Director of Finance and Contract Management

Mr. Jay Kester
Mr. Kester has been serving as Cherokee’s Director of Finance and Contract Management since 2002. Mr. Kester is one of three trustees for Cherokee’s Employee Stock Ownership Trust and an administrator to the company’s 401(k) plan. He is responsible for providing financial and accounting supervision to Cherokee’s growing infrastructure and furnishing administrative oversight to Cherokee’s contractual obligations.

Mr. Kester earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the College of William and Mary in 1995. He began his career as a financial analyst and spent several years as the liaison between Langley Air Force Base (AFB) procurement officials and Betac, Incorporated, his Arlington, Virginia-based employer.

At the end of the engagement with Langley AFB, he took on a similar role at M. C. Dean, Incorporated in Chantilly, VA.

Mr. Kester joined Cherokee in 1998 as its Contract Manager, responsible for the day-to-day contract administration and its financial oversight.

Mr. Kester took a brief leave of absence from Cherokee Information Services in 2000 to provide administrative and contractual support to the NATO NC3 Agency in Den Haag in The Netherlands. While supplementing the agency staff at NATO, he evaluated contractor proposal submissions, devised methods to reduce acquisition lead times, and helped to define and refine procurement practices and procedures.