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2026 Speakers
Heather Beck
Heather Beck (CPHR, PCC) is a Calgary-based leadership development coach and facilitator with 20 years of experience supporting leaders in the energy and industrial sectors, including organizations ranging from 150 to 80,000 employees.
Her work centers on one foundational belief: self-awareness is the leadership competency that makes every other competency possible. She designs and delivers experiential workshops that give leaders a direct experience of their own patterns, not a lecture about what good leadership looks like.
Chris Kuehl, PhD
Dr. Chris Kuehl serves as Armada’s Chief Economist working with a wide variety of private clients and professional associations over the last 21 years. He serves as the Chief Economist for several national business associations. He is also the Economic Analyst for the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association and writes their bi-weekly publication, Fabrinomics, which details the impact of economic trends on manufacturers.
Chris is one of the chief editors for the Armada Flagship Brief, which hits several thousand business executives three times a week.
As a popular keynote speaker, he makes approximately 100 presentations each year to business and industry associations in the US and overseas.
Chris has a doctorate in Political Economics and advanced degrees in Soviet Studies and Asian Studies and was a professor of international economics and finance for over 15 years prior to starting Armada.
Eric McClafferty
Program Topic: Government Policy Insights & Impacts
Eric McClafferty’s practice focuses on counseling, compliance programs, internal investigations and enforcement matters related to economic sanctions and denied parties, export controls, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), customs, antidumping and countervailing duties, and reviews and investigations before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Mr. McClafferty guides senior company officers and compliance personnel involved in international transactions through the restrictions imposed by evolving U.S. economic sanctions on Cuba, Crimea, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Sudan and Syria, and other rules administered by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In addition, he advises on export licensing and classification; performs due diligence export compliance reviews; establishes company and product-specific compliance and training programs for product, software and technology exports; and guides clients through export enforcement investigations and penalty negotiations related to exports of military, dual-use and nuclear items.
Mr. McClafferty’s clients include exporters of industrial, aerospace, high-technology and agricultural products and technology, such as chemicals, chemical processing equipment, pharmaceuticals, software, electronics, unmanned vehicles and military items, including aircraft and related components, computers, satellite software and components, semiconductors, nuclear power plant components and specialty metals, powders and alloys.
He works with all export control agencies of the U.S. government, including the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS); Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC); and counterparts at the Department of Defense (DOD), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy (DOE).
Dr. Bessma Momani
Dr. Bessma Momani is a full professor in Political Science at the University of Waterloo. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States’ Institute in Washington, DC, and a Fulbright Scholar. She is a Governor on the board of the International Development Research Centre, and an Advisor on the Board of the Canadian International Council.
She was Assistant Vice-President, Research and International in the Office of Research in 2022-2023 and in 2021, interim Associate Vice-President, Interdisciplinary and Sponsored Research 2021-2022, Assistant Vice-President, International Relations in 2020, Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation from 2015-2018, non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, and was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center.
She has worked as a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, both in the communications office and the Independent Evaluation Office. From 2018-2022 she served as a member of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group at Public Safety Canada.
Omar Nashashibi
Program Topic: Government Policy Insights & Impacts
Mr. Nashashibi is a lobbyist and consultant in Washington, D.C. with more than two decades working with politicians and policymakers on behalf of the manufacturing industry.
Mr. Nashashibi has represented clients before the previous and current administrations, the U.S. Congress, particularly the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance, Appropriations, and Transportation Committees. He has also consulted clients on matters in several state and local governments, including the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Illinois, among others.
Prior to entering the private sector, Mr. Nashashibi worked for the Office of Management and Budget, focusing on federal procurement policy. He also has extensive experience working with non-profits and public policy foundations. Mr. Nashashibi served as a research assistant at the Institute for Public Accuracy, a nation-wide consortium of public policy researchers and analysts. In 1995, he began his career in Washington, D.C. covering congressional hearings and agency proceedings for a nation-wide nonprofit publication.
Mr. Nashashibi graduated from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he studied Political Science and International Affairs.
Francis Prévost
Francis serves as the Director, Public and Government Affairs of the Manufacturers and Exporters of Quebec (MEQ), a business association dedicated to the growth of Quebec’s manufacturing sector. It relies on a network of over 1,000 manufacturing companies of all sizes, throughout Quebec.
MEQ represents the interests of its members and supports them in addressing issues related to the workforce, innovation, exports, and decarbonization. MEQ is also a member of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, the country’s largest trade and industry association, founded in 1871.
Through its 10 manufacturing networks, the organization is active on the ground and represents the sector’s voice to governments, in order to promote a more competitive business environment, both in Quebec and internationally.
Heather Rhoderick
Heather Rhoderick is the president of the Valve Manufacturers Association, where she is responsible for the strategic direction and operations of the association, and its affiliate the Valve Repair Council. In 2021 she started a Government Relations program. VMA also provides education, thought leadership and analysis on manufacturing and technical issues, and market trend information, and produces industry events and a magazine, valvemagazine.com.
Tom Decker
Program Topic: Water/Wastewater Industry Outlook
Retired from corporate life, Tom Decker now heads up Thomas E. Decker Consulting, LLC and provides market strategy and business management expertise to water and wastewater sector companies, organizations, and utilities. Prior to founding his consulting firm Tom worked in leadership positions for Brown and Caldwell, CH2M HILL, Parsons Corporation; and as partner and director of marketing for the Infrastructure Business of Black & Veatch. During his engagement in the water and wastewater field, he has led worldwide and national business development operations; directed numerous growth initiatives including geographic expansions as well as mergers and acquisitions; facilitated planning efforts for water and wastewater utilities; served as program manager for large capital improvement programs; and operated wastewater treatment plants.
Michael J. Devereux, II
Program Topic: Artificial Intelligence
Mike Devereux currently serves as Wipfli’s National Manufacturing Industry Leader. In that role, he oversees a team of professionals nationally who provide audit, tax, and consulting services to the manufacturing sector. Mike’s role is primarily focused on organic growth, increasing Wipfli’s national presence and identifying value for manufacturing clients and prospective clients.
He speaks regularly to various professional and industry trade associations on ways manufacturers can reduce their Federal and state tax liabilities, and he provides insights on recent and future legislation impacting the manufacturing sector.
Shane Mullins
Program Topic: Market Trend & Forecast – Data Centers
Shane Mullins is the Senior VP of Product Development & Research for Industrial Info Resources. With 35 years at the company, he has held various roles developing market intelligence for the power generation, oil and gas (midstream and downstream) markets, and the most recent Data Center global capital investment growth initiative. He has published several white papers on these industries and is a regular speaker at IIR’s Annual Market Outlook events, while sharing his expertise at corporate events, tradeshows, and industry association meetings.
Lindsey Roskopf
Program Topic: Government Policy Insights & Impacts
Lindsey Roskopf is a Special Counsel in the International Trade practice at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, where her practice focuses on a wide range of international trade compliance matters. She advises clients on export controls, economic and trade sanctions, antiboycott laws, and customs and import laws.
Lindsey has worked with clients in the manufacturing, oil and gas, hydrographic survey, electronics, medical device, chemicals, aerospace, entertainment and not-for-profit sectors.
She regularly assists clients with identifying export licensing requirements, developing export licensing strategies, reviewing technology transfer controls, determining the export jurisdiction and classification of equipment and technology, and responding to government inquiries. She has extensive experience in advising clients on compliance with U.S. sanctions, particularly with respect to Russia, Venezuela, Iran and Cuba. Lindsey also has considerable experience in conducting internal investigations and making voluntary disclosures to the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), and the Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC).
Lindsey also helps clients navigate the complexity of U.S. customs laws. She regularly advises importers on customs matters including tariff classification, tariff mitigation strategies, country of origin determinations, free trade agreement origin verifications, merchandise valuation, and the application of antidumping and countervailing duties. In addition, she assists clients with responses to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) inquiries, seizure notices, and penalty notices, and she advises importers on filing prior disclosures.
Amy L. Stein, JD
Program Topic: The Tech Energy Transition
Professor Stein is the former Associate Dean for Curriculum and current Cone Wagner Professor of Law and affiliate faculty for the University’s AI2 Center at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. She serves on the University’s AI Working Group in AI Ethics and Policy and the Florida Climate Institute, as well as the Association of American Law Schools’ Natural Resources and Energy Law and Environmental Sections. Popular Science named Professor Stein one of the “Visionary Thinkers” of 2022 for her work on algorithms and the climate crisis. She writes and teaches at the intersection of emerging technologies and the law. Among other courses, she has been teaching Energy Law for the past fifteen years and Artificial Intelligence and the Law for the past six years.
Professor Stein is an internationally recognized law and technology scholar, sharing her work on the legal, sustainability, and ethical implications of various technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). Some of her AI-related publications explore the possibilities of using AI to address aspects of climate change, Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change, 37 Yale Journal on Regulation 890 (2020), work that has been cited in Forbes, as well as the implications of artificial intelligence for tort defenses in civil liability, Assuming the Risks of Artificial Intelligence, 102 Boston University Law Review 979 (2022). More recently, she is exploring the impacts of data center growth on the electric grid and the sustainability implications of generative AI. Prior scholarship focuses on energy data monopolies, delegations of authority related to emergency powers, pathways to integrate emerging energy technologies, and the federalism implications of energy and climate change, all of which can be accessed at http://ssrn.com/author=1216973.
Professor Stein began her academic career at George Washington University Law School and Tulane Law School. Prior to her academic appointments, she practiced as an environmental and litigation associate for Latham & Watkins LLP in the firm’s Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley offices. She is a member of the District of Columbia, Illinois, and California state bars. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago (AB) and the University of Chicago Law School (JD). She is a member of the Order of the Coif, an honorary society for professors that have attained high distinction for their scholarly accomplishments.
Ben Yates
Program Topic: U.S. Foundries: Capacity, Tariffs, and the Future of Castings
Ben Yates joined AFS in 2017, where he is responsible for marketing and public relations, membership development, chapter relationships, advertising sales, event sponsorships, and industry solutions programs. Before joining AFS, Ben spent 14 years with Associated Equipment Dealers, a North American trade group serving construction equipment dealerships. In addition to regular writing and speaking duties at AFS, he has extensive experience in grassroots advocacy, having hosted facility tours with more than 60 U.S. senators and congressmen. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Ball State University and master’s degree from Florida State University.