OSN Appreciation & Kickoff Happy Hour

Brad Zielke is the Sr. Director of Data Sciences at Target Corporation. He leads Target’s decision modeling team across enterprise operations, including supply chain and stores technology. His team strives to unlock decisioning systems at scale by focusing on applied mathematical models and synchronized business strategies to accelerate how data science is leveraged in operations. His team has been recognized by industry experts for their work in data science and operations research, along with receiving multiple patents for their achievements. He sits on Metro State University’s advisory committee and actively mentors young data scientists. Outside of work he enjoys spending time outdoors with his family, volunteering, and coaching sports.

Steve is a Sr. Distinguished Engineer at Medtronic, leading software architecture and technology for the medical device IoT ecosystem of the CRM Patient Care Engineering team. He has a passion and history of driving disruption by focusing on the intersection of technical strategy, software architecture, DevSecOps and now MLOps, attracting great talent, and shaping a high performance culture. In his seven years at Medtronic, he has led the move of the CareLink patient monitoring app to the cloud, refactoring to cloud native technology, and creation of the MLife Data Management platform. In that work, he has driven the introduction of End to End DevOps to enable the development of increasingly complex ecosystems. He is currently focused on using AI to improve the speed and quality of software delivery and building a cohesive software community across Medtronic. Before Medtronic, Steve was the CTO of Veritas Technologies, leading technical strategy, architecture, research, and innovation. In this role he was a primary author of the Veritas vision for information management that was key in the $7.4B carve out of Veritas Technologies from Symantec. Prior to CTO he was the Veritas Chief Architect and led Veritas Research Labs which incubated multiple products that reached market launch. He has built teams from the ground up and delivered numerous disruptive technologies with strong patent portfolios. He has been a technical advisor to multiple organizations and holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota.

Scott Brons is a Senior Manager at SPS Commerce, where he has been involved in enabling innovative projects that harness the power of generative AI. With a keen eye for transformative technologies and a collaborative spirit, Scott has been instrumental in leading multiple teams at SPS to explore and successfully deploy cutting-edge solutions that elevate business processes and customer experiences.

Ben Weisner leads the Content Creation team at Blaine-based Infinite Campus, the #1 student information system in the country. Since joining Infinite Campus, Ben has initiated the adoption and use of several AI-augmented tools to improve content creation productivity and customer UX. Ben has over 35 years of experience as a technical communicator and training professional and is dedicated to helping people develop new skills and understand complex technologies.