Bob Merkert VP Federal Sales, DDN

DataDirect Networks, Inc. announced that it is continuing the expansion of its federal services division with the appointment of Bob Merkert as VP of federal sales.

With more than 20 years of sales and sales management experience in the IT industry working directly with the government sector and specifically the intelligence community, DoD and civilian agencies, Merkert will lead DDN’s focus on fulfilling government agency needs for HPC, big data, cloud storage and video surveillance.

He will play a role on the DDN leadership team, heading up the US federal sales division and overseeing all partnerships, contracts and sales activities in the federal market. His expertise includes IT solution selling with a focus on HPC-based systems, IaaS, and cloud technologies and their application in the US government.

Prior to joining DDN, he held an executive sales role at Hitachi Data Systems, responsible for sales of IT systems and cloud infrastructure to the federal government in one of the company’s fastest growing sales divisions. Prior to HDS, he managed US federal sales of Quantum‘s Enterprise sales team.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business, he currently resides in Annapolis, MD and will head DDN’s federal sales efforts out of the company’s Columbia, MD office.

Paul Bloch, president and co-founder, DDN, said: “DDN is ideally positioned to provide focused Solutions to federal government agencies around big data, HPC, cloud Storage, and Digital Security. Bob Merkert joins DDN at a great time, bringing with him more than 20 years of solid customer relationships and experience with strategic installations that will help take our traction in this market to a new level.“

Merkert, said: “DDN is without question one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the HPC and big storage market today. I am excited to contribute to DDN’s successful sales efforts by building on its strong foundation in the federal sector and its proven high performance cloud and big storage technologies. I look forward to leading a high performing team of seasoned sales professionals that delivers exceptional results.“