Valerie J. Parker

President/CEO

The Eternal Optimist

Our founder built and runs this company with grit, determination and a “never, never, never give up” attitude she honed as a military BRAT. Valerie graduated high school in Kaiserslautern, Germany (K-Town Uber Alles!). During these formative years she played semi-pro soccer in the Bundesliga, acquired a taste for German beer and brats, and initiated her lifelong love of travel. Valerie cheered (literally) for the Hoyas in the 80s and still managed to graduate with honors from Georgetown University – earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Foreign Service.

By 1995 Valerie was applying finance and business development skills to win multi-billion dollar engineering and maintenance support contracts for the world’s largest independent aviation services firm. In 1998, Valerie formed Parker Group; turning her focus to acquisition management and advanced weapon system test and evaluation. Parker Group enjoyed significant growth over the next decade – leading in 2009 to Valerie’s selection as the U.S. Small Business Administration Small Business Person of the Year for Kauai, Hawaii. Parker Group continues to enhance national priority defense initiatives through innovative technology; designing end-to-end cloud-based AV solutions to distribute, record and play back real-time, synchronized mission data.

A Rotarian for nearly 15 years, Valerie is passionate about community service. A busy mom/wife/entrepreneur, Valerie aspires to travel, read something non-technical, engage in various forms of outdoor recreation, and spend more quality time with her amazing husband, two incredible sons, and multitude of awesome friends. Until such time as these activities are actually feasible she’ll just aspire to the occasional glass of wine to maintain mental health. P.S. You bring the wine…

Ray May

Chief Technology Officer

The Visionary

PG’s techno evangelist and visionary took his first breath on a cold winter baby boomer day. Arriving on a 21st at 7 pounds, 11 ounces, the doctors proclaimed him the “luckiest baby on earth!” That luck has yet to manifest itself at Craps or Black Jack tables. An Engineering degree from The Ohio State University followed by an Electronics Engineering position for 10 years with the US Army Information Systems Command spring boarded Ray into becoming a superior problem solver. Systems Engineering bores most, but not Ray. Throughout his career, he took Systems Engineering to a new and exciting level through endless team building and party hosting sessions. After stints with Boeing, SAIC, GD, Wyle, Ray finally found a home in PG’s portfolio.

In his role as CTO he is responsible for guiding a highly skilled team into the future alongside our customers. Ray also conducts hours of technical banter with anyone who will listen, provide constructive criticism, and doesn’t punch him. When uber geeky Ray isn’t working diligently on solving complex technical challenges for our customers and partners you can find him cavorting or traveling with his super human and understanding wife, helping guide the lives of his 5 children, clamoring with his chickens, or weeding and pruning the vegetable garden. He’s also been known to climb a mountain or 2 and slay some fish from time to time.