Brian is a military combat veteran with 20 years of experience in the Information Technology field.  After spending two tours post 9/11, he started his IT career as a copper and fiber installer within the public education sector for Catawba County Schools.  From there, he quickly realized his passion for everything IT.  He quickly spent his extra time mastering other technologies like, VMware, Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, security, and networking.  His ambitions and persistence ultimately led him to becoming the leader of the engineering team, services, and security for the school district. 

      Brian left the public sector and entered the private sector for a government contractor.  From there, he led a staff responsible for a global aerospace company.  Working with government entities, he quickly was required to hone his cybersecurity skills.  After becoming the Information Systems Security Manager (ISSM), he quickly found himself immersed in security frameworks, assessments, and audits.  He worked with NISPOM and NIST frameworks securing both the unclassified and classified assets.  This was while leading a team, developing policies, securing budgets, and all else that came along. 

       Later, he entered the Managed Services sector where he worked a virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) for multiple companies in the southeast.  He worked with IT and company leadership to develop strategy, budgets, security plans, and roadmaps.  In addition, this led him to becoming the point person through cyber incidents with customers where he led the incident response engagements. 

       For the last several years, he has worked in a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and vCISO capacity.  Creating policies, security consulting, incident response engagement, security assessments, and driving awareness to both customers and employees.  Brian has also worked with customers to navigate cyber incidents and ransomware.  He uses his experiences coming through the engineering ranks to sitting at the table with C-level executives to drive security conversations to enhance awareness and initiate change.  

Brian has carried various engineering and security certifications along the way to include:

• ISC2 - CISSP

• Cisco CCNA, CCNA Security

• Microsoft MCITP on Exchange and SQL

• VMware VCP

• Linux+

• Network+

• Bicsi Installer

• Novell CNA