TracPlus has appointed Audrey Cheng as chief technology officer as the company expands the engineering behind its Mission Platform for aerial firefighting agencies and operators.
TracPlus, the operational data layer used in aerial firefighting, said Cheng will lead the engineering team responsible for the platform that agencies and operators use to manage, coordinate, and account for aerial firefighting operations.
The appointment comes as TracPlus continues to build more technical capability into its platform, combining operational data from multiple sources with environmental and geospatial information to support faster, more informed decision-making during wildfire response.
“Aerial operations have grown more complex, and our technology has grown with them. We take in more than a million position reports a day, from real-time feeds and historical datasets that rarely talk to one another. That is today. We are adding more sources, more context, and more ways of putting it in front of the people who need it,” said Todd O’Hara, CEO of TracPlus.
According to the company, Cheng’s role will include advancing the TracPlus Mission Platform through additional data processing, context, and proprietary algorithms developed with feedback from agencies and operators working in active aerial firefighting environments.
Cheng brings executive technology leadership experience across product, design, and engineering teams, from startup growth through global scale. Her previous roles include vice president of product at Pushpay, chief product officer at SnapComms, which was acquired by Everbridge, and chief technology officer at Imagr. In 2019, she was recognized by Leading Women in Product ANZ for excellence in product leadership.
“Right now, so much of the best decision-making in agencies and operators sits in the experience of the people who’ve been doing this for decades, judgment built up season after season,” Cheng said. “What we are building is transparency into what factors into those decisions, so that experience isn’t the only thing carrying the weight.”
Cheng said the company’s work is focused on turning large volumes of operational data into trusted planning, operational decision support, and reporting tools for agencies and operators. “I’m excited to join the team at TracPlus to support agencies and operators in the critical missions they run every season,” she said. “We are building the technology that gives them confidence in the decisions they’re making.”
O’Hara said agencies are looking for operational intelligence rather than more disconnected data. “Agencies don’t want more data. They want it fused together with enough context to be useful in the moment and to shape how they prepare for next season,” he said. “Audrey stepping into the CTO role means we keep building on what we have and extend it into the work we have planned.”
