TracPlus is building more into its Mission Platform for the agencies and operators who run on it. Cheng joins to lead the engineering behind that work.
Auckland, New Zealand – 13 August 2026 – TracPlus, the operational data layer for aerial firefighting, has appointed Audrey Cheng as Chief Technology Officer. Cheng leads the engineering team behind the platform agencies and operators use to run and account for their aerial firefighting operations.
In recent years, TracPlus has taken on steadily more advanced technical work. The platform brings together operational data from a wide range of sources, increasingly alongside environmental and geospatial data, and turns it into something agencies and operators can act on.
“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,” says Todd O’Hara, CEO of TracPlus.
What TracPlus builds comes from working alongside agencies and operators, watching how they operate and listening to what they need. More is planned on that basis, extending what the company offers and adding processing and context to the TracPlus Mission Platform through its own algorithms. Delivering that is a significant part of Cheng’s remit.
Audrey is an executive technology leader with experience leading product, design, and engineering teams from startup phase through to global scale. She was the VP of Product at payments unicorn Pushpay, through hypergrowth, CPO at SnapComms (acquired by critical events company Everbridge), and CTO at Imagr. In 2019, she was recognised 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. What we are building is transparency into what factors into those decisions, so that experience isn’t the only thing carrying the weight. I’ve spent my career scaling technology teams that turn complexity into something usable. Here, that means building the layer that takes a million position reports a day and turns them into planning and operational decision support and reporting that agencies can trust, in the moment and season over season. I’ve already spent time with the teams on the ground, seeing firsthand the pressure they operate under, and can see that TracPlus is in the best position to help.
“I’m excited to join the team at TracPlus to support agencies and operators in the critical missions they run every season. We are building the technology that gives them confidence in the decisions they’re making. TracPlus has already earned the trust of agencies doing the hardest work in fire, and I’m looking forward to working with a team who are passionate about the mission and helping the people that rely on it.” — Audrey Cheng, Chief Technology Officer, TracPlus
“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. Audrey stepping into the CTO role means we keep building on what we have and extend it into the work we have planned. She has scaled technology teams in businesses where the platform carries real operational weight, including critical communications, and she has already made a real difference here in a short time. We are very happy to have her aboard,” says Todd.
About TracPlus
TracPlus provides the operational data layer for aerial firefighting. We capture, structure, and deliver the data that agencies and operators across 40+ countries rely on to understand what their contracted fleets actually did, defend how public money was spent, and make better decisions next season.
CAL FIRE, Australia’s national aerial firefighting program, and New Zealand’s FENZ run on the TracPlus Mission Platform as their system of record. So do hundreds of agencies and operators across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. Around 2,500 wildfire suppression aircraft are managed on the platform. We hold more than a billion flight records, growing by roughly a million every day.
Across 18+ years TracPlus has worked closely with the people doing the hardest work in fire, building the infrastructure that turns aviation data into operational accountability. As wildfire seasons grow longer and suppression costs face greater scrutiny, that work matters more each season.
About the Author
Dave Staddon - Publisher
Co-Founder of MDM Publishing Ltd. He has worked in fire publishing for close to 30 years. The company's portfolio includes International Fire Protection, International Fire Fighter, Asia Pacific Fire, Gulf Fire & UK Fire.
