Who we are & what we believe

As CEO and founder of BrightLeaf Group, Jane leads a senior team delivering web application development, user-centered design, and digital modernization for government and other mission-driven organizations. For over 30 years, she has grown BrightLeaf into a trusted partner to state and local agencies, large nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies—known for delivering user-centered, compliant, and scalable digital solutions.

Her role combines strategic oversight, client engagement, and executive sponsorship. She has led cross-functional teams through complex projects involving legacy system modernization, open-source development, and commercial software integration. Jane began her career in software application UX and instructional design, eventually transitioning BrightLeaf into a full-service digital firm supporting long-term modernization goals.

She holds a BA in Communications from the University of North Texas and is a graduate of the three-year MIT/Inc. Magazine “Birthing of Giants” CEO program and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Emerging Leaders initiative.

Joanne manages agreements between BrightLeaf and its customers, prime contractors, subcontractors, vendors and others. She brings over 27 years of experience in Contract Management and Procurement in public and private sectors, and has specialized in complex Information Technology (IT) products and services.

Joanne managed major IT contracts including Texas.gov, the official website of the State of Texas, and the Data Center Services program, which included contracts valued at over $1 billion. This contract management included monitoring vendor performance, monitoring Service Level Agreements, reporting, developing RFPs, negotiating, managing awards and overseeing Statements of Work.

Ed Garner is a digital services team leader with 20 years of experience in software development for corporate, government, higher education, and K-12 clients. He oversees BrightLeaf’s IT systems, leads in solving business and technical challenges, and mentors our creative and technical teams. Ed has held roles including Director of Learning Technology and Software Developer for large technology companies, as well as Principal Engineer, Vice President, and Director of Technology. His responsibilities have included content management, quality assurance, and implementation of Project Management Institute (PMI) principles. Ed earned a B.A. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

June brings more than 20 years of global experience helping organizations tell their stories in ways that inspire, engage, and deliver impact. She’s passionate about connecting people and strengthening cultures through clear, meaningful communication that drives results and advances important missions.

As a trusted advisor to senior executives and leadership teams, June has led enterprise-wide efforts in brand, employee, executive, and stakeholder communications. At UPS, she made a lasting impact—managing one of the world’s largest corporate websites, leading award-winning internal campaigns, and launching a global engagement platform that united employees across continents.

At BrightLeaf, June is our “communications Swiss Army Knife." She is valued for her collaborative style and knack for aligning communications with strategy—ensuring every message informs, builds trust, and creates measurable outcomes. 

Nick specializes in complex application design and development. With over 25 years of professional experience, he has focused on successfully delivering website design, redesign, and data migration projects in the public and private sectors.

He leverages his background in communication design, corporate identity, user experience, and technical project management to provide BrightLeaf clients with the guidance to plan and implement effective digital strategies. His expertise includes leading teams in Waterfall, Agile, and Hybrid environments and driving discovery, design, development, quality assurance, and compliance for web, mobile applications, and enterprise technology implementations. He earned a BA in Communications Design from Texas State University. 

As a Sr. Project Manager, Mark’s role is to ensure that our team has the talent, resources and client interaction necessary to deliver positive digital experiences. He is well-versed in website and software development and has experience with several content management systems (CMS), including WordPress, Drupal and Craft.

Mark co-founded and operated a successful custom software and web development company for over 24 years prior to directing the company through acquisition in 2020. He has managed hundreds of websites and web-based application development projects for clients in both the public and private sectors.

Jack has experience with closed-captioning production and operations dating to the 1980s, managing offline and real-time captioning production teams and coordinating the efforts of staff and freelance independent contractors to provide captioning for a wide array of producers and broadcasters. He assists BrightLeaf customers with setting up and managing offline and real-time captioning of events for in-person and remote audiences (including symposia, conferences, graduations, and sports events), television broadcasts, and live to the web.

Before joining BrightLeaf, Jack worked for the National Captioning Institute (1980-83, 1985-89) and the Media Access Group at WGBH (1990-2008), where he helped develop operational procedures and created captioning for network broadcasts, and opened and managed NCI's New York City captioning facility, which produced captioning for commercials as well as network and cable broadcasts. Jack also helped develop real-time captioning production of national and local news and sports broadcasts, initially under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Education and later independently, for the Media Access Group, eventually being named operations manager of the Group's real-time captioning office.

Cheryl is an experienced web UX design expert and information architect with more than 20 years of industry experience. She provides strategic leadership in human-centered UX design and user research for our mission-driven government agencies, nonprofits, and other organizations building or redesigning public and internal-facing websites. She specializes in auditing, planning, and designing UX for large, complex websites that serve diverse audiences. Cheryl earned a BS in Advertising from Texas Tech University

Roger brings over 20 years of experience in responsive front-end and back-end development, database and CMS integrations, and app development. His specialties include Responsive Web Design (RWD), mobile websites, HTML5, CSS3, PHP/MySQL programming, LAMP stack development, information architecture, relational database design, accessibility, unobtrusive JavaScript, jQuery and search engine optimization (SEO).

Working with multiple content management systems such as Craft CMS, ExpressionEngine and Statamic, Roger follows widely adopted best practices and future-proof workflows such as mobile first and modular design. He also designs performance into websites to intelligently balance visual aesthetics with practical metrics such as page speed, page weight and perceived performance. Roger works closely with our UX/UI and visual designers and is familiar with many design prototyping tools.

Roger has worked with diverse organizations including ACL Live at Moody Theater, Bausch & Lomb, Capital Area Council of Governments, Disney, Harris County Appraisal District, Home Depot, KKR, Laura Mercier, LBJ Presidential Library, Texas Women’s Health Program, Walmart Canada, and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.

Emily offers over 20 years of creative design experience across a broad range of corporate and government clients and projects. Her design concentration lies in accessible web, mobile and interactive design, print design, motion and still graphics, illustrations, and photography. Emily leads our design team in producing accessible online publications and other online materials using the latest interactive formats.

Her experience includes corporate-level communications work for our global and local clients, including Capital Area Council of Governments, Coca-Cola, Dell, Dynegy, Hanger, Schlumberger, Seton Hospital, Texas Women’s Health Program, Texas Health and Human Services Commission, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, The University of Texas, and many emerging technology companies. Emily holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design from The University of Texas at Austin (Dean’s List, Art and Design Scholarships).