STAFF
eBodyGuard’s Team of Experts
Melissa Faith Hart
Founder & CEO
Melissa Faith Hart is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of eBodyGuard®. She created the eBodyGuard personal safety, evidence, and wellness technology with its eBodyGuard Safety Card™ and eBodyCam™, which are available in the App Store and Google Play. These are key components of the vendor-agnostic eBodyGuard Smart Discovery Platform, which integrates discovery both within and outside of criminal justice IT systems. Her 20 years of experience working with law enforcement and District Attorneys led to the first criminal eDiscovery system in the nation.
Melissa spent 17 years in corporate America, mostly with Xerox. She later served on the Pink Tax on Mobility initiative, sponsored by New York University, investigating the reasons why women pay more for transportation than men. She is working with NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) to improve the efficiency and passenger safety of transit systems.
Using her certifications in Six Sigma Business processes as a core principle of solving business problems, Melissa focused deeply to understand the criminal justice system. She brought in experts from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) to help improve this very burdened and siloed process. She later became the executive director of the program supporting the process of automating criminal discovery, integrating 363 law enforcement agencies to expedite the passing of evidence within 72 hours.
Melissa believes personal safety is a primal right, and has invested decades in learning the cultures and the technologies of these systems. She remains determined to help transform systems to better support our communities.
Paul O’Keefe
Director of Law Enforcement Alliances
Paul O’Keefe began his Law Enforcement career as a volunteer reserve police officer for the Aurora Colorado Police Department in 1988. After completing five years as a full time officer for the Brighton, Colorado Police Department, Paul returned to the Aurora Police Department in 1995. Over the course of the next 24 years, Paul worked in a variety of positions including Patrol, Training Section, and SWAT at both the Officer and Sergeant rank.
As a Lieutenant, Paul was Commanding Officer of the Police Training Section, the Investigative Support section (Gang Unit, Intelligence Unit, Fugitive Unit, and East Metro Auto Theft Team), and the Major Crimes Bureau (Major Crimes/Homicide, Crimes Against Children, Sex Crimes, and Economic Crimes). On July 20, 2012, after just one week in Major Crimes, the Aurora Theater tragedy occurred. Exceptional teamwork and decades of experience culminated in a guilty verdict three years later.
In 2015, Paul was selected as the Deputy Chief of Police for the Aurora Police Department, an agency of approximately 1000 members, a position he held until his retirement in 2020.
Paul obtained a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice with an Emphasis on Executive Leadership. He is a graduate of the Police Executive Research Forum Senior Management Institute for Policing and the FBI National Academy Session 268.
Living full time in Southwest Florida, Paul returned to his volunteer roots investigating Cold Case Homicides for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, and enjoys spending free time on the water.
Sean Dugan
Community Alliance Partner & (fmr.) Chief of Police
Chief Sean Dugan was born and raised near the majestic Niagara Falls in NY. His parents raised him on the Four Gospels: faith, family, duty, and service. He was loved more than he deserved, and because he didn’t know any better, he believed everything his parents told him about his potential. At 17, he began his journey as a public servant by enlisting in the U.S. Navy, serving a total of six years.
After the Navy, Sean spent over 30 years in municipal policing with the majority working for the Littleton Police Dept. Sean retired as a Division Commander with Littleton PD to become Chief at Red Rocks Comm. College in 2014. During Chief Dugan’s career, he rose through the ranks as an officer, field trainer, detective, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant and commander; working in Command positions in the three divisions of Patrol, Investigations and Support Services. He attained a unique perspective during his career by serving in diverse roles, including PIO, as a long-time member of Littleton’s tactical team and supervisor of numerous high profile and sensitive cases.
Chief Dugan has worked as an adjunct instructor for a number of colleges and universities teaching numerous Criminology and Criminal Justice courses at the graduate and undergrad levels. Chief Dugan has spoken nationally on his Littleton Police SWAT Team’s response to the Columbine High School incident, and also on school violence, joining the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School incident and Team Enough in San Diego. He currently instructs nationally for the Southern Police Institute.
Chief Dugan is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command and is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy 240th session. He has earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice and a Master of Business Administration. Sean Dugan is the recently retired after having served 10 years as Chief of Police for Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colorado. He found the challenge of integrating traditional police services with the unique needs of a diverse college campus population a fulfilling and a valuable contribution to the State of Colorado.
Sean has three grown children, two of whom are also public servants; a son who is a firefighter paramedic and a daughter who is a school teacher. His beautiful wife Heather has also committed her life to service where she leads Colorado Parks and Wildlife as the Deputy Director. Together they have twin college sophomores and a 16-year-old son, who keep them feeling youthful.
John Cooke
Heather Joyner
Executive Director of 911 Alliances
Heather Joyner is a veteran with over two decades of public safety telecommunications experience.
Heather served as the full-time 911 Director with Halifax County Emergency Communications, located in Halifax, North Carolina.
In her role as a 911 Director, Heather oversaw and coordinated all activities of the Public Safety Answering Point, including research and implementation of new technologies that provided citizens with the best means for contacting 911 within rural areas of North Carolina.
Heather has a degree in criminal justice and shares her expertise by speaking at national conferences and consulting on many committees, including the Lake Gaston 911 Task Force Executive Board and LAPSEN Dispatch Pathway Specialist.
Karl Wilmes
CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Systems) Compliance Officer
Karl Wilmes serves as eBodyGuard’s CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Systems) Compliance Officer. Karl retired as the Chief of Police for the City of Federal Heights, Colorado, in 2018. During his career in law enforcement, he led three agencies, including serving as Homeland Security Director for the state of Colorado and Deputy Director for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI). During his tenure at the CBI, Karl served as the State of Colorado CJIS Systems Officer. Karl has a broad range of local, state, and national experience in law enforcement, public safety and security. He has provided consulting services to Law Enforcement agencies in a variety of areas, focusing on CJIS data sharing, biometrics, strategic planning, investigations, training, and liability reduction.
John Mackey
Executive Director of Law Enforcement Alliances
John Mackey serves as Law Enforcement Ambassador and Advisory Board for eBodyGuard. He has been a law enforcement professional in three Colorado counties with five agencies for over 40 years – 20 as a police chief serving a resort town, urban city and two college/university campuses. John is the retired Chief of Police of Edgewater, CO. During his tenure he implemented CJIS standards, IT and eDiscovery enhancements and established a Property & Evidence Unit. He also developed a collaborative group of nine law enforcement CEO’s, the “Alliance 9”, which led Colorado’s best efforts in multiple collaborative grants and first ever projects that unified agencies for stronger community policing efforts. He has also served as Criminal Justice Adjunct Faculty and on the University of Colorado Leadership Council on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Prevention.
John holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from University of Massachusetts, Boston. John has received numerous awards, including the Denver Regional Council of Government’s Distinguished Service Award, an FBI Service Award, a Governor’s Service Award, Sheriff’s Star for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and the Lakewood Police Hall of Fame.
George Brauchler
Executive Director of Justice Strategies Alliances
George Brauchler is the former District Attorney for the 18th Judicial District in Colorado, the largest judicial district in the state with more than 930,000 residents in Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert, and Lincoln Counties. A veteran litigator, Brauchler has taken more than 140 trials to verdict in state, federal, and military court over the past eighteen years, including several of the state’s most publicized cases, including the only prosecutor in the nation to have prosecuted three mass shootings including Columbine, Stem School Shooting and the Aurora Theatre Shooting. In addition, he has also been a regular adjunct faculty member of the University of Denver College of Law, Colorado Law, and the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy JAG Schools, earning a reputation as one of the most prolific lecturers and trainers on trial advocacy in the nation.
Brauchler, who is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, has served as Chief of Military Justice for Fort Carson and with the 4th Infantry Division and the U.S. Division-North in Iraq.
Brauchler was intimately involved in the first judicial district ever to pilot, execute, and provide the incubation necessary for the first statewide Criminal eDiscovery solution in America. It is still in operation today.
Dr. Leigh Wall
Senior Managing Director of Smart, Safe Cities Alliances (America)
With 18 years of teaching experience in Louisiana and Texas, Dr. Wall also served as a principal and coached various school sports and fine arts programs. She retired in 2021 after 43 years in education, including 14 years as Superintendent of Santa Fe ISD.
Dr. Wall is an advocate for public education and school safety. After the tragic 2018 school shooting at Santa Fe High School, she began sharing her experiences to promote school safety nationwide. She collaborates with My eBodyguard to support safe and healthy environments in schools and communities.
Vision
We are the bridge from community to public safety and health agencies through technology, people, and processes for all demographics because eBodyGuard believes connection creates safety.