2026 WRITA Fall Summit
September 1 @ 8:00 am – September 3 @ 5:00 pm
At-a-Glance Schedule
Tuesday, September 1
Executive Strategy Session
Berké Brown – WRITA Vision and Values Session
In this interactive Values & Vision Workshop, we step back from the day-to-day to name who we are: the vision we’re building toward, the values that hold us together, and the shared language that carries them into every agency, every team, and every room. It’s a working session where the full membership shapes WRITA’s identity out loud and leaves with a common language to carry it forward.
Human-centered leadership begins with one simple question: who are we, together? Let’s answer it—as one WRITA.
Berké Brown
Location: Arizona (First Floor)
BREAK
Board Meeting
Location: Wasatch (Second Floor)
Chairman’s Reception Appetizers & Drinks
Location: East Terrace, Uintah & Sawtooth (Second Floor)
Wednesday, September 2
Registration & Breakfast
Location: Arizona & Idaho
Keynote Address #1 – Dr. Alan Shark
Non-Artificial Technology Leadership – Where Humans Still Count
Location: Ballroom A
BREAK
Before the Clock Strikes 25: Thwarting Frontier AI and Autonomous Insider Threats in Government Infrastructure
Key Takeaways
- Decode the 25-Minute Attack Window: Understand the exact architecture of an AI-driven attack chain and how threat actors weaponize compromised internal LLMs to map infrastructure and locate sensitive data stores.
- Re-evaluate Zero Trust for Autonomous Agents: Learn how to adapt identity access management models to defend against synthetic/deepfake employee profiles and rogue or exploited autonomous AI agents.
- Implement “AI by Design” Practices: Gain a practical roadmap for mapping and auditing data pathways in public sector applications, ensuring sensitive state data cannot be poisoned, leaked, or exfiltrated through unauthorized AI interactions.
Location: Ballroom A
Fadi Fadhil
Location: Ballroom A
Lunch
Location: Arizona
Reliable Communications for Government: From Copper to Cloud
Key Takeaways
- How to skip a formal RFP using cooperative contracts like OMNIA Partners and Sourcewell, and how to confirm your agency is eligible.
- A supplier-neutral framework for evaluating communications options on reliability, redundancy, simple administration, and adoption.
- How to build connectivity redundancy with SD-WAN and options like Starlink, even where fiber does not reach.
- A phased adoption model (Crawl, Walk, Run) with real municipal examples across public works, permitting, community services, and public safety.
- For agencies on Microsoft Teams, how to add voice without upgrading licensing or taking on the burden of native Teams Phone.
Location: Ballroom A
Eric Fritts • Ellie Becker
Location: Ballroom A
BREAK
Goodbye Silos, Hello Service: Resident 360 Transformation Journey
Key Takeaways
- How Resident 360 and Business Owner 360 strategies can improve Citizen experience while leveraging existing government investments.
- How personas and life events can become the organizing framework for digital government modernization.
- Lessons learned in governance, stakeholder alignment, and cross-agency collaboration.
- How records intelligence, digital trust, AI governance, and identity orchestration support future-ready government services.
Location: Ballroom A
Ed Therriault • Duane Oertell
Location: Ballroom A
Special Dinner A Unique Evening Out at Salt Lake City
Location: Sunday’s Best, 505 S Gale St. Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Thursday, September 3
Breakfast Keynote – Barry Condrey
25 Years of Digital Government – How Technology, Policy and Public Service Evolved, and What Comes Next
Location: Foyer A
Bots, Bureaucrats, and Bad Guys: How One Agency Used Identity Security to Outsmart AI Powered Attacks
Key Takeaways
- The Perimeter Has Shifted: Modern threat actors are bypassing traditional network firewalls, making identities, roles, and access paths the primary target for cyberattacks.
- Foundational Human Governance is Critical: Tightening core lifecycle workflows specifically joiner, mover, and leaver (JML) processes is the essential first step to minimizing the attack surface.
- Automation Drives Measurable Risk Reduction: By adopting an identity-first approach to clean up over-permissioned access and automate access reviews, agencies can prove tangible reductions in security risks.
- Non-Human Identities (NHIs) are the Next Frontier: With bots, service accounts, and AI agents now drastically outnumbering human users, securing machine identities is no longer optional it is a critical security mandate.
- Unified Governance via an Agentic Fabric: Implementing an Agentic Fabric allows organizations to discover, govern, and continuously right-size access for both human and non-human identities within a unified framework.
Location: Ballroom A
Tony Gerberick
Location: Ballroom A
BREAK
Spoiler Alert: Your AI Strategy Starts with a Phone Call
Key Takeaways
- A practical decision framework for identifying where AI should be applied first in local government based on operational need, not vendor capability lists.
- Why communications is consistently the highest-ROI entry point for AI adoption in local government, connecting resident access, staff efficiency, and service delivery in one initiative.
- A live demo of an AI virtual agent handling a real government use case showing exactly what residents experience and what it took to build and deploy it.
- How to move the elevators, alarms, and emergency phones still running on copper onto a compliant modern POTS replacement, the way the county did.
- How to evaluate AI tools against public sector constraints: budget cycles, compliance requirements, procurement pathways, and limited IT staff capacity.
Location: Ballroom A
Kasey Nelson • Greg Joy
Location: Ballroom A
Members ONLY Wrap-up Meeting
Location: Ballroom A
Hotel Checkout