The Justice Experts Associates

Justice Experts is an "umbrella" or "storefront" community of practitioners and consultants, who have chosen to band together in order to provide a broad depth of experience and services to our justice clients. Our members are either independent consultants or full-time justice practitioners who make themselves available for specified engagements to assist our clients and consultants.

Our associates all have practical backgrounds working in criminal justice and/or law enforcement. Most of our associates and advisors have been employed by city police departments, county sheriffs, community corrections, district courts, and regional and state information sharing projects. Many of our available expert staff still hold positions as CJIS managers, Police Chiefs, and Criminal Justice Council Directors.

Justice Experts associates can offer "real value" because they have spent their careers struggling with the same issues your agencies are managing today. Our staff members bring collective experience, credibility and solutions to each project. It has been the experience of all of our members that the issues of "organizational will", "effective governance" and "leadership vision" are among the most challenging in achieving a multi-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional program.

Thomas Kooy – Founder

Mr. Kooy, the original founder of the Justice Experts, has been an innovator and thought leader in the integration and planning of criminal justice systems. He has 22 years experience both in law enforcement and information systems.

After a 14 years working in Law Enforcement, he emerged as one of the early leaders of a Statewide Enterprise approach to solving the criminal justice information sharing problem in Minnesota, beginning in the mid-1990’s we he advanced the vision for CriMNet.

In 1998, Minnesota was chosen as a pilot state for a BJA/SEARCH Research Project, where Mr. Kooy’s project team developed methods of collecting and documenting information exchanges within the criminal justice enterprise that today are used in the SEARCH JIEM Tool and methodology.

Mr. Kooy’s development team also developed the first, statewide and interstate, Enterprise XML Data Model for criminal justice. This model became one of the foundation artifacts of the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM) which today is a part of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM).

Mr. Kooy has been a representative to the Global (OJP/BJA) Infrastructure and Standards working group, the Intelligence Working Group’s Security Architecture Committee, and is a Charter member of the XML Structure Task Force (XSTF) - - the body that created the GJXDM. He is a charter member of the Justice Information Sharing Professionals (JISP), and was the Board President in 2004. He also has served as adjunct faculty to the University of New Orleans, Center for Society Law and Justice.

Mr. Kooy has served as a subject matter expert to the US Department of Justice OCIO on their LEISP Strategy, and on the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)-sponsored Technology Working Group (TWG) on CommTech who are responsible for identifying technology needs and defining operational requirements for law enforcement and corrections technologies. As an advisor and technology consultant, he has provided services to the New Jersey State Police, State of Louisiana I-CJIS Technology Board, State of Missouri CJIS Council, the Federal Bureau of Investigation CJIS and NDEx programs, and the Office of the National Director of Intelligence ISE Programe office. Additionally, Mr. Kooy has conducted integration and strategic planning workshops in over 20 states.

Today, Mr. Kooy provides technology leadership and product development strategies for a software and technical service company, and continues to provide technical assistance to Office of Justice Program’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) thru the GLOBAL working groups under the auspices of the U.S. Attorney General’s Office.

E. Russ Meekins – Senior Associate, Business Development

Russ is a successful Management Consulting Executive; he is currently President and CEO of a Strategy Consulting company; Former Partner with Accenture LLP; National Managing Partner of Government Strategy Practice; History of repeated success in growing practice areas; accomplished IT and program strategist.

Skills and Background
Created and developed successful Government Strategy Practice from three person group to twenty two strategy professionals; Experienced IT and Program Strategist; Known for High Energy, Leadership, and Innovative Solutions; Recognized Thought Leader; C-Suite Presence; Dynamic Presenter; Highly Skilled Facilitator; History of Success in Leading Strategic Change in Complex, Multi-stakeholder projects; Extensive subject matter knowledge of Local, State and Federal Government programs and policies; Former Legislator and Legislative Leader; B.S. in Economics With Honors (1982) University of Oregon; Master in Public Administration, (1984) Harvard University.

Selected Accomplishments
– US Department of Justice: Law Enforcement Information Sharing Strategy
Developed Strategy, Concept of Operations, Capability Requirements, high level Technical Architecture and Change Management Program to facilitate cross boundary information sharing of law enforcement and counter terrorism information among over 18,000 local, state and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies

– Federal Bureau of Investigation: National Data Exchange System
Developed Strategy, Concept of Operations, Capability Requirements and Technical Architecture for the FBI’s system for sharing criminal history information with all state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies

– Office of the Director of National Intelligence: Information Sharing Environment
Developed Strategy, Concept of Operations, Capability Requirements, Strategic Technical Architecture, Fusion Center Framework, and Federated Identity and Privilege Management Authentication Regime for implementing the Congressionally mandated Information Sharing Environment among the intelligence community, state and local government, certain foreign allies and the private sector.

– Fortune 10 Consulting Firm: Organizational Assessment and Strategic Improvement Plan for State and Local Consulting Practice
Utilizing proprietary assessment framework, “Elements of Consulting Success”, conducted Organizational Assessment, and Go Forward Improvement Strategy to increase sales, reduce costs and increase margins for the State and Local Government Practice of this $100 billion plus consulting firm.

– Public Sector Consulting Group: Organizational Assessment and Strategic Improvement Plan for Homeland Security Consulting Unit
Utilizing proprietary assessment framework, “Elements of Consulting Success”, conducted Organizational Assessment, and Go Forward Improvement Strategy to increase sales, reduce costs and increase margins for the Homeland Security Practice of this 400 person firm specializing in public sector consulting.

– Massachusetts Health Data Collaborative
Assisted the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Data Collaborative in developing Concept of Operations and IT Strategy for Health Information Exchange among Massachusetts Health Care Organizations

– NYC - Mayor's Office of Operations
Oversaw development of $40 million project for city-wide eGovernment strategy, including agency-by-agency reviews and recommendations for best-in-class implementation opportunities

– California Chief Information Officer
Developed System Development Oversight Methodology and Risk Assessment Tool for quality improvement and prevention of cost overruns on large system implementation projects for all California Agencies This effort won the “Excellence in IT Governance” award from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO).

– Massachusetts Chief Information Officer, Governor of Wyoming, State Treasurer of Delaware
Developed eGovernment Strategy and Portal design and architecture for these and other public sector clients Developed national benchmarking effort that assessed all 50 states in regard to the status of their eGovernment efforts and used it to obtain entre to potential clients; developed thought leadership framework for assessing and developing strategy for state eGovernment projects, the “eGovernment Development Continuum”. The Continuum Framework became the standard for developing eGovernment strategies, providing a distinct competitive advantage to our efforts.

– Massachusetts Comptroller and CIO
Developed innovative funding approach for state technology projects, the “Massachusetts IT Bond Bill, which aggregated all proposed system development projects into a single bond proposal. This approach was successful in providing needed funding for IT projects, and resulted in significant improvement in prioritization decisions, enhanced strategic alignment of IT projects, improved oversight and quality assurance, increased integration, improved IT capabilities and greater value creation.

– United Nations Development Program
Led team of 30 professionals including United Nations Development Program economists, Markle Foundation development experts and Accenture consultants on a year-long effort to create and submit to the G-8 Leaders a new Strategy for leveraging Information and Communication Technology for achieving Sustainable Economic Development for the world's poorest nations.

G. Michael Harmon – Associate, Consultant

Mr. Harmon is a strategy and communications consultant who focuses his attention on sector environments where stakeholder participation and consensus-building are critical success factors. Mr. Harmon has more than 20 years experience in public policy formulation and communications. Most recently, he served as a principal on consultant teams for the Office of Director of National Intelligence Information Sharing Environment, the U. S. Justice Department strategy for law enforcement information sharing and the Federal Bureau of Investigation N-DEx information sharing system.