Keith Kruse has over twenty years of experience as a small business executive with both operational and program management expertise within DoD, DHS, VA, Intel community, and Federal civilian health agencies. Keith has served as COO in several small and rapidly growing businesses specializing in providing professional and information technology services to Federal customers. Throughout his career, he has a proven record of success in building and growing small to mid-size businesses in the federal sector. Keith recently served as COO for ICA and currently supports them as a Senior Advisor. He founded Executive Edge Solutions in 2022 to offer fractional executive services to offer senior operational expertise to small to mid-sized government contrating businesses. Prior to that, he served as President and COO for Federal Conference, an Inc. 500 company providing event management services to Federal, corporate, and association customers. He also served as COO for Halfaker and Associates where he led the company through a successful transition of the company’s service offerings from administrative, logistics and intelligence support to high-end information technology, cybersecurity, and analytics services and diversified the project portfolio from DoD and VA to expand into other Federal markets, including civilian health agencies. In addition to his operational expertise, Mr. Kruse has substantial program management experience and has served as the principal investigator for a number of studies specializing in strategic planning, organization management, and force structure modernization issues. He also worked extensively on documenting force structure modernization issues, including weapon system development and procurement, military space capabilities, naval and aerospace weapons systems, and military readiness and training postures. Keith served fourteen years as an officer in the United States Navy and Naval Reserve. While on active duty, he served as a Naval Flight Officer aboard the Navy's P-3 maritime patrol aircraft accumulating more than 3,500 hours and completing deployments to the Mediterranean theater and to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY and a MA in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from The George Washington University, Washington, DC.