Biography

Interesting stuff about me (to me at least):

- I used to have hair. For real.

- I am a husband and a father or two. (The hairloss is unrelated.)

- I occasionally tweet.

- I am a tab "hoarder" (as in, I will have well over 100 tabs open in my browser on any given day -- and no I never read them.)

- I have written a couple of things. (That's quite possibly why you are reading this bio.)

- Formerly an introvert -- arguably still an introvert? -- but I really love to talk now. Let's chat some time shall we? I mean it. I'm giving you so many ice breakers right below here!

- I took improv classes and I have performed in an improv troupe. (That helped with the introversion previously mentioned.)

- I once almost bought a comedy club.

- I am extremely passionate about building community, mentoring, changing culture, raising awareness and education, and security/privacy in general.

-  I am an executive director of a statewide infosec meetup group called #misec, it's similar to an ISACA, ISSA, or ISC^2 meetup with a large focus on networking and building up our community. Various chapters all meet monthly.

- I have given a handful of talks on security related topics.

- I also brought three rival schools together (MSU, UM, OSU) to talk about risk, at EDUCAUSE '18. A very proud moment for me.

- I used to co-chair the IT Culture Committee as part of MSU IT.

- The top of my bald head and the corner of my left eye are visible for seriously 0.5 seconds in Batman v. Superman.

- I spent some time training K9s for the local city and county police.

- I am an okay friend who once in awhile teeters on being a great friend!

- My friends all seem to think I'm a great storyteller. If that's true, it's not what I set out to be, it just happens spur of the moment. It is a compliment I accept but feel quite humbled by.

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Less interesting stuff about me, but a large part of my life is defined by this:

- I have spent my entire career at Michigan State University dating back to 1997 when I began going to school to study journalism and political science. I had a plan to wrap it all up with law school.

- I wound up becoming a full time employee within central (academic) IT back in 2000

- I eventually earned a BA in Telecommunication in 2003 with an emphasis in Information Systems and Technology Management.

- Twenty of my 23.5 full time years have been in central IT. Even my two years ('98 - '00) as a student employee were also part of central IT.

- Previous jobs include managing Windows 95 and Windows 2000 across all the public computer labs; implementing print services and Linux kiosks; administering the primary email service on campus, going back to the labs, upgrading them to Windows 7; maintaining a number of media streaming services for course use.

- I made a transition out of Central IT into our Internal Audit department as an IT Auditor where I felt I was getting back in touch with my journalistic roots.

- I made a final transition back to our Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) team as part of MSU Information Security which has really made me feel like I've come full circle - I get to write AND dabble a bit in politics. Politics at least as far as the necessity of addressing risk and governance are concerned.

- I have survived numerous re-orgs, re-alignments, re-structurings, and administration changes. I am stronger and more knowledgeable for it. I truly believe we will all get through it together, everything.

- I have been and will continue to be thankful for everyone who has been a part of my life. Even the bad folks that aren't a part of it any longer have provided me with valuable lessons about myself.