COPAN Systems, Inc. announced two personnel moves aimed at accelerating the company’s strong growth in the federal government sector. Will Layton, formerly Vice President, has been promoted to President of COPAN’s Federal Division and long-time government IT executive and consultant Jim Flyzik has been named special advisor to the company. Flyzik will leverage his vast experience to help guide COPAN’s Federal Green IT strategy and grow the company’s federal business.


Will Layton

Layton has managed COPAN’s federal division since 2006, including oversight of product and solution development, sales and marketing. Under his leadership, COPAN has achieved a 700 percent increase in its federal business over the last three years and has strongly positioned itself to take advantage of the high-growth opportunity presented by eGovernment initiatives aimed at dramatic energy and cost savings.


Jim Flyzik

Flyzik is president of the TheFlyzikGroup, a company specializing in strategic business consulting, performance-based contracting and thought leadership for companies serving government agencies. Flyzik has over 27 years in the federal government and currently serves as Chairman of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) Committee on Homeland Security. He has received numerous awards and recognition for excellence, achievement and leadership in government IT including the Azimuth Award as Government Executive of the Year from the Federal CIO Council.

“With our Enterprise MAID based Persistent Data Storage platform already in production at nearly 20 federal agencies, COPAN is achieving tremendous traction in the government sector. The fed has set ambitious goals for reducing energy consumption and our technology is ready to deliver on this goal,” said Mark Ward, president and CEO of COPAN Systems. “Our recent customer wins and key partnerships in the federal sector are a clear indication that we are on an exceptional trajectory. The promotion of Will Layton to President and the addition of Jim Flyzik as a special advisor will help us take full advantage of this enormous market opportunity,” he added. “There is no one better than Will Layton to lead COPAN in this effort. Under Will’s management, COPAN’s best-in-class product has been embraced by the federal market. Jim Flyzik’s tremendous insight and experience will help COPAN further develop its government strategy and better serve the data center storage needs of federal agencies.”

The federal government currently accounts for approximately one-third of COPAN’s revenue. With the fed setting a goal of 30 percent reduction in energy consumption by the year 2015, and eGovernment initiatives increasing the amount of persistent data that needs to be stored and archived, the company feels it’s positioned for even stronger growth in this segment going forward.

“Mandates requiring federal agencies to make information accessible over the Internet have created the need for significantly more efficient data centers – in terms of how data is stored as well as the power and cooling infrastructure needed to support those centers,” said Layton. “Our Enterprise MAID technology platform is purpose-built for the cost-effective and energy-efficient storage of ‘persistent data’ that represents more than 75 percent of all data under management. COPAN is the ideal solution for federal agencies looking to aggressively meet these mandates, enabling them to significantly decrease their energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and overall costs.”

Layton co-founded COPAN Systems in 2002 while assisting Austin Ventures as an entrepreneur in residence with the incubation of server-, storage- and networking-focused technology companies. Before joining COPAN, Will was an 'outsourced' Chief Technology Officer for several highly successful web companies including Opentable.com, Healthallies.com and Pivia.com, and was a patent infringement consultant for Nortel. Previously, Layton was recognized as an electronic-commerce maven by InfoWorld during his tenure as vice president of Information and Internet Systems at Ticketmaster-Citysearch. While at Ticketmaster-Citysearch, he grew a small content-focused web site to a multi-million transactions-per-month business and helped to integrate multiple acquisitions under the IAC umbrella including Match.com, Microsoft’s Sidewalk and CityAuction.com. Prior to Ticketmaster-Citysearch, Layton worked with Concentric Network (now XO Communications), an innovative ISP that examined new technologies. Early in his career, Layton helped to build the World Wide Open Systems network, storage and server infrastructure at MBNA (now Bank of America), and also was a database programmer with Texas Instruments’ IT department.

Flyzik has served in multiple senior government IT posts including Vice Chair of the Federal Government CIO Council overseeing numerous government-wide IT initiatives. He is also a former member of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Information Systems and CIO for the Department of the Treasury, team leader on Vice President Gore’s National Performance Review IT Team, and Chairman of the Government Information Technology Services Working Group. He is also a frequent public speaker and hosts a monthly radio program called the Federal Executive Forum.