David K. Edwards is President and CEO of ARKS Enterprises, Inc. Mr. Edwards founded ARKS in 2016 to provide executive consulting to industry and engineering and technical services for the commercial and defense maritime markets. Before founding ARKS, Mr. Edwards was President and COO of W R Systems, Ltd., a systems engineering business serving international commercial and defense customers. He is a US Navy veteran and served in the first Gulf War. Mr. Edwards studied at the University of South Carolina and is considered a subject matter expert in position, navigation, and timing (PNT).

Under his leadership, he and his organizations have won the coveted International Seatrade Maritime Award, The American Psychological Association’s Most Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award for North America, The Governor’s Technology Innovation Award, and the Old Dominion University, Batten College of Engineering and Technology (ODU BCET) Leadership Award.

A CIVIC Leadership Institute graduate, he has been featured on CNBC and published in the Joint Services Data Exchange (JSDE) Journal for Guidance, Navigation, and Control. Mr. Edwards is serving his second term as President of the Board of Trustees for the Old Dominion University Research Foundation. For more than fifteen years, he chaired the ODU BCET Advisory Board, and served more than a decade for the Greater Norfolk Corporation Executive Committee. He has also served on the Executive Committees for the Governors Workforce Development board, Hampton Roads Technology Council, the Virginia Maritime Association and was a charter member of the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center (VMASC) advisory board.