Board of Directors

Rob Edwards, CSTE, CISSP

Preside nt

Rob has worked in IT for the past 25 years in development, testing, automated testing, and security. He’s been an active member of KCQAA for 20 years and has served on the board of directors for 15 years. When he’s not hacking into applications at work, he enjoys board gaming, camping, disc golf, college basketball, and video gaming. He is tolerated at home by his wife and two kids.

Laura Riedesel

Vice President

Laura is a QA Manager at Littler and has worked in QA for 10+ years. She has worked on manual, automated, and API testing against web and mobile apps. Laura has been as active member of KCQAA for the last 2 years and recently joined the board of directors. Outside of QA, she likes to spend time with her husband and two (soon to be three) kids, and she enjoys board and video gaming.

Debra Gandy

Director of Finance

Sarah Harper, PMP, CSQA, ICP-ATF

Director of Programs and Facilities

Sarah is a Sr. Technical Project Manager at Cerner and has worked in software for 19 years. She has worked on automated testing, mobile apps, interoperability, and now security. Sarah has served on the KCQAA board as a Director of Administration and has been a member for 5 years. Outside of Cerner, Sarah likes to spend time with her family, participate in Dog Agility, and be crafty.

P. J. James

Director of Administration

P.J. has worked in IT for the past 14 years, in roles ranging from project management to app dev supervision. He has spent the past seven years leading a fantastic QA team. This is P.J.'s fifth year as a member of KCQAA and his first to serve on the board of directors. He enjoys the company of his wife and two daughters, Kansas City sports, local college football that features players adorned in black and gold, and believes the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday.

Denise Mathers, CSTE, CTFL

Director of Media

Denise has over 30 years of experience in Information Technology field related to software development, object oriented programming concepts, database design, quality assurance testing, test automation and software development lifecycle processes.
She’s been an active member of KCQAA for 10 years and has served on the board of directors for 9 years. She enjoys hiking, bicycling, and spending time with family and friends.

Tom Marten

Immediate Past-President

Tom has been working in the Information Technology field for over 25 years. He has spent his IT career either writing code, testing code, or gathering requirements for what the code should do. He has been involved with KCQAA for five years, the last three on the board of directors. He enjoys spending time with family and friends and going on adventures in and around the Kansas City metro area.