Continuous Learning to Upskill your Business Acumen

Ross Thompson joined the faculty at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) in November 2015 as the Senior Acquisition Executive in-residence. He provides consulting, mission assistance, and executive coaching to Defense Program Executive Officers, Program Managers, and senior leaders in both the Defense Department and commercial industry.

A retired Army Lieutenant General, Mr. Thompson served from 2016-2019 as a commissioner on the 2016 NDAA Section 809 panel charged with making recommendations on actionable changes to regulatory and statutory language to improve the Department of Defense acquisition process. He advises senior government and industry leaders on strategy, program management, technology, contracting, budgets, process improvement and workforce development. He also serves on the Board of Directors for several technology companies.

Prior to joining DAU, Mr. Thompson served as the Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer for ABM Facility Solutions Group (FSG), an integrated facilities management company with over $700 million in annual revenue and 7,100 employees across the U.S. and in 10 international locations. While with ABM, he was also serving concurrently as the President, ABM Government Services, one of the three operating companies within the Facility Solutions Group. He provided overall direction and guidance to enterprise-wide activities and led efforts to accomplish established corporate growth goals, both domestically and internationally. Both revenue and profit had double-digit growth for five consecutive years across the three operating companies.

Mr. Mahon is the Defense Acquisition University’s Learning Director, Business Acumen and is DAWIA certified Program Manager, Advanced.  He oversees courses that aide the acquisition workforce to understand industry and he liaises with industry associations, corporations, and other associations to ensure DAU’s network with these entities remains viable. 

Mr. Mahon background includes naval surface warfare, antisubmarine warfare, and naval nuclear propulsion.  He worked in commercial nuclear power performing engineering, nuclear refueling outage project management, plant modification project management, and construction project management.  In defense he worked as a biometric and information technology contractor program manager for the Army providing the whole program spectrum of procurement, development, services, and sustainment functions. He also was a liaison functions for a not-for-profit project management association and the U.S. Government.

Dr D’Ascenzo joined the Defense Systems Management College faculty in 2014 as a Professor of Program Management. This includes teaching, developing curriculum, performing mission assistance for senior DOD program managers, program executive officers and leadership staffs.
 

Dr D’Ascenzo is an industry operations executive with over a 40-year career serving the defense and national security and intelligence communities. Since 2014 he provides independent program management and business expansion consulting to Fortune 50 enterprises in system engineering, cyber management, and business development and operations improvement. He has led sensitive communications and automated information and data systems development programs including successful business expansions and organizational change leadership. From 2007 to 2014, Chris was Vice President and General Manager of the $300M/year Defense Intelligence Solutions division at BAE Systems providing enterprise IT systems, cybersecurity products development, and engineering services to DIA, NSA, DLA, NGA, DTS, DISA, Air Force ISR, Army G2/G6, Army CECOM and COCOMS. He led BAE’s Army CECOM C4ISR full lifecycle software engineering business.
 

Mr. Teper has over 40 years of experience providing diverse transactional and strategic project management solutions focused on knowledge management, eLearning, business consulting, and new business development. He has managed a broad array of projects valued in excess of $1 billion for Fortune 1,000 companies and the Department of Defense. 

For the past 20 years, Mr. Teper has been the Knowledge Manager for DSMC, the executive school within DAU. He has been converting DAU’s enterprise strategies and visions into successful knowledge sharing solutions that enable the DoD Acquisition Community (a workforce of over 160,000) to make smart business decisions and deliver timely and affordable capabilities to the Warfighter

Some of his successful projects include:

• Leading the effort to create a knowledge sharing culture within the DSMC
• Improving student learning by incorporating knowledge sharing resources, methods, and technologies into online and resident courses. 
• Creating and managing a variety of 24/7 online learning & job support resources to help the Defense Acquisition workforce get their work done. The resources include: 
• Communities of Practice 
• ACQuipedia articles 
• Job Support Tools 
• Videos & Podcasts
• Host of two monthly webinar series, Competing to Win and Leading Acquisition (14,614 attendees as of 4/2023)

Prior to DAU, Mr. Teper held various management positions at consulting companies that specialized in business development, strategic consulting, and the sale of clients Knowledge Management focused products and services.  Prior to consulting, he was a geologist responsible for on-site monitoring during the drilling for oil and gas in Texas and Oklahoma and he conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis of coal fields in seven western states.

Mr. Teper received his B.A. in Geology from Emory University.