top of page

Advisors

emilio_edited.jpg
Mark T_edited.jpg
Dave Gallagher_edited_edited.jpg

Dr. Emilio T. Gonzalez PhD, Senior Advisor to Executive Committee:

Dr. Gonzalez serves as Chairman of Ducenta's Advisory Board and Senior Advisor to Ducenta’s Executive Committee on all local, state, national and international matters as it pertains to developing diversity initiatives. Prior to DSAM, Dr. Gonzalez served as City Manager of the City of Miami, where he led the City's 4400 employees and was responsible for its $1.7 B operating and capital budgets. During his leadership, Miami experienced upgraded municipality credit ratings, $3 Billion in additional infrastructure investment, and settled long-standing municipal union contract issues. Dr. Gonzalez brings consistent leadership and experience having served as Director and CEO of Miami International Airport (MIA), Undersecretary of US Citizenship and Immigration Service with the Department of Homeland Security and Director for Western hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House and is a Retired Army Intelligence Officer. He holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Miami, a Master's degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United Sates Navel War College, a Master's degree from Tulane University in Latin American Studies and a Bachelor's degree in International Studies from the University of South Florida. Dr. Gonzalez is active in his home state of Florida where he served on University of South Florida's Advisory Council and Florida's City National Bank Board of Directors. Dr. Gonzalez is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mark Torline, MBA, Senior Advisor to Executive Committee

Mark has over 40 years of experience in the financial markets and new venture development. In his most recent role Mark served as the Director of the FirePoint Applied Innovation Center (AIC). The AIC is a dedicated prototyping, collaboration, and evaluation facility located in Huntsville Alabama focused on accelerating innovation and technology adoption within the U.S. Army and other branches of the military. The primary mission of the ACI is to identify, develop, and integrate cutting-edge technologies and solutions into the Army's operational capabilities. Prior to his role in FirePoint Mark served as the Director of Wichita State University's Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of Wichita State University's Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of WSU Ventures. In this role Mark was responsible for the creation and advancement of an innovation ecosystem to support the development of early-stage startups founded by local entrepreneurs as well as technology owned by the university. Mark is an experienced innovation manager with demonstrated expertise in both entrepreneurial and large corporate environments. Before coming to Wichita State, Mark served as President of TriLinc Global helping to launch the firm and its flagship TriLinc Global Impact Fund, currently a $750 million social impact investment fund. Prior to TriLinc Mark co-founded Allegiance Capital in 1989, a private investment firm that grew to manage over $5.5 billion for institutional and private wealth clients. In 2008 he negotiated the sale of Allegiance Capital to Macquarie Bank and served as a Managing Director and board member of the Macquarie Funds Group for three years following the sale. Prior to forming Allegiance Capital, Mark held various positions with Govaars & Associates, a botique institutional investment firm, and with Security Pacific Bank. He has extensive financial services industry background in investment portfolio management and administration, asset management, mutual funds, credit oversight and private equity management. Mark holds a B.A. with a major in Marketing from Wichita State University and an MBA in Finance from Northwestern University, Kellog School of Management. Mark is a Member of the National Advisory Council at Wichita State University and served two terms on the Investment Committee for the Wichita State University Foundation.

Dave Gallagher, Senior Advisor, Aerospace and Defense Specialist 

Mr. Gallagher is the Associate Director of Strategic Integration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, responsible for developing and articulating JPL's overall strategy within the aerospace space. He manages JPL's investment budget and Space Technology Office, oversees all legislative affairs, leads strategic partnerships with domestic and international space agencies, and supervises new business formulation - notably, JPL's Innovation Foundry. Mr. Gallagher has over 35 years of experience in the industry, where he budgeted $500 million across 20 program offices, teams, and offices while completely restructuring JPL's National Security Program Office in 2015 and their Exoplanet Program in 2013. Throughout his career, Mr. Gallagher has led teams of JPL staff and Caltech scientists to manage a multitude of initiatives, including a $500 million advanced mirror development project to deliver a first-of-a-kind telescope testbed, a $1.6 billion precision astrometry and exoplanet mission, a $700 million project constructing the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of NASA's Great Observatories program, a $10 million infrared radiometer for the Mars Climate Orbiter, and a drop physics module experimenting on the STS-73. NASA has recognized Mr. Gallagher for his work on multiple occasions, awarding him with an Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1994 and two Outstanding Leadership Medals in 2004 and 2006. Mr. Gallagher began his career with JPL in 1989 as an Integration and Test Manager, where he led the team that built and launched the Wide Field Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope responsible for correcting the spherical aberration of the telescope that subsequently yielded the highest-ever resolution astronomical images from space.

Mr. Gallagher earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. He is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Mr. Gallagher currently serves as an Elected Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He has also published multiple works as an author and was a member of the James Webb Space Telescope Independent Review (Sen. Mikulski Panel). Recently, Mr. Gallagher was nominated to the Board of Advisors of the National Security Space Association.

bottom of page