Do you know your threats, and can you benchmark your OT cybersecurity posture? The 6th annual Dragos Year in Review Executive Summary gives you just the highlights from this year’s report to help you stay ahead of cyber attacks and protect your business operations in 2023.
Patrick Gillespie is a service-disabled combat veteran. He struggled during his transition from the military. He founded Boots 2 Cyber to help veterans during and after transition. His vision for Boots 2 Cyber is to help lower veteran unemployment and help fill the cyber talent shortage by creating cybersecurity careers for veterans to thrive in.
Patrick began his career in the security industry in 2005. His professional experience includes information technology, vulnerability and risk assessments, penetration testing, security architecture, as well as incident response. A veteran of the United States Army, Patrick worked in Military Intelligence. Patrick then spent the first eleven years of his civilian career architecting and building high availability network infrastructure for global manufacturing companies.
Prior to joining GuidePoint Security in March 2022, Patrick worked for a global consulting firm where he led consultants from multiple countries to help Fortune 10, Fortune 50, and smaller organizations identify risks present via vulnerability assessments, network penetration testing, application penetration testing, and cloud compliance reviews. Prior to that, he was the director of an offensive network security team that primarily worked with financial institutions. He worked with executives and the sales team to create a Red Team program and he also helped lead the Digital Forensics and Incident Response program.
Patrick earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Thomas Edison State University and a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems (Concentration: Security) from Boston University and holds several certifications to include CISSP, OSCP, and CCNP.
He is also on the Board of Advisors for Boots to Books and Whole Cyber Human Initiative.
Eric is a recognized leader building highly resilient and performant solutions with security, privacy and compliance requirements integrated within the solution. Driving cutting edge solutions with embedded market winning compliance requirements into high performance solutions that solve customer business problems. He is skilled at engendering confidence, trust, and performance with internal and external teams to deliver within specified timeframes. He builds security and technology programs that align with business strategy and connect across the organization to drive security and technology programs that move the needle for achieving strategic objectives.
1. Startup veteran – Four times designing IT/Operations/Security from scratch.
2. Designed and built real-time data analytics product delivering $18MM ARR in the first year.
3. Rapid scaling – IT/Operations/Security that enabled 5x headcount growth over a 2 year period
4. Builds Governance/Security programs – ISO 27001, HITRUST, HIPAA, COBIT, and ITIL
5. International Scale – Driving results in Europe, Middle East, North America, APAC, and ANZ
6. Sought after trainer/speaker internationally – speaking and training CISOs globally
7. Co-author CCISO Body of Knowledge and Published Author
Cindy Gaddis, a U.S. Army Veteran, speaker, and co-author of “The Veterans Business Guide,” is an experienced executive with demonstrated success in winning, executing, and keeping over $1 billion in federal contracts in the information technology and services industries.
Cindy has 18 years’ experience winning federal government contracts; from marketing, business development, capture, and proposal development, to contract and project management. She is a PMI.org certified Project Management Professional (PMP), National Contract Management Association (NCMA), and United States Army Association (AUSA) lifetime member.
Chimeria Gonzalez is a service-disabled veteran and mother of three. After separating from the Air Force in 2007 she pursued a career in reality and opened her own firm where she honed the tools the military provided and allowed her charismatic personality to shine. Eventually, her love of technology won and she went back to school to learn more about computers and how they worked. Her diverse background, hunger for education, acute problem-solving skills, and charismatic leadership have brought her to the forefront of cybersecurity where she motivates and encourages others to be their best. She currently volunteers with Boots to Books as the Director of Programs where she continues to better the lives of transitioning veterans as well as Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS) where she advocates to bring gender equality to the Cyber realm.
Paul is a retired 20-year US Navy Information Systems Technology Chief with 21-years of experience in IT and Cybersecurity. He possesses a comprehensive background in executive-level planning, and managing IT and Cyber Security teams, and program management derived from both domestic, maritime, and global operations. Has led 15 Navy Warfighting Ships and 176 Information Security Managers and Network Security Engineers to support over 7,000 enterprise users, enforced a 95% patch management and hardening efficiency for five years straight with less than 24 hours of critical service downtime. As well as helped realign budget for personnel by forecasting Life Cycle Ends and computer system upgrades. After retiring from the Navy, he worked for Stephenson Technologies Corporation where he worked on federal applied research and development projects.
He stood up a 38-person Cyber Protection Team and managed a $6M training budget that led the team to be fully qualified a year ahead of schedule and to lead three large-scale incident response operation to which was awarded the Department of the Navy IT Team Excellence Award for 2017.
He has conducted vulnerability threat research and exploitation on Systems of Systems, xIoT, IoT, and OT environments. This includes hunting vulnerabilities within medical devices, automotive systems, home security systems, and IoT devices.
His dedication to the success of others has led him to found Whole Cyber Human Initiative Inc, a 501 (c)(3) built on workforce development research that built a curriculum based on the National Institute for Cybersecurity Education foundations. Actively volunteers with Vets2Industry, Npower, Evolutionary Skills Development Network Discord, and Vicious Vineyards Discord.
He has spoken on workforce development at GonCon Summit 2020, GrimmCon 2021, Cyber Future Foundation Summit 2021, Cyber Talent Week 2022, CyberNow Summit 2022, and selected to present IoT Exploitation at Women in Cyber Security Phoenix 2022.
Career is supported by CompTIA CASP, Security +, Disaster and Recovery Response Manager, ISACA Certified Data Privacy Security Engineer, SANS GFCAT, and DOL Project Officer certifications as well as recipient of multiple personal achievements awards: Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal (3 awards), Navy Achievement Medal (4 awards), and the Navy Good Conduct Medal (5 awards), Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, and Department of the Navy IT Excellence Award 2017.
CDR Thomas Gill, USCG, Retired
Tom Gill is a service-disabled veteran. After retiring in 2021, he struggled to find his post military path. Deciding not to go back to flying, he started to pursue his love for technology and began studying Cyber Security. When this seemed to not go in the direction he foresaw, he focused on his skills as a leader and obtained his Project management Professional (PMP), Professional SCRUM master (PSM) and Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt certifications to help visionaries make their dreams a reality as a Chief of Staff.
Tom’s military highlights include serving aboard the cutter CGC TAHOMA (WMEC 908) as Deck Watch Officer, graduating Navy Flight Training in Pensacola, FL, 9 years as a HH-65 pilot, 5 years as a HC-130 Hercules pilot, the Coast Guard Liaison Officer/DHS Attaché to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos and USCG District 7 Deputy Director of Resource Management where he ran all the programs and project for IT, Administration, Finance and Facilities for the USCG’s largest district.
He is currently volunteering as a Senior Project Manager for Boots to Books and co-founding Boots 2 Cyber to help other veterans in their transition.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy and a Masters of Science in Homeland Security from the National School of Quality Management.