Day 1

Joanne Thomka is the Director of the National Traffic Law Center of the National District Attorneys Association in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to joining NDAA, Mrs. Thomka was a Senior Assistant District Attorney for the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office in Syracuse, New York. She was the Bureau Chief of the DWI Unit. Mrs. Thomka also previously served as a Program Counsel at the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).

Mrs. Thomka is a member of several committees which pertain to traffic safety: Transportation Research Board’s Traffic Law Enforcement Committee, National Sheriff’s Association’s Traffic Safety Committee, Highway Safety Coalition, and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation’s DWI Working Group, She is also the recipient of the 2013 J. Stannard Baker Award, presented by the National Sheriffs’ Association and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Recognition for Outstanding Achievement in Highway Safety and a 2016 Public Service Award from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for protecting communities and enhancing traffic safety through legal information and training to the Nation’s criminal justice community.

Nelson is the Executive Director of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), having previously served 3 years as NDAA’s Director of Government Affairs bringing comprehensive experience across Congress, federal agencies, and the criminal justice system stakeholder community. Prior to NDAA, Nelson served as the Director of Government Affairs for The Charles Group in Washington, DC, where he represented the Major County Sheriffs of America (MCSA), an organization representing elected sheriffs from counties with populations over 500,000 people. Nelson also brings federal agency experience as he spent time in the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. With that experience, he brings insight into crisis response programs and emerging technologies in the first responder community.

Meera Joshi serves as the Acting Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Most recently Joshi served as General Manager of the New York office of Sam Schwartz Transportation Consultants and visiting scholar at NYU’s Rudin Center for Transportation policy. Previously, Joshi served as chief regulator of New York City’s for hire vehicle industry. Under her leadership, New York City mandated the reporting of granular trip data from large app operators, which informed landmark data-driven safety reforms, enforceable pay standards for drivers and meaningful access to service for the disabled. Joshi was also an executive manager in city agencies charged with oversight of the New York City Police Department and Department of Corrections.

Tara Jenswold has served as the Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor for the State of Wisconsin since 2003, and an Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Litigation Unit at the Wisconsin Department of Justice since 2009.  In this role, Ms. Jenswold provides training and technical assistance to prosecutors and law enforcement.  In addition to her training and outreach responsibilities, Ms. Jenswold prosecutes complex vehicular homicide cases throughout the state.  

Sergeant Mike Marquardt has been a law enforcement officer with the Wisconsin State Patrol for 22 years.  He is trained as a crash reconstructionist and has been practicing full time since 2004.  Currently he is a supervisor in charge of the WSP’s Technical Reconstruction Unit (TRU).  TRU investigators respond to serious injury and fatality vehicle crashes across the state.  In Mike’s career, he has investigated over 1000 of these types of cases.  He continues as an active investigator within this unit, and Mike teaches and presents on the field of crash reconstruction both at the Wisconsin State Patrol Academy and at conferences and gatherings like this today.

Cheri Daniels is the CDL Coordinator for the California Department of Motor Vehicles since November 2017.  She is responsible for all activities related to the occupational Licensing industry and commercial licensing.  CA DMV has over 600 thousand commercial drivers. Prior to this position, she was the Headquarters Region Administrator in the Driver Safety Branch.  She has held various positions in program administration and human resources throughout her 31-year career in the State of California government.  Since March 2020, the pandemic has prompted CA DMV to expand the online services, which included upload the commercial medicals.  There has been various enhancements and projects to leverage technology to increase the online services for customers.

Cheri has Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from the University of Phoenix.

Cheri fosters collaboration with management to keep open lines of communication to develop a cohesive team and proactive steps to encourage and motivate staff for upward mobility and succession planning.