As a Chief Architect and Field CTO within Red Hat's global Office of the CTO, Travis Steele leverages three decades of enterprise operations & leadership spanning the commercial sector, DoD civilian service, and the U.S. Navy. A Certified Chief Data & AI Officer through Carnegie Mellon University, he acts as a vital strategic link between cutting-edge commercial innovation and national defense, ensuring software lifecycles directly support software-defined warfare and the mission operational needs of the Air and Space Forces.

Travis has dedicated over 25 years to secure cloud-to-edge architectures, digital engineering, and the practical modernization of legacy Command and Control (C2) and Situational Awareness frameworks across the Department of War within civilian and systems integrator communities, as well as global commercial enterprise brands. His work focuses on operationalizing algorithmic warfare, establishing responsible AI frameworks, and driving enterprise automation to optimize distributed mission capabilities across both core and forward-operating environments. An alumnus of The Wharton School Executive Leadership program, he holds dual Master’s degrees in Business Administration and Information Technology, and his defense technology insights are frequently featured in Military Embedded Systems, Breaking Defense, C4ISRNET, and other leading national security publications.