30 Years. Six Agencies. One Firm Belief.

I started my career in the Army in the late 1980s maintaining and operating the PATRIOT Missile system — cutting my teeth on 1960s-era computers at a time when most people didn't know what a personal computer was. As technology evolved I evolved with it, helping units navigate the transition from legacy systems into the personal computing era. That experience gave me something most cybersecurity professionals never get — a deep understanding of technology from the ground up, not from a textbook.

Ten years of active duty service taught me something else that no certification ever could: how to operate under pressure with incomplete information and still make the right call. How mission drives everything. How operations can't stop for security — security has to serve the mission.

Those instincts still shape how I approach every engagement today.

In 1997 I joined the federal civilian workforce. Over the next eighteen years I worked across agencies you'd recognize and some you wouldn't — science, agriculture, law enforcement, small business, defense. Each one had a different mission, a different risk profile, and a different definition of what security meant in practice. I learned something new in every one of them.

During that same period I served in the Virginia Army National Guard as an IT Specialist — focused primarily on IT operations rather than cybersecurity. That distinction matters. Most security professionals think about protection in isolation. My operational IT background taught me how missions actually run, what downtime really costs, and why security that gets in the way of operations will always be worked around. Understanding both sides of that equation is rarer than you'd think.

In 2015 I stepped into the private sector for the first time — joining BNY Mellon, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, as Vice President and Senior IT Risk Officer. A completely different environment from anything I'd experienced in government — higher stakes, faster pace, and a masterclass in what enterprise-scale security looks like when the cost of failure is measured in billions. That role gave me executive-level experience managing risk at an institution that cannot afford to get it wrong.

In 2019 I launched True North Cyber Solutions. Over the next several years I held a defense contract while personally consulting with more than 30 small and mid-sized businesses — helping owners and security managers who didn't have the budget for an enterprise firm but had the same real-world risks. That combination of high-stakes defense work and practical SMB consulting is where my approach to this work was refined.

In 2024 I returned to federal service as the Chief Information Security Officer of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice — one of the most consequential law enforcement environments in the country. I stayed until I was eligible to retire in April 2025.

Today I'm based in Germany, supporting Air Force cybersecurity programs as a defense contractor while continuing to consult through True North Cyber Solutions with CISOs and security leaders at mid-sized organizations across the United States.

Thirty-plus years. Military, federal, financial services, defense, and small business. I've seen this work from almost every angle there is. That's what I bring to every engagement.