LEADERSHIP TEAM
Joel Owens
CEO
Joel Owens
As CEO of Top Gun Technology, Joel Owens brings 28 years of industry-leading data center maintenance services, hardware sales, operations and service delivery. Joel is responsible for the company’s long-term strategy of delivering Mission Critical Maintenance support and hardware services for enterprise IT lifecycle assets.
Joel has a proven track record in building companies with compelling client value propositions. Since 1999, when he founded QualTech Services Group (QSGI) to 2007 when Top Gun Technology and Top Gun Services Group were formed to provide maintenance support services for Enterprise Server, Storage and Networking environments.
In 2009, Joel sold Top Gun Services Group to SMS (now Curvature) and became their EVP of Global Products and Services where he provided executive leadership for the innovations in maintenance support and hardware services. Upon leaving Curvature in late 2016, Joel has returned to Top Gun Technology as CEO to expand and enhance their value proposition in providing Mission Critical Support and IT lifecycle cost containment.
Joel is a veteran of the US Air Force and resides in Sunfish Lake, Minnesota with his wife and four sons.
Jamie Owens
President
Jamie Owens
With more than 28 years of experience in the IT hardware and maintenance industry, Jamie has served as the President of Top Gun Technology since 2010. Jamie is highly regarded as an industry “Top Gun” for his IBM zSystems global hardware trading and hands-on engineering involvement with all mainframe and attached peripherals which have resulted in a superior technological understanding of these systems.
Prior to joining Top Gun, Jamie was Vice President of Engineering for QualTech Services Group (QSGI), performing and managing mainframe configuration activities and responsible for maintenance service delivery for the mainframe.
Brian Kjera
VP of Product Development
Brian Kjera
Brian has over 15 years of experience in our industry and is responsible for the pricing and required service delivery solutions for all current products that we support. Brian’s proven sales acumen and technical depth allows him to successfully interface with all levels of current and prospective clients. Internally, his leadership drives our Research and Development Council regarding all new products and support services.
Prior to Top Gun, Brian was a Product Manager at SMS/Curvature for many years where he helped develop product and service sales training, sales strategies and marketplace positioning for specified OEM’s and platforms.
Sarah Murphy
Controller & Human Resources
Sarah Murphy
Sarah plays a significant role within our organization as our Controller and Human Resources Coordinator.
In Sarah’s Controller role she oversees all financial and accounting activities. She is responsible for budget management, financial analysis, payroll, accounts payable, and financial reporting. In Sarah’s HR role, she works in conjunction with our executive management team to improve our policy and procedure compliance and the development and maintenance of our HR practices.
Prior to Top Gun, Sarah held the same roles with QualTech International and QSGI. Sarah resides in Apple Valley, Minnesota with her husband and two daughters.
Donna Pizarro
SVP, Storage & Transition Services
Donna Pizarro
With more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry as a leader in the storage market, Donna has joined Top Gun Technology recently as Sr Vice President of Storage Solutions. Donna is highly regarded as a Subject Matter Expert within the global storage market and brings with her a few decades of global hardware trading, solution selling, technical sales engineering within the 5 major OEMs, business management and entrepreneurship within the storage market.
Donna has business experience in creating, building and selling two companies in the past which specialized in storage solutions and holds technical and marketing certifications within the IBM midrange, IBM mainframe and Dell-EMC midrange storage products. Prior to entering the storage marketplace Donna’s background was in programming and software technical support. Donna has joined Top Gun Technology to expand Top Gun’s presence in the storage marketplace both in hardware and maintenance services.
Mamie Sheen
SVP of Channel
Mamie Sheen
Mamie is responsible for the growth and execution of our indirect sales organization.
Over the past 20 years, Mamie has been recognized for meticulously solving client business problems, building collaborative teams and developing long-lasting relationships with clients and partners. She remains resolutely focused on helping our partners navigate the technology market efficiently and effectively in order to bring true costs savings and value to their clients by utilizing Top Gun Technology as their premier partner.
Mamie previously worked for Curvature and Mainline Systems where she developed her skills for creating solutions that offered compelling ROI’s to her clients.
Josh Bixby
VP of Operations
Josh Bixby
Joshua Bixby brings over 10 years of IT, operations and executive leadership experience to Top Gun Technology.
As Vice President of Operations, Josh’s leadership is key to our strategic direction and performance to sustain continued company growth and profitability. His team is responsible for delivering operational superiority and strengthening the systems and processes throughout that enable disruptive new business models, generate top-line value, and drive a competitive advantage.
Josh resides in Minnesota with his wife and two daughters.