Fireside Chat w/Macy Dennis, Partner/CSO @ Ember River

Welcome to our Fireside Chat. If it's the first time you've joined us, this is our monthly Fireside Chat. We are privileged to have a guest today. Join us by the name of Macy Dennis, who is the partner and CSO at Ember River. And we'll get into Macy and his background in a little bit. Just want to lay down a few ground rules. If you are joining us and you are in the audience and you are a vendor in the audience, we ask that you please don't use this as an opportunity to sell us. We will open up for Q&A. About 30, 45 minutes or so into the conversation and you'll be able to join us and ask questions. Let's use this as an opportunity to really get to know our guests, ask some really good thought-provoking questions, maybe some thought leadership questions or some questions around our guests' background. So we ask that you please respect that. We do welcome vendors, obviously, to the conversation. Our thoughts and opinions, for the most part, are our own and do not represent our current or prior employer. So we ask that you do keep that in mind. If you do want to quote us or quote us in the news or quote us online or Twitter, we just ask that you check in with the speaker that you want to quote before you actually do so. Let's have fun. This is the middle of the week. It's a Wednesday. It's usually a time for us to really let our hair loose and just have a good time and have a conversation. I know it's probably been very stressful wherever you are. So let's really use this as an opportunity to have a great time. I'm happy to be back. I know it's been a while since we've had this particular fireside chat. So I'm specifically happy to be back. And I know my co-hosts are as well. And look, we are very privileged to have Macy join us. So I'm just going to go quickly around the room. We'll introduce ourselves. Macy, we'll leave you for last. And then we'll get started into the conversation, if that's okay with everybody. So without further ado, I am Tomas Maldonado. I'm the CISO at the NFL. Katie, over to you. Thank you, Tomas. Welcome, everybody. I'm Katie Hanahan. I've been in the industry for a long time, but happy to announce I just joined an advisory board today. I just wanted to call out Vision and Voice. I see George Comedi is in the audience. Lisa Beth has been a speaker at those events. I'm going to be posting later on today the event that will be happening at RSA. And Russell and Tomas are both big supporters of this organization as well, but really happy to announce that's the newest position that I have. I haven't updated my LinkedIn yet, but I'm really excited to be a part of that program. Over to you, Russell. Well, couldn't let me be the first to congratulate you. This is awesome news, Katie. I'm so happy for you. Every once in a while we hear about folks get promoted or get a job or get influenced by our time together. And Fireside Jet, and now you're one of those folks. This is fantastic. I love it so much and love being here. Hey, Russell Eubanks, I've been teaching with SANS, work with IONS, and the last three years been running my company, Security Ever After, doing virtual CISO things. And, like Tomas, so happy to be back together again. It's like a big family virtual reunion and looking forward to this evening. But most important is I get to throw it over to my good friend, Lisa Beth Lentini-Walker. Over to you. Hey, hey, everyone. It is Wednesday, and it's a Fireside Wednesday, which makes it one of the best Wednesdays of all. My name is Lisa Beth Lentini-Walker. As you can probably tell, I am pretty excited to be back with everyone tonight. My background is I am assistant general counsel at Marketo, which is a fintech company based out of Oakland. I also run a compliance ethics and corporate governance consulting firm as the founder called Lumen Worldwide Endeavors. In my free time, I love to speak and connect with people about how we can all be more effective in the roles that we have. And so tonight, I'm thrilled to be having this conversation and connecting with all of you. And with that, I'll throw it over to Tomas for the lead up to our great conversation with Macy tonight. Thanks, Lisa Beth, and thanks, co-hosts, and congratulations, Katie. I forgot to plug our firesidechat.live website where you can catch all of our prior shows. So if you haven't checked that out, we encourage you to go to firesidechat.live, and you can listen in on any of the shows that you've missed, and you can actually listen to the recording of this one. Just give us a few days, and we'll post it up online. You can listen to that. The other thing I should probably mention as well is we do have a LinkedIn Live group, which is called Fireside Chat. So you can click on that link, follow that link. We'll use that to post any new upcoming shows that we'll have. We do have guests scheduled for the next few months, so it should be a really, really good conversation. So without further ado, look, I want to get to our guest this evening, and that's Macy. Macy, why don't you take some time to introduce yourself, and you can take as long as you want in going through your introduction. And while you're doing so, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you and your origin story? Okay. Well, first of all, I also want to say congratulations, Katie, real quick, because I sit on a bunch of different advisory boards, and I can't tell you it's a benefit to you, but it's even more so giving back to the community. So I just have to applaud you for that, for taking the time to do it, because I also know it also does take a good amount of time. So, and thank you, everybody, for inviting me to come out to the fireside chat and participate in this. I'm a big believer in giving back to the community and making sure that whatever we're doing out here is pushing other people forward. So, and I see things like this as really driving that. So, again, thank you very much, everybody. So, a little bit about my origin. I started out in law enforcement. I worked on gang task force. I spent a lot of time trying to help people. And then I moved over into IT and networking and security. And the interesting part was I started getting pulled right back into law enforcement. I've done a lot of work with the IC. I've done a lot of work with Department of Justice and many different agencies. My kind of background following from that was going into building out security teams and held many security leadership roles at organizations like American Express, some couple different clear defense contractors, as well as biotechs and even satellite providers. So, I feel like I've almost been in almost every vertical. And I don't think it really makes a difference in what vertical you're in because you deal with the same challenges no matter what. It just may be different, I would say, attackers focused on you or different struggles when it comes to leadership. You drive in certain things within, you know, going from, I'll give an example, going from financial into biotech. Financial, we had a hammer. It was always the regulators and everything else and we could get things done. You go into biotech and it's like working in a university. You have to almost open everything up so everyone can be creative. And it allows an individual, whether it's a CIO or a CISO, to really be able to understand how to help people. Because when it comes down to it, anybody in security, your job is to enable the business to be more productive and safe. I had one engineer at one point in my career that said, our job is to make sure nobody cuts themselves with a kitchen knife. But they still get to cook in the kitchen. So it was one thing that, to me, it kind of simplified some things that you're really trying to drive how you can help others. So a little bit of background on the personal side. Married 25 years this year to an amazing woman that I met in college. We've got two kids, one in college, double majoring in engineering and theater. A little bit of left brain, right brain. And my other one is a junior getting ready to choose her school. So, and we are very much outdoors people, hiking, surfing, snorkeling, you name it. We live by the ocean. So that's kind of our happy place. So with that, I think that kind of gives my story. Well, actually, Tomas, before you jump back in, maybe just about a year ago, I took a step back from the organization I was working with. And decided to actually go and start my own company, something I had always dreamed about that, honestly, I didn't think would ever occur. I ended up quitting the organization I was at. I had an agency that had offered me a contract to be able to go start this company. And I started with a couple amazing peers and friends in the industry for decades. Several of them former intelligence officers, a couple other of them just entrepreneurs that kind of took me under their wing. Because I'll be honest, I'm really good at building teams and securing organizations, but I was not sure how to start a business. And this combination came together where we literally, I'm so proud of what we've built just in the first year that we've been able to do. And we've handled clients from DOD and military to commercial. And we really provide security services and engineering services is really what we kind of focus on. But I take a servant leadership heart and sort of really trying to lead and give back to those that we're taking care of, that we're working for. And I always feel that I always work for not only my employees, but my clients versus being a CISO that's up there trying to more manage, if that makes sense. So I think that was a little bit of a roundabout way. But Tomas, you're good enough? No, that's great. Look, I think we're just scratching the surface and getting started and scratching the surface on learning more about you. And, you know, what I'll say specifically before I hand it over to Katie, and if I may, I'll ask you a question, because I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed when people have ideas and they want to start their own sort of company. And I'm lucky because I get to chat with a few of those people on a periodic basis, you know, with Russell running his own company and Lisa Beth as well. But for you, you know, and obviously I'm an advisor for several companies, so I get to meet with startup founders and the likes. But I'm always curious, and you can probably tell from that curiosity, which is why I always ask the origin story question. I'm always curious as to what motivated you to get to that point where you're like, you know what, I want to solve this business problem. Can you lean in a little bit more there and tell us a little bit more of your thought process? Yeah, and I realized I left a couple things also out of my background, which maybe will help answer it. So, like I said, I did the law enforcement side. I did the commercial cybersecurity as the CISO and running different teams. But I left out something I realized. I spent six years. I worked for Optiv, and I also worked for a company called Evotech, where I helped build their virtual CISO and security services practices. So I kind of got to sit on the dark side and the good side, if that makes sense. I hate to say it that way. And I think what it really came out was, back to your question, is I had a dream to really – every place I worked, the grass is never greener on the other side. And you always have your frustrations. I used to say that even though I know I'm really good at security, my strengths were getting work done and getting things approved. You needed something, go up to the ELT of the board. I was the guy to go do it because I could – I'd do my reconnaissance on the people I was dealing with, and I'd always do them a favor first. And maybe it's the East Coaster in me, but you always learn how to scratch someone else's back before you ask them for help with something for you. And I struggled with never having the right organization that could help and deliver what they really said they were going to do. And I know almost any founder or company owner can say that they do that. But I would actually rather have our organization walk away from work than to go do something that we don't have the skills to do. And the transparency, I think, is probably the bigger thing that I really – I thrive on and is one of the mottos for our company. I mean, we have – we strive on integrity. Most of us are either former law enforcement, intelligence community, or military. You know, one of my partners is a disabled combat veteran and an intelligence officer. He was actually my handler for, geez, over a decade for an agency. And having the moment to go start this, I'll actually dig right into the story. And I apologize because I'm going to be a little vague on some things. I supported a program, and I'll just say for the government, for a long time, which actually had hosted my clearances. And I didn't get paid for it or anything else. It was more of an – we'll call it an advisory role. And I was in there meeting with the same individuals because after, you know, let's see, 15-plus years, everybody becomes like family. And I was kind of griping and complaining about a position where I was and decided that I really just – I was frustrated. But I wasn't going to do anything because I didn't have the guts to go do something. And it was where my decades of giving back, again, and this is not for me, but this is just the way I think that people really need to be. It's paying it – I paid it forward enough that someone paid it back to me, and I wasn't even looking for it. And that's where that contract allowed me to actually go build my dream, which was, like I said, we started it a year ago this past February. So almost a year and a couple months now. And the success we've already seen – and like I said, we started off and we were mostly an incubator solving problems, but nobody wants to pay incubators. And then we went into DOD and defense because that's some of our strong suits. And we got some really good work with, you know, the Navy and with some different agencies and clear defense contractors. And our commercial roots just kept coming back where individuals were like, well, can you come help us with this? So it was funny because I still consider us a defense contractor that does engineering and services because we have cryptographers on our staff. We have ICS and SCADA engineers. I mean, you name it. It really is engineering heavy. It just happens to be engineers that do services versus where some organizations – and I'm sorry, I'm not trying to just talk about this org. But it really has built my dream spot. And when I realized after I left the organization I was at and I've been working – and I'm delivering. I'm turning wrenches because that's what you have to do is start a business. But I have to tell you, when people come up to you, CISOs that are your peers or your family members say they've never seen you so happy even though you're working probably twice as hard, that means something. And like I said, Thomas, I don't think I ever could have gotten to this because I didn't feel like I had – I'll say it. I don't think I had the guts to go do it. I mean, I sit on boards both as paid boards and advisories. I teach at Point Loma Nazarene University as well with a CISO buddy of mine. We've been building programs for their bachelor's degree out there for over six years. But I have never gotten such passion and just happiness out of what I do other than my family, which is my number one priority. So, sorry. That was a long answer. But you told me we have a good amount of time to talk and chat. So I rambled a little. No, this is fine. And this is – look, this is your time to share, right? So we sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your story and your journey. And I can appreciate everything that you just said. So I'm going to pass it over to Katie. But just really quick, if you just joined us, we're joined this evening by Macy Dennis, who is the partner and CSO at Ember River. If you can click on his face, which is the beauty of LinkedIn, you can click on his face and view his profile and see what he's been able to do. If you just joined us, we'll open it up for questions from the audience in about – I'll say in about another 20 minutes or so. So, Katie, over to you. Yeah, thank you. And, Macy, I have to say, I was moved to tears. Not calling tears, but I'm choked up because I think that what you said about your family and friends and peers are saying to you about happiness and the journey that got you to this place. I mean, that's what we all want to achieve. And then when you equate that to, you know, obviously your family being, you know, first and foremost in your life. I mean, I'm honestly moved. And also intrigued. Yeah. Thank you. And I'm intrigued because I also love my family very much. And I also love my work. And I also have a deep, you know, sense of belonging in this community. But I wonder sometimes, you know, if maybe I need a little bit more of the guts. I have the grit. The guts, right? When you said that, you know, I circled the word happy and then you said guts. You finally had the guts. And I just, you know, early on you said something about servant leadership that was very much, you know, in the fundamentals of it sounds like who you are as a human being, you know. And anytime anyone has served our government in any way, thank you, you know, for your service in that capacity. And it doesn't surprise me that you would approach things in that way. I would love to dig into what happened to give you the guts now. And it may be a story and it might build, you know, on multiple experiences. But what is it that was the trigger for you? And thank you again for digging in because, again, like I said, I'm moved. No, no worries. Well, let me, one thing you mentioned, the servant leadership. I have to touch on that again real quick because I ended up going and getting my master's at USD. And the program's actually, I have to give them a little highlight. The MSCL program, it's a partnership with the Kim Blanchard Company. And I didn't realize my leadership capability or who I was until I went through that program. And I'll never forget Ken and Margie Blanchard. Really, they sat us down and the cohort was great because it had, I had someone from the Air Force pararescue in my class. I had a CIO, I had a CEO, I had an attorney. I mean, there were people from all, it felt like, walks of life. And they had us develop our leadership point of view. And I still look back and I realized that it was kind of like really dug at my heart because I'm like, I don't know what it is. My dad's a former aerospace engineer and a former Marine, combat Marine. And a lot of things have been driven into me my whole life. And then I realized it was my grandfather. And I thought of a picture that I have actually up on my office wall, which shows a picture of a true, a manager sits up there and you see a bunch of people pulling a rope and rocks at down below. And the manager's just pointing at them, telling them what to do. And a leader, no matter whether or not it's a muddy trench and they're in a three-piece suit, they jump down and they're helping actually pull. And they're doing the work. And when I realized that, I started realizing what I learned from my grandfather who used to build Texaco oil refiners. Like his job was literally to go around the country and set up these refiners. Once they got up and running, their family would move and go to the next one. And when I look at that and some of the stories that I got from my grandfather, that really kind of shaped me. And I actually wrote my thesis for my master's on my father and my grandfather and their leadership qualities and how I could tell that that was what drove things for me. Because I'm definitely, and don't get me wrong, I may be a leader and I drive a lot at work. But I also married an amazing woman who's an alpha female. So when it's at home, there's that partnership of that leadership. And Katie, I hope I didn't get too far to the right on your question. But that support system and knowing who you are and then knowing that you have that support system both within the industry and at home. I think when I got that opportunity to, like I said, that movement where I was told, listen, we're going to give you a contract to cover you for your first year to go try this. I knew that if I wasn't successful and this didn't work, I could go get another CISO job. And I don't want to sound cocky, but I know for a fact because any of the CISO jobs I've had, I've never applied for. Someone called me and said, hey, we need somebody. So-and-so recommended you. Would you at least talk to us? And I'll be honest, I never thought I'd leave American Express in Phoenix. And I had a biotech. That's how I ended up in San Diego where I am now. And they called me and at first when they said biotech, I said I wasn't interested because I didn't think I'd ever leave Amex. It was an amazing job. But I'll be honest, I was not a big fan of Arizona. And I'm sorry if I offend anybody. I just, the heat was too much for me. And I'm a beach person, as I said earlier. But when they said San Diego, I said tell me more. And I swear that that drove so many different things when I got out here. But having those guts, I think, you know, I think the good Lord that I believe dropped something in my plate that said, you've done so much that I'm putting something to kind of give you that extra hump, that extra leap over that hump. And honestly, I just truly believe that that was put there so that I could, you know, take that chance. And like I said, I don't regret it at all. And don't get me wrong. But myself and my three partners probably spent two years sitting at coffee shops every Saturday, which my wife knew exactly what we were doing, the fact that we were sitting there trying to figure out to do something. But she also knew that I wasn't going to go start something where I couldn't support the family. So the fact that we had those two years of planning and then somebody finally just dropped something in my lap that gave me the ability to take that risk, I think I would have been really stupid if I hadn't. And I kind of wish I had done it earlier. But I also don't think I was ready or the timing was right. And so far, like I said, it's been a blast. So, Katie, that was a long answer. Sorry. That was beautiful. It was a beautiful answer and so nuanced and inspiring. And I think what, you know, what I find, you know, what you said at the very end, too, is, you know, guts isn't just running up to the edge of a cliff and jumping. No. You know, it was you measured and you made sure you had the right equipment and you made sure that, you know, the conditions were right to move forward. And I think in business, especially when we're balancing, you know, what has become, you know, a global, you know, world in this industry particularly, it puts a drain on us as leaders because, you know, we're really a 24-7 operation. So I appreciate that. Yeah. The caveat with, you know, guts wasn't just a blind leap. It was timing. And it was the universe and preparation and the right team as well. So, yeah, with that, thank you so much, Macy, for answering that question. And you can answer your questions as long-winded as I could listen to you all day. I'm writing notes. I really appreciate you. Again, I'll pass it over to Russell. Thank you. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Macy, I knew this would be a fantastic interview. I haven't known you for a long time and had many conversations with you over the years in person and virtual. And this has just been amazing, this first 30 minutes of conversation. So you said something, Macy, something earlier. But I know who you are, and I know that you've also opened up doors, and particularly in the CISO community in San Diego, if not, you know, even broader than that. Tell us about that, the impact it's had, what it's done for you, what it's done for others, and that sense of opening up doors and opening up opportunities for building a community, maybe like the one we have right here. Sure. Well, let's see. Let me start with a couple of the CISO roundtables that I started. I moved out here, like I said, from Arizona. Maybe, let's see, my daughter was actually still in my wife's belly when I first took the job. But it's almost 17 years ago. And I spent, we were dealing with a nation state actor in our pharmaceutical company. And same actor was over at a large chip manufacturing company in the same area. And so the CISO and I were talking and trying to help each other, even though our GCs weren't too happy about it. And we ended up meeting in our cars in a Starbucks parking lot, which looked like a drug deal, which is funny being a former law enforcement. And so we sat there and we're going through all these different things and we were helping each other. And by the end of it, we realized, how come we're not doing this with more people? So our first year when we stood up the San Diego CISO roundtable, there were probably six members. And now we're at 120 members. We have a board. I stepped down. I'm still the founder, but I stepped down from being the board chair. I've got an amazing CISO that is the board chair. And Terrence is just running and doing a great job. And we were approached by some other people that I was working with in Orange County and also an entire group in Hawaii. And we spun up two more of them. And the best part is there are no vendors allowed. So, like, right now, because technically I'm a contracting company, an engineering company, I go in, I take my hat off, and I come in as just Macy from the street, so to speak. But we have rules where you can't, if somebody's in there and they are, we'll call it grandfathered in because they left a company and then went to work for a vendor, if they sell in there or try to sell in there, they're blackballed. And I don't mean just blackballed kicked out of the roundtable. They're blackballed like any of those 120 members won't buy their product again. And we're that serious about it. And those are the types of things that building. And part of that, we took some stuff that I, again, back from my master's program with the servant leadership, we follow the lead, learn, teach model in there where we have managers, directors, VPs, C-level. We also have, sorry, you know, my former background, we have FBI and we have a couple other agencies, I think, I'm trying to remember, Intel agencies. But everybody that's in there contributes. Like I said, no vendors can show up. They can sponsor, they can send sandwiches and stuff like that. But it's not the going out for the big steak dinner. It's literally sandwiches, chips and water. And we have discussions on how to, either what we're dealing with, you know, what is the current threat? You know, sometimes we bring in a bunch of insurance providers, excuse me, or attorneys to come in and speak to us and educate us all on doing better at what our jobs are. So, so the round tables, I guess, has been kind of a big part of it, Russell. The other areas, I've always, again, stressed on giving back to others and paying it forward. I probably have, I don't know, two to three people, especially lately with all the reductions in force. I had a CISO today, actually, that reached out to me that I worked with previously at Optiv. And she's an amazing CISO. She's worked at, and I'm going to be careful because I don't want to put her out there. She works at many consulting firms. She's just, she's a rock star. And she just got let go from a consulting firm. And my first thing is I set up a meeting with her on Friday, and I'm going to find her something. And I've had enough people say, well, you should have, you shouldn't be opening up a defense contract, or you should be doing recruiting, because it seems like you're always helping everybody else find a job. Well, it kind of goes back to what I said. I have not applied for a job probably in 10 to 15 years. And it's because when you help others first and you need something, things come back to you. And whether you believe that it's, you know, God or it's just the world doing this or Mother Nature or whatever else, it's truly doing the right thing. And I do. I had a handful of, let's see, probably just in the last month, I've probably helped six people, both engineers, one salesperson even, and two CISOs find roles. And right now, I literally, so if anybody's looking for a CISO, I literally have four CISOs that are looking for jobs right now. And again, it's just using your network and building your network. And I'll be honest, I'm going to take a little bit of a left turn for a second. And stressing that down to our future, whether they're cybersecurity or it's just students in college or anything else, I stress this to my kids over and over. Every person you can meet, just get their name and be nice, considerate, have integrity. And you never know when you need to call on that person or if they need something from you. And so it's just always having that availability. But, you know, Russell, the other part of that is, you know, besides helping individuals that way, or the CISO roundtables where everybody's kind of, you know, helping each other, my buddy, Darren Bennett, I will give him a plug. He's, I worked, did work with him at the Bureau, but he's a CISO for the city of San Diego. He is my partner in crime for building those classes down at Point Loma. And I have to take back, that is probably one other thing that is really probably one of my most favorite things. You know, as an adjunct professor, you don't get paid much at all, but it's not about that. And it's not just about giving real life experiences back to people that are learning from books. And I'm not saying that, I probably just stepped in it by saying that. But giving those real life experiences back and what those students could understand about the work world that they're about to go into. And understanding, again, stressing to them, reach out to everybody you know. Like one thing Darren and I always say on the first day of class after we introduce ourselves is really the fact that, you know, connect with us on LinkedIn. And I don't care if you're, well, almost all of them are computer science or cyber or some kind of engineering. But I even tell them, listen, if you have a friend that's in business or something like that, connect with us. Because if you go to apply for something and I know someone there, why wouldn't I try to scoot your resume or at least you're still going to have to apply online and go through the front door. But the way the world works really is who you know. So why would I not try to give someone an edge to really kind of help them? Now, don't get me wrong. If I don't know them, I'm not going to go and put, you know, 100% forth of saying I'm putting my name behind them. But I am going to help them get through the front door. And I think that's important. So, Russell, I think I kind of hit on some of the different parts. I would say besides that, I do a lot of mentoring and coaching. I used to do a lot more of it, but I realized there's not enough time in the day. And I'll be honest, I go back to something that Katie highlighted that is near and dear to my heart, which is my family. I had to kind of take a step back of that because I was realizing I was also understanding your weaknesses of when you're oversubscribed is extremely important. And like I said, my marriage comes first before everything, my children next, and then everything else gets in line. And that is just something that you can – it's great to give back, but you also have to know your limits. So maybe that's it. How was that, Russell? Is that what you were looking for? I just need to say what Macy said because I was writing notes like Katie was. I'm like, well, pay it forward. Nation States, Starbucks, Lead, Learn, Teach, Mom. I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm like, this is amazing. You can find them all in the same spot. I know. I love it. I love it so much, and I appreciate that. And as tempting as it is to keep asking more questions, I better pass it over to Lisa Beth right now. Lisa Beth, it's all yours. Well, hey, everybody. I have been loving this conversation. And one of the things that I am really interested in, Macy, is you've talked a lot about the importance of servant leadership and giving back. How have you been mentored throughout your career? And what do you think the best advice you received was in that process? Oh, my gosh. The first thing that came to mind, Lisa, was remember you have two ears and one mouth. And I'm not going to say you told me that, but it was one of my CIOs that was probably – you know what? I will call him out because he was probably one of my best mentors, Colin Black. He's retired now, but former CIO and COO of CrowdStrike. I worked under him at a defense contractor when he was still trying to get his U.S. citizenship because I could read stuff with our clearances that he couldn't yet because he hadn't become – because he was still Scottish. But going back, I would definitely say Colin drove a lot of things into me to realize who I really was and put me in a spot where I didn't need to prove myself. That was probably a turning point in my career, actually. I don't know if I would call it the self-confidence as much as more self-realization of who I was and what I didn't have to prove. I hate to say it, but I've always been someone who had to go prove myself all the way from even a young age with a father that was a Marine. But, you know, definitely I have to put a lot to him. I also had a boss at American Express, and she was absolutely amazing, not only just a rock star in everything that she did, security and leadership, but when it came down to it, she lived the servant leadership. She would always say that, you know, I'm here working for you guys, not just – even though I may be the boss, and don't get me wrong, when I say, you know, we are going to go this direction and we go. But she also didn't have a problem bringing up that when a direction that we were going was wrong and it was her choice. She had no problem stating, you know what, we made a mistake. This was my call. She owned it. And we figured it out and went a different direction. And true leaders are ones that don't succeed all the time. I mean, I tell people all the time that – and clients, which, you know, this could go one way or another, but – especially if it's military. But I learned from my mistakes, and I would rather that my, you know, coaching or advisory or whatever I'm helping an organization with, you know, commercial or DOD, that I am really – you're learning from my mistakes and we're going to solve the right problems. It doesn't mean you won't make a mistake, but every mistake is a learning moment. It's not a failure because if you don't have areas in which you're having mistakes or not doing something right, then you're not learning because if everything was all the yellow brick road, then how boring of life that would be. So, I don't know. I think I kind of got it off a little bit, but I have to say that I've had some really good mentors in my life. And I will say even today, some of my business partners from my current organization, we all are different. I mean, we have a CRO that he spent his entire life in security sales. I've got an intelligence officer that spent his entire career either in the government or in the Marines. So, he thinks completely different. I have another partner where he's – I can't even tell you how many patents he owns on different type one, you know, cryptography or, you know, for the software bus. He's on, like, smart meters and things like that. Like, I call him a true engineer, but he's also an incredible businessman that has taught me more than my master's program did, I think, sometimes on true business and how to run a company. And the fact is, all the people that I work with, those partners, they have such high integrity and all they want to do is make sure that each one of us continues to learn. And, again, going back, having the same philosophy of there are no mistakes. They're just learning moments. So, I hope that kind of drove it down. I don't want to dig into every person that kind of influenced me in my life, but those are definitely some that really I could highlight that made a big, big difference. So, that's fantastic. And I always love hearing about the influential voices that have helped to make people who have taken on servant leader roles and are helping others and mentoring because it's like a ripple effect on water, right? You know, the amount of others. So, thank you for sharing that. And with that, I think we go back to Tomas to kind of do a quick room reset and everything else. Sounds good. Yes. So, look, Macy, grab some water. I know you've been chatting. So, we'll give you a quick little break. This is our monthly fireside chat. If you just joined us, you've missed a lot of good conversation so far. So, I encourage you to listen to the playback when that becomes available on our website, firesidechat.live, where you can go and see all of our prior sessions. If you do have a question and you are in the audience and you want to jump up on stage, feel free to raise your hand and I will bring you up and you can ask your question of Macy. I do see James. James, over to you. Tomas, greetings from VEO San Juan. Oh, I love San Juan. I got a question. So, a little bit about my background. Pre-pandemic, I founded a group called Hispanics in Tech in Denver. The reason I did is I got tired of being the only Hispanic in the room. I drilled down. I could tell you the numbers. Yeah. I could give you the stories left and right. Here's the challenge. I love your story. But my gut instinct is where are you making yourself incredibly uncomfortable? Tomas is from Puerto Rico. He's faced amazing long odds. The people from Colorado that I've tried to help and even myself, we face amazing long odds because there's no representation. How are you making sure that the people you're helping is so different than the people there are? Just as talented. Just as intelligent. Probably unwilling to bet a harder worker. How are you bringing them people in and making sure everybody says, hey, pay attention here. Sorry. There's the Hispanic passion comes for where I care. I care. So I call this. No, no, no. You're good. So, well, first of all, I don't, I hate to say it. I don't focus on just, I focus on helping whoever needs to help, first of all. And I would say if you look at my students, they are extremely diverse. The one area that I would say I struggle and I would say us as an industry struggles is the fact that there are not enough women in the industry. I have run multiple capture the flags and different things where we do it for universities. I get so excited, almost probably embarrassing enough, when I get a woman in my, my, one of my classes. And I look at that, even in our CISO round team, James, you know, to your point, we have an annual holiday party. And my wife, who has a legal background, and I, like I said, a little bit of an alpha female, and I love her for that. But she's like, why are there so many white Anglo-Saxon men here? Where are all the women? Where are all the, and we do have individuals from different ethnicities and, and, and, and, and, wow. Wow, my brain just went blank. Sorry. But, but, but it mostly is an organization, well, not an organization, but an industry that is very skewed. So, I, your question came out in the sense of, how do I go and focus to pull others in? I believe, I believe that's where you were going. Others, others, I apologize. Others in, but others that aren't like the traditional. Yeah, so. Because Thomas and I have a mutual connection. We both sit on a cybersecurity panel. We both end of the day going, how, how is there the intentionality where it's like, hey, everybody's here. How do I work harder? How do I use other places to pull people in? Yeah. Because I love this story, but I look around. I'm in cybersecurity. I'm blessed to be in an amazing company that is, but how are you doing it? How are you putting yourself to say, my gosh, this is completely uncomfortable. How can I discover the talent that is completely unhidden? That might need, like a friend of mine, Sabitha Morley, the CDO at Lumen. He started work, his family worked in the fields. Yeah. How do we, how do we make sure that we're going for talent such as that versus the talent that have the privilege of easy, that gets into these circles a lot easier? That are already in school or anything else. Or in the right, not the school, the right school. Because I went to a no name school. I know Tara through a kind of a mid-tiered coding academy. How are you looking so far outside? How are you, I mean, this is something that needs to be addressed. I appreciate this, but this is a, this is something, like I said, I'm incredibly passionate about. It's to my core. So I want to see how you and others are doing it. Well, I'll be honest. I, and I'm just being direct on it. Um, I focus on the areas in which I can help that I have connections. To be blunt. Um, the reaching out and being uncomfortable. I, I'll be honest. I'm not sure where I don't understand that with the question, like the connection together. Um, because I do put myself in uncomfortable positions, but I don't think that's the difference of why I'm reaching out to the areas in which I'm doing it. Um, I'm reaching out to where I have connections that I can make a difference. And that's usually where people go to focus. Um, and again, as you know, it's not a one person thing to be able to go do that. Like besides the students, um, I coach and mentor people. Getting out of the Marine Corps and then, and the Navy. I be honest. I don't focus on Coast Guard or any of the others. Um, because I don't have the connections there, but I have deep roots in the Navy and in the Marine Corps. And I work with so many people on a regular basis. And some of those are people that come out. I would say also out of law enforcement, but these are people that already are in some type of a career, which I get, I get where your, your, your statements coming from. Um, but I would say that I could go focus on those areas and I may not know exactly where to go start, but I also tend to, like most people, I, I focus on the areas in which I have those connections and I can drive change because I may only be able to go and figure out how to drive two or three people versus a hundred in a year. Does that make sense? So I don't disagree that this isn't something that should be addressed. Um, but I also, I'll be honest, I don't know how to focus on that, if that makes sense. I think one of the things that's good about these fireside chats and this community that we've built is those connections and build those relationships. And I think this is probably an opportunity for, for, for James, you considering how you've started your, your program in, in, in Denver. Uh, and, and Macy, maybe this is a good sidebar conversation to, to think about how, how can you continue to build upon the success maybe James that you've had with the program? And, and, you know, I, I, obviously I commend you for, for the effort in the Latino community. Um, and maybe Macy for you to, to, to, uh, to see how you can potentially team up together, right. And, and, and solve those, those problems. Cause I, I, you know, what I love about this community is that we, we, we've been able to, you know, as, as we started early on, where we were sort of congratulating Katie for, for taking on a new role, we've been able to build bridges with, with people. And, and I think that's probably the, the, the one best thing that's come out of us doing this for the past three years, doing this, being the fireside chat and having guests on is being able to build those bridges. So I think this is probably a good opportunity for, for that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. No. So, so James, thanks for, thanks for coming up on stage and thanks for asking your questions. Yes. Thank you. And contributing to the, to the conversation. So I really, really appreciate that. If there is anybody else in the audience that does have a question and you want to raise your hand, feel free to come up on stage. Sorry, feel free to raise your hand and I'll bring you up and you can ask your question of Macy. Russell, I'll, I'll turn it over to you. Sorry, Katie, I'll turn it over to you to ask the next question while I bring this other person on stage. No, thank you. Yeah. I, I, I kind of wanted to focus on one aspect of what we were just discussing. Sure. That I just wanted to add a little color from my perspective. Um, and James, I really appreciate what you, what you said. I, uh, I noticed what's what school you went to Macy, uh, J George Mason, uh, my son actually just was accepted to George Mason. He's deciding between three different schools. Yeah. Um, and it's, it's interesting because, you know, when I gave the advice to my son is no matter what choice you make, it will end up being the right choice because you're going to end up where you're supposed to be no matter what, you know, cause sometimes we lament over these choices. Um, and, and the school is not necessarily your network, although it can be right. Um, from my perspective, um, from my perspective, I learned more and I, the reason I'm sharing this is I find it just, you know, serendipitous. This came up in the conversation I was having earlier with a colleague where, um, you know, I did not excel in high school, but I, as I ended up going to a city of Chicago college and I got a four O there and I, you know, I did really well. And I was able to go then to a liberal arts college in Chicago that no one's really ever heard of. And everything after that was my network and was my relationships and was the effort that I put into, um, you know, what, whatever project or whatever, you know, purpose I had in, in, in that piece of my career. So I, I kind of wanted to reemphasize that from your story. Um, because I just wanted to say, I'm an example of that too. Um, and kind of bring it, bring it home and bring it back to that. Um, and just kind of talk again about, you know, you talked about mistakes, you know, I, I have definitely made my fair share. I know everyone, you know, in this listening here has made their fair share. And, you know, one of my podcasts that I, when I was a guest to do, it ended up being called the art of the pivot, because I think that that's, that's part of being able to master life. You know, you said something about it, you know, life isn't a yellow brick road, but it would be boring if it was, you know, and sometimes those mistakes we make are the things that mold us into the exceptional, you know, people that we, we hope to be. So I'd love to lean into that a little bit more. Um, you know, sometimes people can be, there's a massive layoffs lately. People are, are thinking, how did I get here? Um, your story is very inspirational and just as people are leaning into, um, you know, those types of moments in their, their life and career as you coach them, you know, what are some of the things or experiences that you draw on to talk about how they can, you know, make mistakes, those, those pivotal moments rather than mistakes? Yeah. Well, it's funny because I, so I actually went to community college at first because I also was not a great student in high school. Oh, well, look at us now, Mason. Yep. And I went to George Mason. Um, I spent a long time there, honestly, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to go into law enforcement, but I, I, I struggled. Um, and, um, I'll be honest. I, I, I, I probably should have been out sooner and I never would have met my wife. So I know there was a plan. So no matter what happens, everything I believe happens for a reason. Um, I've also looked at, you know, I've been laid off before, uh, earlier in my career. I remember even being a CISO and getting let go. Cause I had a disagreement with a CEO, um, because I wasn't going to agree to something that I didn't think was right. Um, so I got a wonderful package for a month and honestly, you know, that one, if I hadn't made the decision to stick to my guns, I probably could still be at that organization. Wouldn't have made so many different experiences, changes, increases in my salary, you name it. Um, if I didn't have what happened, I, and again, I wouldn't call it a mistake. Uh, I, I stick by what I, what, you know, what I was not agreeing to, I guess I would say. And that was where I had an option to go be a CISO again, where I had the option to go work for a security bar as a, as a virtual CISO and an advisor, which I never would have done. And I do not regret that at all because being able to sit on both sides of that fence, I am so much stronger now. And even when I was not happy, again, I was learning things that were going to project me and put my career much further. Um, so when I look at it, Katie, that's kind of, I really see that everything really is a learning moment and, and just kind of, you know, where, where you need to go, whatever happens, as long as you're learning from it, even if you're laid off, maybe it's, it is, you need a month or two to spend more time with the family. Maybe it's, you need to start, I, I know I do start working out and getting better health so that I can live a longer life and actually be around for grandkids at some point in my life. Um, I hope God, not anytime soon, but, um, you know, these are different things where I hate to sound like a, like a therapist, but it's that half glass, the glass half full versus half empty. And, um, maybe it's time to look and see where, you know, I, at one point I was, uh, you know, I, when I came out of law enforcement, I was all on networking and worked my way up to, you know, director of, uh, network engineering and a sock or excuse me, a knock, not a sock. And I took a step back and went and became a security engineer. And now because I'm good at getting stuff done and driving change, I went back up into leadership pretty quick. But the thing is, I, I, I, it's not always a straight path forward. Sometimes you have to go backwards and I will remember, I do know one thing that my, my dad used to always say, which was, and it's a Marine Corps thing, but if you're going to fail, fail fast. And when you do always make sure that you have, um, three plans because just because going up the right side doesn't work, that doesn't mean that the middle or the left wasn't the right idea. And you need to have those different plans in which to still have success. And the success may be that you just go back a mile and you have to wait until, you know, and sorry for the military explanation, but you need to just bombard the enemy and until there's nothing left up there. And then you come up and you walk up the hill with ease. So, um, you know, it's getting back to Katie, there's never a straight path forward and don't ever take, I tell people don't ever take something. Struggle is not a bad thing. When have you ever gone to the gym and it's been easy? If it is, you're probably not doing it right. So believe me, I, I sweat and cough and everything else when I go for a jog. So I don't go to the gym. Oh, man. You just made me not want to go again tomorrow. Yeah. The nice thing though, is my wife tells me she wants me around for a while and not just the life insurance. So, um, I, I, I, I'm, I'm working on it, even though I hate it. I was going to say, you could tell it as pictures. That's what pictures are for. Now I'm just playing. Now we, we all went around for a little bit longer. Um, Katie, I don't mean to interject, but I just had to say. Oh no, I, uh, I, uh, I was laughing, uh, as well. And I actually, I was going to, um, before we went back over to the other moderate moderators, I was assuming you wanted to pivot over to, uh, Eddie who had joined us on the stage. So I was going to throw it over to Eddie. Eddie, thank you for joining us on stage. It's over to you. Absolutely. Appreciate the, uh, invitation to stage guys. This is, has been an incredible conversation. Some of it, I actually, uh, I was here for probably the first 30 minutes. Then I had to drop out for 15 minutes and I came back and it was still a good conversation. So I appreciate you, Macy, for dropping all kinds of true songs and knowledge for us today. I do have a question though. No, I'm definitely going to be listening back to it again. Like, uh, Tomas mentioned or suggested is go back and especially listen to the parts that I missed. But one of the things that I wanted to come in and ask you about Macy is since you do so much mentoring and things inside the space, I've had multiple friends who assume since I work in cybersecurity on the sales side that I know all about how to break into cybersecurity or, you know, switching roles. Yeah. And from my understanding inside of, cause I do have a, a cybersecurity podcast. So most of the interviews that I have, most of them just stumble into cybersecurity. It's not always like, Hey, I woke up and said, you know, late or early on in life was like, Hey, I'm going to be in cybersecurity for the rest of my life. Right. It's just kind of something that happened because of the course of life. So I'm curious, do you have any resources outside of like, you know, your mentoring? Maybe it's like, um, you know, a couple of work study guides or some, some, something that we can pass. I could pass along to some of those people who are looking to break into the space, but they really have no idea where to start. They don't know if they want to get a network security. They don't know if they want to be in cloud security. They don't know if they want to be a pen tester. I'm just curious of like, what, what can I start saying to those friends instead of, Hey, I don't know. No, no, I get it. And no, it does. And, and honestly, when I came out of law enforcement, I was just fed up with something and my entire squad kind of went over to this startup, uh, ISP. Well, it wasn't even ISP, it's CLEC. Um, and they were doing this new thing called high speed internet where it, you know, it was a 128, 384, 768 and a fastest that a company could get was a, was a full T. And we went over there and we were learning like literally like just, they'd hand you a book and tell you to learn how to configure a Cisco router. And, um, so I, I get the, you know, trying to just get in. Um, the typical thing I do is I point people towards organizations where they have, um, either classes or something, which they can, um, kind of test what they like, because even my students, every single one of them, they're like, Oh my gosh, I want to be a pen tester. Do you know how many pen testing organizations are out there? And do you understand that, um, they, they're more like contract jobs or they work for a big firm or something like that. And it's just not as sexy as everybody thinks it is. Um, so I always tell them, go get a job as a security analyst. If, if you, and again, Eddie, back to your comment, if they don't know, if they don't have any experience or anything else, I'll throw a couple of certs for them to go work on or something like that. And when I say certs basics, like a G sec or, um, you know, uh, I, I'm not a super big fan of CISSP, uh, cause I think it's too generic, but it is a good cert to go get at least a high level. Um, but something where you can get, you know, type, take a Python class, take, um, some kind of, uh, scripting or programming language, um, and take it at a community college where it's cheap. And, um, the other thing that I would say is, um, full stack Academy, um, is a, I sit on their advisory board and sorry, I don't like to do pitches, but they actually like, you can sponsor people to go through so they don't have to pay for all the classes and they get a cert and they get all these different, uh, trainings. And then they have a program to where they help them go find jobs through the people that are sponsoring and helping with the organization. Um, there's a, another, which, uh, the gentleman's going to kill me for forgetting the name of the company, but he's a former seal and he has literally a, it's almost like a video game. And, um, and I've been able to actually get people free licenses, but it's typically you pay monthly, but the video game goes through and I can provide it later. So Russell can post it. Um, but, uh, he's a former Navy seal. He used to run a clear defense contractor, sold it, went and built this program, uh, with, with a bunch of engineers and it's very gamified. So like we had a, uh, family friend that the son wanted to go, you know, get into security, no security experience, no IT experience, nothing. Um, I mean, the guy was going to go teach, uh, um, uh, hang gliding and, and, uh, uh, parachuting out of planes and stuff like that. So when this individual went and started playing the games, everybody likes to game. So you start doing it, but what you do is as you get through different modules, you're actually getting the skill sets to be able to go take a certificate. And Russell, I promised to get you the name and I I'm feeling horrible. I can probably look it up on LinkedIn, but I don't want to like switch off my browser just in case I jack something up. But, um, those are the types of things that I try to do, Eddie, to kind of really help, you know, give somebody a taste of it. Um, because the other part is you don't want them to just go say, oh, go get a degree. Cause what if they don't like it? I mean, like my degrees back to, you know, when Katie and I were talking, you know, I went to community college and then I went to George Mason. And, um, my degrees are government politics and international studies. I have two bachelors that neither one of them are in it, but guess what? I'm really good at cryptography. I'm really good at, uh, instant response and forensics. I can, you know, I've taught people how to do disc images and mem dumps. I mean, you, but that was all hands-on stuff. I went and learned either through the government or through, uh, through a class or, or something else, or I'm really big on hands on training. You give me a book and it takes me a lot longer than if you just show me. Yeah. That's what I'm glad that you brought that up because that's where I feel like would be a better standpoint for, I guess, definitely for my friends, but I mean, from a macro level, I think the hands on, most people are more hands-on visual learners than they are just trying to, you know, comprehend and regurgitate from a book anyway. So I think I would, I love that idea in regards to the gamified, uh, companies. I would love to know what the, what the name of that is, but also the full stack academy itself hands-on experience as well, where you can just get your hands on stuff and play with it, which is incredible. And that's, yeah, no, that's exactly it. There's also, uh, an organization called security advisory Alliance, which is run by nothing but CISOs. Um, I've been with them for, God, I don't even know how long, probably at least 10 years. And, um, they, they set up a lot of capture the flag events and different things where you can get, you know, get in there and kind of practice and see what you enjoy and what you like. Um, but, uh, but the ones I kind of mentioned at first are probably the direction I, I suggest. Um, because again, you, you nailed it when you said, you know, people don't know what they want to do and then they want to go be pen testers and this and that. And, and it just isn't, it isn't realistic for someone to go do that. I always tell them, I hate to say it, go take some, some, uh, coding, some scripting classes, some programming, uh, get in and literally an entry level security job in a company where don't go to a giant company, go to someplace where you, unfortunately it's you and like three other people and you've got to do everything because that's where you're really going to learn. And, um, and you're more likely to get your foot in the door as well. Absolutely. But I appreciate the time. I see, I noticed some other people that's been brought up on the stage as well, but I do appreciate the insight. No worries. And Eddie, if, if, if anybody ever wants to connect and I can help, just tell them to connect with me on LinkedIn and shoot or shoot me a note or something. And, uh, if I can't, if I can't help, I can connect you with somebody that can. Perfect. I appreciate that offer. I'll definitely take you up on it. All right. Sounds good. Thanks, Eddie. Thanks for, uh, raising your hand and asking that question. I just tripped over my useless CISSP. Sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to. It's okay. It's okay. I'm not going to. Mine's expired. I did take it. That was, that was a long six hour exam that I took many, many years ago. I will not let that thing expire. It was painful. I took it twice. Once, once was good for me. Um, Alan, thanks for joining us on stage. Anything you want to ask Macy? I do. Um, uh, first of all, yeah, I, I agree. I will never go down that path of the CISSP again. Um, I failed the first time. I got it the second time and I vowed. I will never, ever sit for that test again, even though it's changed since I took it. Um, my question, um, centers around generative AI. I, I, I hosted a, a LinkedIn audio event on the topic, um, a few, about four days ago. And there's a lot of interest there. My question for you, Macy, is in your experience now, what do you, with the shortage of, um, cybersecurity practitioners in the estimated millions globally that we have that deficit? I've always felt like we've been in, we've been approaching some kind of bubble or inflection point. And I just could never put my finger on what that inflection point was, what was going to be the tipping point. And it seems now that generative AI might be that tipping point, might be that thing that, um, that kind of, you know, swings the pendulum back the other way, where we have these crazy salaries and this dearth of people to fill these positions. And everybody's flooding to cybersecurity because of the money. Um, do you feel that generative AI is the thing that's going to swing the pendulum back the other way and kind of, um, do a market correction or, or a level set on the salaries and, and attract people to this, uh, discipline that really have a passion for that want to do it. And they're not just here for the money. Wow. That's a good question. Um, I honestly don't think things will adjust. Um, I, you know, we've been talking about a lack of resources for, gosh, it feels like forever. I mean, at least 10 years, if not more. Um, I don't think it's going to change. Um, at least on having the lack of people. I don't think that, you know, AI or even machine learning or you name it, uh, anything that, that has been coming out even in the last, you know, handful of years is going to change any of that because it comes down to it. You still need people. You still need people. And I don't care what you put in front of, you know, whether it's a, a, a, a computer system to go break passwords with quantum or, or anything else. Um, those still are tools in the hands of people. Um, and my biggest fear, honestly, which I know is not what you asked is. I see so many people day in and day out that don't have the skills yet. They work in cybersecurity and people are taking them because they need the bodies. And that's almost even more of a detriment. Um, because companies get the feeling of being safe when the person really doesn't know what they're doing to, and I'm just being blunt. Um, I think no matter what, we need to really spend time and, and educate and drive more people into security, but let's be honest too. Security is not the only field. And if we, I think it's more, it comes down, it really is a people problem, but you know, does that mean we have less people working on investments in finance? Does that mean we have less people working on building out, um, the next gen, you know, pharmaceutical drug or the next, you know, chip manufacturer? Um, I, I, I'm not giving you a good answer and I apologize, Alan. No, it's, it's fine. I think, I think you are. Um, it's, it's, it's a tough space to be in right now. And a lot of people are like in panic mode. My job, I was going away. That way. I kind of see it when you talk about being able to say that I could use that technology as a coach in, uh, like as, as a coach in my team. So I can bring in lower level people and then, you know, give them a tool where they can actually, you know, learn along the way, uh, and, you know, shorten that learning curve. I don't know. I, I think. I, for me, I personally, you see, I think it's too soon to tell. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would agree. Cause when it comes down to it, actually, um, any type of way in which you can learn is good, but I, I still go back to no matter what your people are, your most valued asset. I don't care if you have all the best tools or all the crappiest tools. Um, and as long as you invest in your people, whether it's through what you were just explaining or, you know, I used to, I'll never forget whenever I was driving a team. So right now I'm a CSO and I drive probably more. We're, we have people that manage our engineers and we have people that, you know, focus on our, our organization internally. And I focus more on trying to help go drive the organization outbound, if that makes sense now. Um, but when I look at it, you know, I used to, I would get my budget, you know, of course they say, you get your budget in January. Let's be honest. You don't actually get the number that you know what you have until February, maybe even close to March. Um, and that's if you're on a normal calendar year for your budget cycle. First thing I always told my engineers, I don't care. The minute this is approved, you go sign up for your SANS classes, whatever else, the budget that I got approved, you're spending it within the first month of when I can spend it versus I don't care if you're going to take it in December. You're buying it now because I'm not going to have to renegotiate my budget and a quarter or two and lose because the first thing that always goes is training. And again, investing in your people, uh, whether they're more junior or not, um, actually remind me, I have a great, uh, story of helping out with, with using junior resources and giving a career path within even an organization. But, you know, you really have to focus on making sure you can give them anything. So I, do I agree that you should? Yes. Do I think it's going to drive a change in the way that the, uh, salaries and everything else are? No, I don't think we're there. Um, but the, the quick story about, I used to, when I was a defense contractor, go around and grab individuals that either had human intelligence, uh, backgrounds or FSOs, which is a facility security officer, which is people that manage your clearances and stuff. And I would give those individuals opportunities to work a couple hours a week within my SOC remotely even. Um, and as long as I got approved by their, by their manager, I tell them exactly like, you know, where I was talking to Eddie, like, you know, go, go research, go buy a book on, you know, the, you know, uh, you know, GCIH or the, the CEH or GSEC or something. And then I'm going to let you spend a couple hours a week in with my team and they're going to just hands-on teach you different things. And again, they're put in a safe environment to learn. Well, every time I did that, I was, at first I got a little bit of a snip from HR because I started recruiting those people. Well, I selfishly had a recruiting path, but what I was also doing was keeping the company from losing people that we could have lost anyway. And what I would, what ended up happening was those same individuals, usually the FSOs came out of people in the military or the government. Um, the, uh, human people definitely came out of agencies and the, and the military. Um, they were telling their friends when they're getting ready to retire or jump out of their military or government career, come work here because there's a career path. Those types of things. And I'm sorry that I kind of focused on DOD and clear defense contractors, but it's giving those opportunities and building something to where you're taking care of those people so that they don't leave. Because no matter what people are going to go other places, no one's ever going to work for you forever. And you don't want them to, your goal is to help them get to their next job while doing their job here for you. So, sorry. Hope that helped out. It did. Thank you. Appreciate it. No worries. Thanks, Alan. Thanks for, uh, raising your hand and joining the conversation this evening. Um, we do have one more person who raised their hand. Victor, thanks for joining us. Anything you want to ask, uh, Macy? Put in on the bottom right of your screen. Um. Oh, thank you. Sorry about that. Because you're muted. I can't unmute you. Am I good now? Yes, I can hear you. Oh, okay. Great. Thank you. Um, it's been great so far. I learned a lot. Um, I kind of wanted to flip the script a bit and just ask a question for somebody who wants to get advice and recommendations on giving back. I've had a 14-year career at your alma mater, America Express. And I've done a lot with information security. And I'm taking the risk going out into, you know, a different environment. And I want to be able to solve problems and work with others. And people who are like-minded and want to be able to create value. So of the things that you described, it was very interesting. I wanted to just get a few key nuggets that you would recommend to somebody who's looking to be able to support others and be able to give back, whether it's being on the board or if it's someone who, um, you work with from education perspective, like in the school area. Um, but that's more or less what I'm looking for, to be able to provide information outwardly, um, and be able to, um, help people. Um, so let me make sure I understand what you're asking. Sorry, Victor. You're, you're, you're looking to, you're asking like, what's the best way to kind of try to give back and, and, and to others and kind of focus on that. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Cause you know, I heard a lot today. Um, you know, I think this is great. You know, the sharing of information, you know, the thing that you have going out and, uh, where you're at right now with the other CISOs is, is very interesting, but I'd like to just hear like, what would you recommend for someone who wants to be able to do some type of problem solving and sharing, you know, a lot of information and information security that they've accumulated over the year. And not just that I have background in, you know, digital analytics and other areas, but it's, it's more about just understanding kind of like, what are the different things that would, you know, provide significant value, whether it's, and again, there's, it's, it's a very open-ended question. Cause you could go down, you know, working at a college or working, you know, with other companies, you know, but I kind of just, just a few of the top things that you'd say provided for you kind of like that, you know, I guess. What's benefit in terms of satisfaction of being able to, to give back? Um, I would say, so the first thing I would say is any place that you have a lot of connections. Um, I, I've always, it's, how do I put it? I give back and where I'm at, if that makes sense. So if I'm around a bunch of govies or military people, I just always try to do things. Um, I, even at my church, um, I've, you know, everybody knows what I kind of do. I mean, I do, you know, cybersecurity intelligence work. So I get connected where, you know, the pastor or somebody else comes up and says, Hey, this person's, you know, looking to get into this field. Could you talk to him for a little bit? It's being able to give the time to others, 15 minutes, you know, or Hey, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll schedule 30 minutes somewhere in my week or in three weeks, but you're still, it's, it's really using the expertise that you have. And the connections and just doing it where you're at. I don't want to make it sound like you shouldn't be going out into other areas because James had some really good points. Um, but, um, you're going to be extremely effective and it's going to be easy for you. If it's within the environment you're in, does that make sense? Yep. That's very helpful. Um, because if it's too hard, you're going to not be able to do it as often, or you're not going to be able to, um, I would say my, my success is, is more in the fact that I, I, wherever I'm networking or wherever I'm doing something. Um, I, I just always bring it up if anybody needs something. I even remember when my kids were little in grade school, I would be, I'd tell the teachers or we'd be at some event and I'd be like, listen, I'm in cybersecurity. If anybody ever needs any help or needs anything, or you need connection to the local, you know, San Diego FBI office or something like that. Let me know. Um, I am, I can connect you within minutes. And it's just simple things like that. So. Thank you for that. Sure. My pleasure. Thanks for the question. Thanks, Victor. Thanks for, uh, for raising your hand and asking the question and joining the conversation this evening. So look, we're, we're going to start to wrap up because it is, uh, I do want to be respectful of everybody's time. I do appreciate everybody joining us this evening. And obviously I do appreciate you, Macy, for taking the time. So I'll ask, uh, just real quick, Macy, before we get to my final question. I'll ask, uh, our, my cohost, any, any final questions or thoughts for, for Macy? Uh, Katie or Russell. You know what, Macy? I just wanted to say thanks for sharing part of your journey with us because I learned a ton tonight and it's just delightful. So, so I really appreciate you. Thank you so much. I just appreciate the opportunity to, I, I, a little embarrassed to just be sitting here talking about myself, but, um, but it was really fun. It's also kind of nice to remember where you came from, if that makes sense. Well, it does make perfect sense to me. And the idea was that you tell your story and that you, that you talk the whole time, Macy. So, so don't worry there. And I was going to say, I laughed, I cried. We went down the yellow brick road. You took us on a journey. Um, so just want to thank you again. And I'm not kidding. I really did laugh and cry. The tears were flowing over here. So thank you again. That's awesome. Really appreciate you. Well, thank you. I feel blessed and I feel blessed to be able to hop on here and share with everybody. Thank you. And I'll echo that, you know, and Macy, all of us on stage have had the same, uh, privilege. Uh, we'll call it as you to be interviewed and ask questions. And so we can resonate with that. And it's just like the time flew by. I wish we had more hours, more time and to look forward to catching up with you again soon. Uh, thanks so much. No, my pleasure. And, and, uh, Russell, I sent you that link. I think you saw it. Uh, I did remember that, uh, that, uh, company that does the gamifying training. So, uh, if you can share that out later, that would be great. Yep. Definitely. Well, thank you. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Obviously. Thanks. Thank you for, for not only for, thank you for your service and your contributions back to the security community. I like to ask this last question. And I usually, and the reason why I like this last question, cause it's a reflection question. If you have one piece of advice for the younger Macy, what would it be and why? Wow. That's actually a great one. Um, don't be as afraid. Don't worry about impressing people too much. Be yourself. Um, I think it took a while for me and you'll laugh at this considering what my first career was, um, to come out of my shell and have confidence in who I, who I am. Um, and, uh, and I, I forgot to add in also before law enforcement, I was a bartender. So take that one for granted on having to come out of your shell. Um, but, uh, I, I would say it really is being comfortable with who you are and confidence in yourself. Um, because not everyone's going to like you, love you or anything else. Um, but be who you are and be comfortable with who you are. Um, I would, Thomas, I would say that, that literally is the one thing if I could go back and tell myself, because I think I spent too much time worrying about what other people thought. Um, that's, that's, uh, that's good advice. Uh, definitely appreciate that advice. So Macy, final words for you. Bring us home. You can close up just real quick before you do that. Uh, thank you everybody for joining us this evening. We'll be back in a few weeks, uh, for our next monthly chat next month. Uh, so we do encourage you all to come back and definitely listen to the playbacks that we have on firesidechat.live. Macy, final words for you, my friend. Oh, thank you. Well, first of all, I just want to thank this team here for inviting me, everybody that was there listening. And, uh, I, my final thoughts, honestly, are to just continue, you know, if you haven't pay it forward, do things for others before you expect them to do something for you. And don't do it expecting any results. Um, life's too damn short. And, uh, hug and kiss the people that are closest to you. And don't waste a day. That's it. Everybody have a great evening. Thank you very much, Macy. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you all in a month. Cheers. Sounds good. Bye, everyone. Great being here with you. Bye.