Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, has recently hired Ryan Hughes as principal consultant of cloud services in the firm's Fairfax, Virginia, office. In his new role, Hughes will be responsible for designing and delivering innovative cloud solutions to Dewberry's local, state, and federal government, as well as commercial clients.

Hughes brings more than ten years of experience in cloud computing, GIS, and IT management services to Dewberry. He was previously the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Skygone, a geospatially focused cloud computing service provider, where he helped create the GIS industry's first cloud computing marketplace website featuring hundreds of instantly deployable and fully configured GIS applications running on the cloud.

While at Skygone, Hughes was an integral partner of Dewberry's cloud services team, and assisted in the firm's pursuit and award of several large contracts; most recently and significantly, the Western States Contracting Alliance's (WSCA) Public Cloud Hosting contract in August 2012.

The WSCA Public Cloud Hosting contract provides the ability for all U.S.-based governments, including local, state, regional, and federal government entities, to aggregate cloud usage together in one pool, resulting in volume price discounts from the world's leading cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services.

Before Skygone, Hughes was deputy business manager at Esri.

"The opportunity to be able to offer all levels of U.S. government amazingly resilient cloud services at price points previously thought impossible, is truly an honor to take part in. I am humbled by the opportunity and look forward to serving governments with the robust, cost-effective IT solutions they deserve," says Hughes.

Hughes holds a Master of Business Administration degree in project management from the Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in geography, with a minor in data analysis from Bowling Green State University. Recognized as a global thought-leader in the cloud computing market, Hughes was awarded the CA Technologies' Cloud Accelerator Award in 2011.