Friends of SIGMA
These are those people who have been influential in the development of SIGMA's Government presence.
| Peter Garretson | Chris Christopher | Matt Armstrong |
Matthew Armstrong
Matthew C. Armstrong is principal and co-founder of Armstrong Strategic Insights Group, a consultant, and publisher of MountainRunner. Mr. Armstrong writes on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication in the context of irregular warfare and counterinsurgency online and in books and peer-reviewed journals. He has presented at conferences and workshops on public diplomacy, strategic communication, the privatization of force, and unmanned warfare.
Previously, he spent a decade working as a technologist designing knowledge management systems subsequently developing high-value competencies in areas of Internet influence. Mr. Armstrong obtained both his B.A. in International Relations and a Master of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (USC). He has also done work at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in the areas of U.S. Intelligence, Contemporary European Security, and the Middle East.
Mr. Armstrong has presented at the U.S. Army War College, the National Defense University, Department of Homeland Security conferences, and the Foreign Service Institute.
Mr. Armstrong is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a fellow at Proteus USA, a member of the Senior Information Operations Advisory Council, and adjunct staff with the RAND Corporation.
Chris Christopher
Chris Christopher currently serves as Director of Conferences for the Corporate Communications Division in the Science & Technology Directorate of the U.S Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC. He joined DHS in 2006 after leaving U.S. Navy active duty with the Office of Naval Research (ONR). He retired from the Navy Reserve as a Captain in December 2007 after 30 years of service.
Prior to reporting to ONR, Chris was assigned to the Department of the NavyÕs Program Executive Office for Information Technology (PEO-IT) from July 2000 to February 2006. His last assignment at the PEO-IT was Director of the Department of the Navy Enterprise IT Asset Management project. He previously served as Deputy Program Executive Officer for Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) Services, and as the Staff Director, and Deputy Director for Future Operations, Communications, and Business Initiatives in the NMCI Office at the PEO-IT.
Chris earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans in 1994. His thesis was a book of poetry entitled Navigating by Touch. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals (among them New Orleans Review, Ellipsis, Flibustier, and Poet) and he won several prizes from The Deep South Writers and Artists Conference and other competitions
Peter Garretson
is a futurist, space advocate, and transformational strategist. A former Service Academy Research Associate to Los Alamos and Service Chief's Intern at DARPA, he is currently serving as the Chief of Future Science and Technology Exploration for Headquarters Air Force.
Peter has been an influential champion in the arenas of Space Development, Human Systems Integration/Augmentation, and Energy Transformation; his agenda setting is reflected in the topic selections by a number of academic institutions and think tanks in the national security community. He is a published author on such future concepts as Planetary Defense, Space Solar Power, Just-in-Time-Logistics, and Space Grand Strategy.
An often requested speaker, he is the author of numerous white papers, on topics as diverse as Investment Strategies in High Risk/High Return Technologies, Human Factors/Human Systems Integration, Wargame Design, Augmented/Mixed Reality/Virtual Environments and Gaming Technology, Nurturing our National Tech Base, and Lunar Development.
Peter holds leadership positions in the Space Frontier Foundation, Space Development Steering Committee, National Space Society, and Lifeboat Foundation; actively participates on the DoD Human Factors Engineering Technical Advisory Group, AIAA Space Colonization and Space Resources committees, ATWG, and is a recent honorary member of SIGMA, a think tank of science fiction authors.
He recently won the NSS Space Pioneer award for his work leading the National Security Space Office's innovative report on Space-Based Solar Power. He is a Command Pilot with over 2,500 hours, and a second degree black belt in Aikido.
Watch his ISDC presentation Space: A Billion Year Plan for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Requires Internet Explorer)