Jeffrey R. Cares is the CEO of Alidade Incorporated and a retired navy captain. As a thought-leader in Information Age military innovation, he consults at the most senior levels of the international defense industry and lectures internationally and at service colleges on the future of combat. He is the author of Distributed Networked Operations: The Foundations of Network Centric Warfare and Operations Research for Unmanned Systems, in addition to pioneering work in the application of complex systems research to military problems.

Anthony Cowden attended the University of Michigan under the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC), where he received his BA in history. He received his MS degree in computer science from the University of New Haven and his MA degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. After nearly five years on active duty, Cowden joined Sonalysts, Inc., and affiliated with the Navy Reserve. After a twenty-year Reserve career Captain Cowden returned to active duty in 2009 and will retire after 37 years as a commissioned officer in 2021.