meet our staff

Michael Karagiannis

Michael Karagiannis is the President and founder of MKGCS. There is no one we know on the face of the planet who knows more about networks, computers, and gadgets than Mike. In addition, he is a terrific teacher and a hell of a hot shoe (he will tell you can never have enough horsepower in life).

Mike grew up in New York where he was writing code for over 20 years (first learned assembly language on an Apple 2c), earned his MCSE network certification and went to college while working 60 hour weeks running a restaurant in Arlington Virginia. Mike was working as a Network Security consultant in the Pentagon when he first met then Majors Matt Halder and Larry Kendrick who later became the founding fathers of MKGCS.

Mike runs the MKGCS team at the Pentagon, riding herd on over 20 people in one of the most demanding network environments around, the Army Operations Center, supporting the Command and Control Support Agency. He and his team are constantly exploring the cutting edge of networks and software, applying this knowledge to new challenges at the Pentagon, and then passing along this expertise to other members of the MKGCS staff for the benefit of all of our clients. At home, he and Melissa have two children, Spiro and Dina, as well as three dogs and a garage full of machines that make sweet Italian music.

Melissa Karagiannis

Melissa is the FSO/Human Resource Manager of MKGCS. She is a graduate of George Mason University with a degree in Economics.  Born in  Falls Church, Virginia  and raised in Northern Virginia , she came to MKGCS from Northwest Federal Credit Union where she was a Mortgage Loan Administrator. At MKGCS, she is responsible maintaining Employee Security and work files. She enjoys planning exciting MKGCS Employee events.  In her spare time she loves spending time with her husband Michael and her two small children and her three dogs (Mocha, Brownie and Latte).  Yes, Melissa loves coffee.

MKGCS TEAMS

MKGCS provides teams of expertise and innovation to our clients to meet their unique needs and requirements. Our staff is organized around support to specific applications we built and support or in general support to our client's functional departments. The teams, departments and members are:

DAMPS

Keith Donnelly

Keith has extensive background in managing, designing and documenting the development and implementation of computer based decision support systems.  He has led teams that implemented Predictive Readiness application in the Army's Strategic Readiness System, and developed the prototype Predictive Readiness Assessment System for the Air Force.  Keith has development experience with the AT Kearney management consulting firm and with major financial institutions.  His enjoyments include road bicycle touring to maintain conditioning, reading news magazines to keep informed, and being the regular whipping boy of his computer chess program to maintain humility.

Keith is a family man with a wife and two young daughters.

MDIS

Than Isert

Than Isert brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to several MKGCS projects.   With a B.S. in computer information systems and a Masters in Information Systems, and over twelve years of experience designing and developing software, with special emphasis in relational databases, Than is talented developer and innovator.  As a special project, Than has built an application to support deployed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan - Theater Force Tracker (TFT).  

Chris Li

Chris comes to us having been a part of the IT explosion in the Northern Virginia area of the past 8 years. He has seen application development from every part of the development lifecycle, and been involved with teams ranging from 90-day implementations to the longer-running efforts in supporting DoD web applications. Chris is truly a "local", being born in Washington D.C. and living in parts of Maryland and mostly Virginia. He holds a B.S. in Management Science and Information Technology (recently renamed to Business Information Technology) from Virginia Tech.

Chris currently resides in Ashburn, VA with his wife Christine and his two cats Cameron and Ferris. He has a wide range of interests, including a passion for everything on two and four wheels. He also has strong interests in games, including PC, Console and Arcade games as well as several forms of Poker. A true "sports nut", he and his wife regularly attend sporting events supporting both the Virginia Tech football team as well as the Washington Capitals.

Larry Kendrick  

Larry Kendrick is a driving force in MKGCS solutions.  Larry took on an enormous challenge - integrate surging and unpredictable force requirements, existing Army and Joint force data sources and mobilization information into a single coherent application to enable the Army to manage its worldwide force deployment efforts.  Drawing his own expertise and with the assistance of a small programming team, he created MDIS and DAMPS within a few months.  As the MDIS and DAMPS Subject Matter Expert, Larry is the principal functional expert on the Army’s Title X deployment and mobilization functions and activities at the Army headquarters level.  His broad knowledge of ongoing Army contingencies and current operations allows him to provide expert analysis on command and control application development.

A graduate of the United States Army Military Academy and a trained Operational Research and Systems Analyst, Larry brings a strong academic foundation to the functional process improvement tasks inherent in his role as the MDIS and DAMPS functional expert. 

Operational Support Systems 

Naresh Karamchetty

Business Development

Matt Halder

Matt wears a couple of hats.  He runs the research and development effort in San Antonio, Texas as well as working on new business development.  He also provides functional systems analysis consulting for our clients.  While serving in the Army, Matt managed the development of many of the original MKGCS applications as the functional expert on service level operations centers, messaging and briefings.  Throughout his career, Matt has driven organizational evolution through the introduction of new tools and mechanisms to improve unit performance, from the his first Apple IIe in a battalion motor pool to enterprise web applications supporting the Army staff at war.

Matt hails from Richmond, Virginia, graduating from Benedictine High School and then Va Tech, where he was commissioned in the Infantry.  Matt served in a variety of command and staff assignments in the 3rd ID, the 82d Airborne, the Infantry Center and the 3rd US Infantry (The Old Guard).  Matt completed his career in the Army after a lengthy assignment on the Army Staff, serving in the Current Operations Directorate as an Ops Officer, Briefer and finally as the Chief of the Army Arms Control Branch, providing compliance oversight and POM management for Army arms control.  Matt holds B.S in Psychology and a M.S. in Human Resource Management.  Matt is married and has four kids.  He enjoys woodworking and computer gadgets.