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Law and the Public's Health. He also holds joint faculty appointments in Pediatrics and in Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Professor Teret's work has primarily focused on the understanding and prevention of violence, with an emphasis on gun policy, a problem which he has worked on for more than three decades. Professor Teret is the recipient of distinguished career awards from the American Public Health Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, and the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission.