Brook Wessel
Brook has been a naturalized Seattleite for the past +22 years with several segues to Washington DC, Lima Peru, Buenos Aires Argentina and San Miguel de Allende México (+6 years away). His software development, mobile wireless telecommunications and new space earth observation corporate development career led him to +60 countries working on due diligence and transaction management. International business and world affairs became his fascination via exposure as a Semester at Sea student followed by serving in the White House Press Office as an undergrad student at The George Washington University. POTUS receives a daily written press summary briefing that emphasizes policy and pending decisions that appear in editorials published in G20 capitals. Back in the day, printed newspapers were flown in daily and his job was to read the editorials and publish the news summary sentiment and correlation to policy, by hand. Traveling widely to learn, share, and absorb the ongoing convergence of technology, policy and culture became a lifelong learning habit that the technology industry fully enabled, given the broad accelerated adoption of the internet, mobile networks, applications and services. Living in Germany for +3 years offered the opportunity to build infrastructure and explore NATO member countries and the Middle East. He met his wife Moni (Canadian) in 1989 via trading stories about the best ice cream shops in Dubrovnik. They are the proud parents of a UBC graduate and a McGill University freshman, Alex and Gabriella. Currently Brook leads AI/ML product innovation in the earth observation data sector. Optical satellite constellations record the daily history of the surface of the Earth and the data is used for a wide variety of applications, including climate, sustainability, agriculture, insurance, land use, and peace & security. When he is not traveling Brook can often be found sailing just northwest of Shilshole Marina...in his happy place.