This move marks the next chapter in Cornerstone's growth as a cognitive solutions partner to the Defense and Intelligence communities.

WASHINGTON, DC AND HERNDON, VA / ACCESS Newswire / May 19, 2026 / Cornerstone Defense today named Dave Cook as Chief Innovation Officer to lead the company's work on what Cook describes as the hardest part of AI: adoption. AI, advanced analytics, and emerging technologies are reshaping how Defense and Intelligence agencies plan, resource, and execute their missions, and Cornerstone is closing the gap between capability and use.

About Dave Cook

Dave Cook is a technology leader with over 30 years of experience in data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence. He currently supports AI and ML programs across the U.S. Intelligence Community and the Department of War, and he teaches AI at the University of Maryland and Wake Forest University. A lifelong entrepreneur, Cook co-founded the Training Data Project in 2023 to advance AI value science, a discipline focused on quantifying and measuring the impact and ROI of AI in government and commercial programs. As a 19-time Marine Corps Marathon finisher, he views AI as a marathon, not a sprint. Cook serves on D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's AI Advisory Group and holds degrees from Northwestern University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland. He has published multiple refereed papers on AI and is a contributing author to the Amazon #1 bestseller AI: Work Smarter and Live Better Within Civilization's Next Big Disruption. He lives in Washington DC with his wife, Noami DeVore.

Cook steps into the role at a company that is growing its capability without losing what made it valuable. The same close-to-the-mission discipline that earned Cornerstone its reputation in Defense and Intelligence now applies to AI value science, ROI measurement, architecture and frontier models. Cornerstone aims to work with agencies to address the hard questions of how they should evaluate, optimize, and scale their AI investments.

About Cornerstone Defense

Cornerstone Defense is a cognitive solutions partner to the U.S. Defense and Intelligence communities. The company combines mission expertise with capabilities in AI, human-machine teaming, cognitive infrastructure, and AI training and learning programs to help customers move faster, decide better, and deliver on the missions that matter. A Small Business headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, Cornerstone supports customers from locations across DC, Maryland, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Hawaii, and California, with technical foundations in cloud architecture, enterprise engineering, systems and network security, and software development.

The company's teams sit alongside customers on some of the most demanding programs in the Intelligence Community and the Department of War. The work spans systems engineering and architecture, secure compute and cloud operations, cyber, space and on-orbit operations, and machine learning and AI. This expertise is applied across mission domains from contested logistics and supply chain optimization to acquisition, staffing, and the modernization of how government builds, evaluates, and sustains AI capability. Cook joins the Executive team to lead and evolve the next phase of that work.

The Next Chapter

"Naming Dave as Chief Innovation Officer is a defining step for Cornerstone," said Pat Palmer, Chief Executive Officer of Cornerstone Defense. "We've earned a strong reputation by staying close to the mission and delivering. As we move forward, we're taking everything we already do well and building on it for our customers and our country. Dave's track record across the Intelligence Community, his work on national AI strategy, and his commitment to AI education and staying close to the customer line up with where this company is going. This is the next chapter, and we're ready for it."

Built for Speed and Proximity

Cornerstone is built for speed and proximity to the mission. Three disciplines hold the work together, and all of them spur adoption: rapid prototyping that turns ideas into working systems on the timelines the mission demands, training and learning that builds the expertise to use those systems well, and research and innovation that keeps Cornerstone ahead of where the mission is going. From that foundation, the company is investing further in human-machine teaming and cognitive infrastructure.

"I'm proud and humbled to be leading this next chapter with Pat and the executive team," said Cook. "Cornerstone is going through its own AI transformation, and we're doing the same work alongside our customers. Building AI is hard. Adoption is the last mile, and it can be the part that matters most. After three decades as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner in this field, I've learned that successful adoption depends less on large scale use and more on people building real expertise in what AI is, how to use it, and how to optimize it. Learning, not just adopting, will be how America keeps its edge."

For more information, visit www.cornerstonedefense.com.

Media Contact:

Virginia Blair
v.blair@csdef.com

SOURCE: Cornerstone Defense