Career
Experience
& Timeline
20+ years spanning the U.S. Navy, broadcast operations, facility design, federal programs, and engineering leadership.
Feb 2025 – Present
Chesapeake Systems
Director of Media Systems Design & Engineering
Deliberate transition from primary sales to primary projects. Responsible for technical direction and design integrity across CHESA's federal and commercial broadcast programs, ensuring proposals are achievable, properly scoped, and aligned with real delivery constraints.
Owns engineering standards and technical consistency across all broadcast program delivery
Bridges proposal architecture and field execution to prevent scope and delivery failures
Embedded technical authority from opportunity through commissioning, working closely with Solutions and Sales
Building a scalable, technically consistent broadcast practice as federal and commercial work expands
2024 – Feb 2025
Chesapeake Systems
Director of Broadcast Solutions
Assumed delivery ownership following the award of CHESA's largest-ever broadcast program. Built the Broadcast Solutions division from the ground up: recruiting engineers, authoring SOPs, and converting a first-of-kind ST 2110 deployment into a repeatable delivery framework.
Lead architect: HHS broadcast modernization: hybrid SDI / ST 2110 (~70% IP), studio, PCR, ACR, MCR
One of the first primarily ST 2110 production facilities in the U.S. federal government
Recruited and onboarded core broadcast engineering team; defined commissioning and validation SOPs
Led CHESA's transition to WireCAD-based broadcast design workflows
2022 – 2024
Chesapeake Systems
Sr. Solutions Architect, Broadcast Specialist
Primary technical authority for broadcast and federal sales, leading solution architecture from opportunity identification through contract award. Balanced deep technical consultation with commercial strategy to close complex, high-value programs.
Architected and sold CHESA's largest-ever integration; margins exceeded total revenue of prior highest-value engagement
$2M+ in broadcast revenue generated across regions, including CHESA's first federal ST 2110 facility
Technical due diligence and workflow discovery for federal and enterprise broadcast customers
Design Engineer
Designed media and entertainment facilities across newsrooms, control rooms, and production studios, integrating ST 2110, SDI, Dante, and NDI across diverse client environments.
Clients: Charter Communications, Fox News, PBS Media Operations Center, WTTG, Reach Media, USCIS
Platform experience: Sony, Evertz, Imagine Communications, Panasonic
2016 – 2020
TeamPeople / Al Jazeera
Chief Engineer, Al Jazeera DC Bureau
Led a team of five senior engineers as primary technology liaison for vendors, stakeholders, and executives. Managed a $200K–$300K annual budget and oversaw operations across 12 remote locations in the Americas.
Increased UN Bureau bandwidth from 100Mb to 1Gb while reducing annual vendor costs by $100K
Designed and deployed remote interview stations at the Pentagon under constrained external connectivity
2015 – 2016
Transportation Security Administration
Studio Engineer
Implemented a 96TB Quantum Storage system and Strawberry media asset management platform, improving editor efficiency and standardizing production workflows.
1998 – 2015
United States Navy
Chief Petty Officer (E-7), Interior Communications Electrician
Seventeen years of progressively complex technical and leadership responsibility across multiple commands. Ended as department lead for a 132-member Combat Systems Department on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
Led 132-member Combat Systems Department; raised department maintenance completion rate to 96% average across 27 work-centers
Developed and delivered broadcast engineering curriculum at the Defense Information School, achieving a 100% graduation rate for 32 technicians
Identified gaps in divisional maintenance schedule, added 300 procedures, resulting in a 25% increase in division manpower utilization and extended equipment longevity
Developed scenario training protocols for Combat Systems Watch Officer role, preparing personnel for high-pressure operational situations
Maintained 24,000+ communications systems aboard USS Bataan (LHD-5)
Philosophy
Servant
Leadership.
"The most important thing a leader can do is remove the obstacles standing between their people and their best work."
Jason Pepino · Personal conviction
Where It Came From
It built over time, and it came from all directions at once. The Navy gave me my first real education in leadership. A Chief Petty Officer earns authority. It isn't inherited. I watched good chiefs lead from the front, absorbing organizational friction so their sailors could focus, developing people even when it cost them short-term, and holding accountability upward instead of pushing pressure downward. I also watched the other kind. That contrast was instructive.
Later, managing engineers, I learned something the Navy had hinted at but civilian work made undeniable: authority without service is just pressure. You can get compliance through positional power. You can't get excellence that way. Engineers do their best work when they trust their leader, when ambiguity is managed above them rather than handed down, and when the environment is stable enough for them to think clearly.
I've also been on the receiving end of leadership that didn't work, managed in ways that made good work harder, not easier. That experience shaped a commitment I return to consistently: I will not be that leader. The standard I hold myself to is whether my team is better positioned to succeed because of what I do, not in spite of it.
None of this is abstract. It shows up in specific decisions: taking the heat when a scope call goes wrong rather than redirecting it to engineers who executed in good faith. Advocating for someone's growth even when keeping them comfortable is easier. Saying no to a proposal commitment that would set my team up to fail. These aren't grand gestures. They're the daily work of leadership done right.
The conviction also has roots that predate my engineering career. In the Navy, I led the Multicultural Committee aboard ship, providing guidance, education, and perspective to more than 5,000 sailors and Marines. That work had nothing to do with systems or technology. It was entirely about showing up for people, understanding where they came from, and creating an environment where everyone could contribute fully. That's the same thing I try to do now, just in a different context.
How I Lead
Core Principles
These aren't values statements. They're the operational commitments I hold myself accountable to as an engineering leader.
01
Clear the path. Don't own the work.
My job is not to do my engineers' jobs. It's to make sure they have what they need to do those jobs without unnecessary friction: clear requirements, realistic scope, resolved ambiguity, and organizational noise managed above the team rather than handed to it. When the path is clear, capable people do remarkable work.
02
Accountability flows upward.
When something goes wrong on a program I lead, I don't redirect that toward my team. If the scope was wrong, I owned the scope call. If the timeline was unrealistic, I should have pushed back earlier. A leader who absorbs accountability creates an environment where people can take appropriate risks and do honest work. That's the only environment where engineering teams perform at a high level.
03
Invest in people even when it costs you.
Developing someone genuinely, not performatively: sometimes means advocating for their advancement before you're ready to lose them, or pushing back on decisions that would limit their growth for short-term organizational convenience. I've done both. The return is a team that trusts your intentions, and trust is the foundation everything else is built on.
04
Trust is earned through consistency, not title.
Authority by position gets you compliance. Trust gets you commitment. A title confers the responsibility to earn the right to lead, not the right itself. That means doing what you say, saying what you mean, telling people the truth when it's uncomfortable, and showing up the same way whether the quarter is going well or not. Consistency is the currency of credibility.
05
Honest feedback is a form of respect.
Avoiding difficult conversations isn't kindness. It's a failure of leadership. When an engineer is heading in the wrong direction, technically or professionally, the most respectful thing I can do is tell them clearly, directly, and early enough for it to matter. People deserve the truth about where they stand. The leaders who gave me that, even when it was hard to hear, are the ones I learned the most from.
06
Protect the engineering environment.
Broadcast systems engineering requires sustained focus and clear thinking. Every time organizational dysfunction, poorly defined requirements, or shifting priorities flow unchecked into a technical team, the quality of the work suffers. One of the most important things I do as a leader is act as a buffer, absorbing volatility at the boundary so the engineering environment inside remains stable and productive.
