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U.S. Department of Commerce

Bureau of Industry and Security

Update 2015 Conference

Opening Plenary Session

Karen H. Nies-Vogel

 

WO2015

 

 

On behalf of the Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Industry and Security, welcome to the annual update on export controls and policy. I am Karen Nies-Vogel, I am the director of the Office of Exporter Services and I want to tell you a little bit about the highlights of the conference and then quickly go over some housekeeping items with you. This year’s highlights include, our keynote speaker at lunch today. We are very honored to welcome the Secretary of Commerce, the honorable Penny Pritzker. Now tomorrow, tomorrow’s lunch, our speaker is Rose Gottemoeller the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Once again this year, a team of BIS’s IT Specialists is available to demonstrate questions about BIS’s electronical licensing system, SNAP-R, also our web-based interactive tools. The IT team can also assist you to register your company to use SNAP-R if that’s something that you need assistance with. The IT team is located in the Cardozo Room on the terrace level and they will be available until 5:00 today, until 6:30 tomorrow, until 3:30 on Wednesday. On Wednesday, Assistant Secretary Wolf will hold morning and afternoon sessions to take comments and answer questions about the ongoing implementation of export control reform. These sessions will take the same format as his popular Wednesday afternoon teleconferences and we hope that you will be able to attend and to ask questions. If you are not able to attend, there will be an open teleconference line which will be in "listen only mode", just as it usually is for his weekly teleconference. If you have not done so already, please review the emergency information on page 13 of you program book. The Hilton’s emergency number is 60 which you can dial from any house phone and if you are staying in the hotel, we suggest that you review the emergency procedures information that is provided in your room. Please remember that your name badges must be worn at all times during the conference and should be visible to conference staff. Your badge serves as your entrance to all events. If you are not wearing your badge or if it is not visible, conference staff may stop you and ask to see it. Materials for all of the panel sessions are loaded on the computers in the internet café, which is located in the DuPont Room on the terrace level. You can download these materials onto the USB drive you’ve been given, or you can print them out. There is paper available for printing. There are a variety of sessions available to all of you over the next several days, many of them will be offered more than once. Seating for all of the sessions is available on a first come first serve basis. If seating capacity for any one session is reached, we will have to close the session. Standing in the back of the room is not allowed due to fire regulations and safety concerns. If you have a special dietary requirement and you checked the box related to that requirement when you registered for the conference, and you have not picked up your ticket for those special meals, please do so at the registration desks. The opening plenary today, the interagency plenary tomorrow, and our luncheon keynote speakers will be videotaped and those video tapes will be posted on the BIS website along with transcripts after the conference. Please be sure to stop by the exhibitors’ booths on the terrace level in the Columbia Hall. The exhibitors also invite everyone to a reception tomorrow evening from 5-6:30 pm. The reception will be in Columbia Hall, and it’s a great opportunity to visit with the 33 government and private sector exhibitors that we have joining us this year. We understand that many of you may have business that you need to attend to during the conference however we hope out of consideration for other attendees, that you will turn your electronic devices either off, or to the vibrate mode. If you need Wi-Fi access it is provided in the hotel lobby and hotel staff can assist you with logging on if you need that. Your evaluations are very very important to us: please take the time to complete the individual session evaluations as well as the sheet for the overall conference. And finally, if you need assistance or you have questions, please ask me, any other member of the conference staff, or any of the many many BIS employees who are helping to facilitate the conference. We will do our very best to help you. It is now my pleasure to introduce BIS’s Deputy Undersecretary, Daniel Hill. As the bureau senior career official, Deputy Undersecretary Hill manages BIS’s daily activities and advises Undersecretary Hirschhorn on a broad range of policy and management issues. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Undersecretary, Mr. Hill was the director of BIS’s Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security, where he implemented and managed programs to ensure that the U.S. defense industrial base has the capacity and the capability to meet current and future national security, economic security, and homeland security requirements. Among other duties, Mr. Hill was a representative to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the interagency working group on offsets. He was a member of the government coordinating council for the defense industrial base, and represented the United States government as a member of the Industrial Planning Committee at NATO. Prior to his 10 years at BIS, Mr. Hill was the assistant administrator for technology at the Small Business Administration. In addition to directing the SBA’s Small Business Innovation and Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, he was a member of the White House National Science and Technology Council, and chair of the small business working group of the United States innovation partnership. He was also a member of the National Science Foundation’s advisory board and served on the President’s council of Y2K conversion. Ladies and gentlemen, Deputy Undersecretary Daniel Hill.