Team
Matt Brogdon is a United States Army veteran and a 1994 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. The son, grandson, and sibling of military veterans, Matt was brought up to demonstrate the values of leadership, service before self, and honoring those who came before him.
As a member of the Military Affairs Team at Microsoft, Matt founded Hesperus as a Fellow with the George W. Bush Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program after realizing there was huge government, corporate, and non-profit investment in suburban and urban veteran employment and education programs, but next to no investment in tribal and rural communities.
With 21 years in the military and diversity recruiting, education, and employment arenas, as well as a strong background in technology training and skilling programs, Matt founded Hesperus as an investment in tribal communities.
Creating stability and success through education, employment, and technology, Hesperus will change how Native Americans participate and engage in the 21st century global digital economy while supporting their families and tribes through their traditional way of life.
Christopher Key is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. He is an advocate and consultant for Native American communities supporting their efforts in economic, educational, healthcare and natural resource development.
He is the CEO of True North Diversified and resides in Arizona and California. Chris is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and UCLA and has spent much of his professional career in STEM as an engineer with NASA, AT&T, and Qualcomm among others.
He believes Native American veterans are the next generation of leadership in tribal communities and through the example of his own father, a United States Army veteran, he continues to empower Native American veterans to serve as leaders and role models within their communities as well as mainstream U.S. society.
Danielle Applegate is the Director of Service Delivery for IT Concepts where she leads federal Health IT projects for the VA and HHS.
A ninth generation Veteran with over 25 years in the advocacy arena, her commitment to connecting military and veteran community members to the services and benefits developed to serve them runs deep.
Her focus on serving the underserved has always driven her, and Hesperus aims to do just that for a critical population: American Indian and Alaskan Natives. By leveraging her knowledge and relationships, she supports Hesperus’ life-changing efforts.
Victor LaGroon is Head of Global Health Equity Strategy at Assurance Health Data. Before assuming his current position, Victor served as the inaugural Chief Diversity Officer at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest healthcare system in the country.
A US Army veteran and former Director of Military Affairs for the City of Chicago, Victor has a passion for influencing policy and advocating for the broader Veteran population, and brings nearly two decades of experience in academia and healthcare systems, dedicated to advancing health equity for at-risk and underserved communities
John Bailon is Dine and Kewa Pueblo and was born and raised in Shiprock, NM. Immediately after 9/11 he and his younger brother Cheston agreed they would place college on hold to enlist in the United States Marine Corps where they served six years in the Infantry. The brothers deployed together in 2005 supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom where they saw heavy combat.
After completing his service, he returned to ASU. He earned a B.S. in Sustainability – with an emphasis on Economics in December 2010. He is currently a Senior R&D Technologist at Sandia National Laboratories researching emerging cyber technologies for the intelligence community and has been at Sandia Labs for 10 years.
Adam Yeloushan is the Vice President of Human Resources for Manufacturing at Ford Motor Company. He previously served as HR Director for GM’s Global IT organization, having joined the company in 2018 as the HR Director of Global Product Development.
Before joining GM, Adam spent 14 years with GE, where he held roles within the Consumer & Industrial, Energy Services and Transportation divisions. Key positions included HR leadership for various global manufacturing and supply chain, global commercial and sales support, IT and software organizations.
Adam’s career includes experiences in both human resources and operations within a broad spectrum of industries and diverse business environments including transportation, technology, pharmaceutical and automotive. Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Columbia University and an MBA in International Business from DePaul’s Kellstadt School of Business.
John Bennett Herrington is a retired United States Naval Aviator, Naval Test Pilot, and former NASA astronaut. A native of Wetumka, OK, he graduated from Plano Senior High School, Plano, Texas, in 1976; received a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, in 1983, and a Master of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1995.
He also received a PhD in Education from the University of Idaho in 2014.
As a NASA mission specialist, he made history becoming the first Native American in space aboard the Shuttle Endeavour in 2002, logging over 330 hours in space, including 3 EVAs totaling 19 hours and 55 minutes. Shortly after retiring from NASA, Herrington began working on his new goal: to help spur a renewed interest in science and engineering among young people, specifically the Native American youth. He did this with a 4,200-mile, 63-day cross-country bicycle ride that occurred in 2008 and was titled Rocketrek.
He recently completed his first children’s book, Mission to Space, published by the Chickasaw Nation White Dog Press. Commander Herrington is a proud citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
John Sun is the Vice President of Health and Human Services for Philips where he is tackling complex issues such as healthcare disparities, health equity, oncology orchestration, cancer research, interoperability, and public health issues such as mental health, diabetes, substance abuse, and suicide rates.
With a diverse background being a design architect, then a management consultant, business developer, and now an executive with over 20 years of government contracting to include an Alaskan Native and Native American Corporation, John understands the importance of providing innovative solutions that endure focusing on root causes, especially for an underfunded agency in Indian Health Service.
John is currently working with several Indian Health Service Areas, Tribal Councils, and Sovereign Governments to once and for all propel the delivery of care and quality of care through disruptive but proven processes.
John is currently mentoring young adults both in school and in the workforce in being future leaders and the synergy and alignment to Hesperus’s mission and vision is perfect.
Sandra Begay, the daughter of a Navajo tribal leader and a public health nurse, is a member of the Navajo Nation and she has been an engineer for 33 years.
Sandra has worked at Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) for 30 years, where she is a research and development engineer.
Before Sandia, Sandra worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sandra serves on the University of New Mexico Board of Regents as the Board’s Secretary / Treasurer.
Sandra earned an Associates of Science degree in Pre-Engineering, a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and a Master of Science from Stanford University in Structural Engineering with an emphasis in Earthquake Engineering.
Sandra has enjoyed 20 years of unique work focused on providing technical assistance to U.S. tribes. Sandra is featured in the American Society of Civil Engineers book “Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers”, where she is included in the chapter “Women in Power,” describing her research in providing electricity through solar panels to hundreds of Navajo members.
Sandra is proud to have mentored 44 technical American Indian and Alaska Native college students, which included 26 women interns (60% of the total were women) and the former interns have become highly regarded technical staff members and leaders within tribal organizations, industry, academia, and non-profit groups.
Sandra is a recipient of the 2021 Women in Technology Award from the NM Technology Council.
I am Yup’ik Alaskan Native from Bristol Bay in the Southwest region of Alaska. I moved around a lot growing up but much of my younger years I spent in Portage Creek Village, rural Alaska which is disconnected from any road system. The only building with running water and a septic system was the two-room school. 10 students were required to keep our K-8th grade school open and running, we had 12 students who were all first cousins. The current year-round population fluctuates between 1 and 2, my aunt and uncle. We packed our water for drinking and bathing, packed and chopped wood for heat by wood stove, and stocked up on moths’ worth of non-perishable food.
The school had an intermittent satellite internet connection for television and collaborative learning opportunities. Once students finished 8th grade, we had to travel to and live elsewhere for high school and college if we pursued those. I spent half of high school in Reno Nevada and graduated from West High school in Anchorage Alaska.
I first attempted to earn my Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 2007 at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). After my third semester grades that were less than satisfactory, I no longer qualified for a significant amount of financial aid, so I decided to join the military in 2008. After four years of active duty and two combat deployments to Afghanistan, I received an Honorable Discharge with benefits as a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
After the military, I was in a truck driving apprenticeship, I broke my collarbone during my off-time and was unable to work for about five months. Realizing I did not want to be limited to my physical well-being for employment, I decided to again seek higher education and re-enrolled myself at UAA.
I have graduated with my Civil Engineering degree in May 2020, am working as a full-time Civil Engineer for the USDA Forest Service and will complete my Project Management masters in December 2021.
I am planning to apply for a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering after my masters is complete. From my various jobs, current career, my educational journey and just life in general, I strive to continuously improve when and where I can. I also work to be involved in groups and organizations that have a same or similar goal and perspective.
I involve myself with multiple organizations whose objectives are to promote more Indigenous and underrepresented people in STEM fields. I hope to add value and continuous improvement with my involvement with Hesperus.
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Email: contact@hesper.us
Phone: (602) 377-5666