LEADERSHIP BIOS
Mark Lee
Chief Executive Officer
Mark Lee is a recognized leader in government services with extensive experience building and leading businesses at the intersection of science, engineering, and technology. Prior to joining ERT, he served as Chief Technology Executive for ICF, a publicly traded global consulting and technology services company. In this role, Mark drove the company’s overall technology strategy and implementation through his leadership of ICF’s client-facing technology business and the company’s Chief Technology Officer function. Mark’s team provided technology, digital solutions, and advanced data and analytics tools to help clients deliver practical programs that lead to positive outcomes in areas such as health, environment, climate, energy, and disaster recovery.
Mark previously served as the executive vice president of ICF’s public sector business and spent over 25 years with the firm. During his time leading ICF’s public sector business, he led the development and implementation of the strategy used to rapidly expand ICF’s technology footprint, largely through three strategic acquisitions. Through these efforts, ICF grew its technology business from $50M to over $500M in under three years.
Mark currently serves on the board of directors for the Public Health Foundation at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. He was also recognized by WashingtonExec as a Top Public Sector Leader to Watch in 2020 and 2021 and previously served as an executive committee member for the Professional Services Council (PSC) and chair of its Civilian Executive Advisory Board.
Mark holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jingli Yang
Cofounder and Principal
Dr. Jingli Yang, co-Founder and Principal of ERT, is an accomplished marketer, strategist, and entrepreneur. Dr. Yang was instrumental in positioning ERT as a strong competitor in the Science and IT contracting space, cultivating business relationships with partners and customers, while working to develop infrastructure and processes necessary to foster the growth of ERT during her nearly 25 years with the organization. Under her leadership as President and then CEO, the company enjoyed continuous growth and expansion of its client base while maintaining a focus on both customer satisfaction and employee welfare. Dr. Yang now serves in an advisory role, helping to maintain and strengthen customer relations and help support future growth for the company.
Dr. Yang holds a Ph.D. in Biogeography, Geographic Information Sciences, and Remote Sensing from the University of Maryland and has over 20 years of experience in Earth remote sensing, science data systems, and geospatial interoperability for NASA and NOAA. Prior to ERT, she held a series of progressively more responsible technical and management positions in the Earth remote sensing and satellite data systems fields with companies including Raytheon and Space Imaging EOSAT. Upon joining ERT in 2003, Dr. Yang served as President of ERT for several years, during which she initiated ERT’s Earth remote sensing science support and science data systems development and maintenance activities.
Dr. Yang serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of Maryland’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and is active in both the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. She has previously served as both President and Vice President of the Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR), Chair of the NASA Goddard Contractors’ Association, and member of the Maryland Federal Facility Advisory Board under Governor O’Malley. She has received numerous awards including a NASA Global Change Research Fellowship, National Geographic Young Explorer award, and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing’s Ta Liang Memorial Award. ERT and Dr. Yang were featured in the 2014 NASA Office of Small Business Programs Spotlight publication highlighting Women-Owned Small Businesses.
Peter Li
Cofounder and Principal
Dr. Peter Li founded ERT in 1993, providing geophysical survey support to environmental and engineering companies. After gaining its reputation as the go-to company for geophysical services in Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, ERT expanded to include environmental and GIS services serving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and Maryland state and county government agencies. Dr. Li was instrumental in winning ERT’s first $10M prime contract with USACE in 2004. Over the past 30+ years, Dr. Li has led ERT’s business development effort and won more than 50 prime contracts with all NOAA line offices, five NASA centers, and USACE. ERT’s services expanded under his leadership to include information technology (IT) support, engineering services, scientific analysis, and data system development. Dr. Li continues to support the company’s Business Development efforts and strategic growth initiatives. His legacy of prioritizing customer satisfaction, mentorship and training, and leadership development remain at the core of ERT’s values.
Dr. Li received his Doctoral degree in Geological Sciences with a focus on Geophysics from Rutgers University. He is a Certified Professional Geologist in Virginia, a member of the Society of American Military Engineers, and a member of the Maryland Space Business Roundtable. Dr. Li has more than 30 years of experience in environmental science and engineering, geographic information system application, geotechnical engineering, geophysical survey, and hydrogeologic investigation. Prior to founding ERT, he served as a Project Manager of environmental remediation projects for Louis Berger & Associates and Chester Engineers, respectively.
Jon Meyer
Chief Financial Officer
Jon Meyer has deep experience in finance, accounting, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) for services and technology firms across numerous industries. Prior to ERT, Jon’s career has spanned a myriad of roles across client service, public company, and portfolio company contexts.
Jon began his career serving private equity clients as an auditor and financial diligence practitioner at PwC. He then continued his M&A career via corporate development at ICF, a publicly traded global consulting and technology services company. In his time both at PwC and ICF, Jon led and managed financial and cross-functional due diligence on hundreds of businesses spanning a wide variety of industries. During Jon’s ICF tenure, the firm successfully acquired and integrated ten companies with over $700M in combined enterprise value, fueling the firm’s growth of over 60% to $1.8B revenue and 8,500+ employees.
Following his time at ICF and prior to joining ERT, Jon served as CFO of a sponsor-backed process safety management consulting firm, where he oversaw all aspects of finance, accounting, corporate development, and investor relations. Jon’s focus as a CFO is to drive growth through transformation, injection of best practice, and sound financial strategy. He is passionate about growth stories and unlocking the multifaceted benefits they provide for all stakeholders.
Jon holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) and a Master of Accounting from The College of William and Mary.
Andy Nappi
Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President, Engineering Services Business Unit
Mr. Andy Nappi has 38 years’ experience in a variety of positions in the aerospace and defense industries. As ERT’s Chief Strategy Officer, he serves as a member of the executive management team, working with the team to develop and implement a strategic vision for the company that focuses on effective growth, developing strategic goals for business development efforts, and leading/participating in capture management and proposal support. He also supports program assessment, evolution, and improvement and helps build new partnerships that enable the company to achieve sustainable growth.
Mr. Nappi brings extensive experience in business/program management and business development, focused on science, engineering, and IT programs. He also brings expertise in the Civil sector, especially NOAA, NASA, JPL, and TSA.
Mr. Nappi’s previous positions include Operations Director, where he worked to enhance program performance, develop, and implement strategy, improve hiring practices, and win new and follow-on business; as Capture Manager, Deputy PM, and PM for a $330M program with the National Weather Service, and as a Business Unit Lead.
He holds a Master of Science degree in Meteorology from Penn State University.
Michelle Roenick
Chief Administrative Officer
Ms. Michelle Roenick has spent more than 25 years in the Government Contracting industry supporting organizations ranging in size from $10M to over $10B. Ms. Roenick has extensive expertise in working with Government clients in multiple Civilian and DoD agencies, NASA, and NOAA. Ms. Roenick has held leadership positions within organizations performing and overseeing many back-office activities including budgeting, forecasting, finance, pricing, and contracts administration. As a strategic financial analysis player, Ms. Roenick has also supported the successful sale of two organizations.
As ERT’s Chief Administrative Officer, Ms. Roenick serves as a member of the executive management team collaborating with the team to ensure functional excellence for all Operational Departments of ERT’s infrastructure. As the CAO, Ms. Roenick provides the leadership, management, and strategic understanding necessary to ensure ERT’s processes, policies, and internal controls effectively support ERT’s annual strategic goals and objectives to grow the organization. Ms. Roenick also partners with the Chief Financial Officer to maintain and increase ERT’s financial strength and operating efficiencies to create more of a competitive edge.
Ms. Roenick received her Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from George Mason University.
Neil Jones
Vice President, Business Development
Mr. Neil Jones serves as ERT’s Vice President of Business Development, leading development and implementation of BD processes, providing oversight of business pursuits, and working with ERT’s executive team on developing corporate strategy. He provides corporate-wide BD training and mentorship, and supports capture of individual business opportunities. Mr. Jones started his career more than 20 years ago with ERT as a geophysicist performing shallow earth exploration and marine survey work. He quickly moved into management overseeing high profile projects such as the Spring Valley Formerly Used Defense Site, and complex work in remote sites in Japan, the Caribbean, Poland, and Alaska. He served as Deputy Program Manager to ERT’s Environmental Services Business Unit (now, Science and IT BU) before moving to a business development role. His scientific and management background, combined with BD know-how led to ERT’s success on the NOAALink contract, winning over $296M in task order work, more than all other contract vendors combined. He has had additional success leading pursuit of work with state agencies, multiple USACE districts, and NASA centers.
Chang Zhao
Vice President, Science and Information Technology Business Unit
Ms. Chang Zhao is a Vice President of ERT, leading the Science and Information Technology Business Unit. Her primary roles are leading business development, contract operations, and performance delivery; and nurturing customer relationships and industry collaboration partnerships. While managing more than two dozen contracts with over 250 employees and $30M annual revenue, she also serves as a program manager for multiple ERT ProTech IDIQ contracts within the Fisheries, Oceans, and Weather Domains. Working closely with five NOAA line offices (NMFS, NOS, NWS, NESDIS, OAR) plus NOAA headquarters (OED), her portfolio covers a wide spectrum of areas of climate prediction, water prediction, weather processing systems, sustainable fisheries, habitat conservation, geodetic survey, coast survey, air resources management, IT infrastructure, cyber security, and software engineering.
Since joining ERT in 2008, Ms. Zhao has gained an abundance of experience in NOAA science, IT technologies, and contract management. With her deep understanding of customer needs, strong technical knowledge, and seasoned leadership skills, Ms. Zhao has created many high value solutions for the government and delivered some of ERT’s most innovative solutions including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud services.
Robert Haynes
Vice President, OMS Business Unit
As Vice President of the Science Mission Business Unit, Mr. Haynes provides leadership and management of the Business Unit’s strategic growth initiatives, customer base expansion, new opportunity identification, program operations performance, and strengthening of customer and partner relationships. He brings over 20 years of technical and management experience leading engineering-based programs with a science and satellite ground system focus. Rob brings a proven track record of managing programs that emphasize technical innovation to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Air Force, the United States Coast Guard (USCG), Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).
Prior to joining ERT, Rob held technical and management positions at STi Systems, RGII Technologies, and Integral Systems (later acquired by Kratos Defense), supporting NOAA, USGS, DARPA and the Air Force. Rob started his career as a software engineer, expanding his technical expertise to include system administration and design; systems engineering; network design; virtualization and enterprise architecture roles, and, eventually, project and program management. Prior to this role, Rob served as the Deputy VP of ERT’s Science Mission Business Unit, overseeing management and performance of all of ERT’s NOAA NESDIS programs. Rob holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business; a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Purdue University.