Meet the people who help make it all happen for our students and our corporate partners.
Our leadership team reflects a group of diverse individuals with breadth and depth of experience across the technical and academic community. We see big potential in every moment, and care deeply about what we do every day. We're helping change the employment model with each new Corporate Partner and the talented students that we connect through research projects and career development opportunities.
As a team we are committed to the overall success of our partnerships and discovering new opportunities to serve our community, our partners and our students.
MATTFORNEY
Executive Director
Matt has over 25 years experience in business and education and is passionate about creating relationships and producing outcomes for students and partners that are positive and lasting.
Recognized as an "out of the box" thinker with the ability to define and manage global strategies; develop and hire high-end talent to collaborate and negotiate solutions with key investors/partners.
An energetic and analytical problem solver Matt thrives on driving strategic projects and meeting deadlines and financial goals.
A Wichita native, Matt holds a MS in Management Information Systems from Friends University.
TOMROSE
Director, Managed Services
Tom graduated summa cum laude and was the outstanding mathematics graduate from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, Odessa, TX, with a double major in mathematics and computer science.
He then moved to a graduate research assistant position in the Department of Computational and Applied Math at Rice University, Houston, TX, specializing in the areas of non-linear optimization and computational functional analysis and modeling. Following Rice, he joined NetApp, Inc. as a software developer. Throughout his 17 years at the company he held multiple titles that include: a customer facing role as a technical support engineer/lead, applications engineer, engineering trainer, root cause analyst/lead, and product support manager.
At Ennovar, Tom is the solutions reference architecture (SRA) and benchmarking lab manager and directs student acquisition, training and placement. He also serves as partner liaison—directing operational activities, strategic goal setting, communications, budget, analysis and collaboration. Tom joined the Ennovar team in 2016.
GARYGASTON
Director, Information Systems
Gary has 38 years of industry experience including 10 years in the United States Marine Corps Reserves and 25 years with NetApp. He is an Order of the Purple(Honors) graduate of Butler County Community College and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Wichita State University with a degree in computer engineering.
While serving with the United States Marine Corps, Gary served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm as the Staff Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge (SNCOIC) of a radio repair shop responsible for maintaining communication equipment necessary for combat units to complete their mission.
Gary worked at NetApp for 25 years in various positions including failure analysis technician, end-user and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customer support engineer, OEM applications engineer, test and quality architect, test automation engineering lead, and project lead engineer before joining Ennovar in 2023.
At Ennovar, Gary is the account executive for cyber, engineering and development partnerships; managing the internal tools development team and student training, and is the analyst for the Cyber Security Operations Center and High Performance Computing (HPC) Lab.
