I’m a child of the late 80s and have had a passion for computers from a very young age. I have early memories of playing Ms. Pac-Man at laundromats when my mom was getting her PhD, and tinkering with her Mac Classic in her early days of being a university professor.
Well known through my school age as “the kid who wanted to use the computer,” or “the nerdy guy,” I worked in network engineering from 2010-2016, and began pivoting into cybersecurity in 2017 when I got a role working for a public school district, one of the most hostile security environments I have ever worked in. It was during my tenure at Arlington Public Schools that I did network automation, infrastructure-as-code, and solved advanced firewall architecture and wireless network access problems.
I currently work at a late-stage clean energy startup where I fully manage the enterprise and corporate security functions for the organization. I’ve overseen and led multiple information security projects from inception to deployment. I have specific career interests in zero-trust architecture, identity and access management, vulnerability management, endpoint detection and response, email security, and increasingly, cloud and product security.
I have a B.S. in Business Administration from The University of Mary Washington, and am on my final semester of my M.S. in Information Technology from Virginia Tech, with program focuses on Cybersecurity Management and Cybersecurity Technologies.
I have held the CCNA, Network+, Security+, CompTIA CASP, and SANS GIAC Certified Enterprise Defender (GCED) Certifications, among others.
I live in Vienna, VA with my wife, Ashley, our two children, and our corgi. When not occupied by our busy schedule, I enjoy cooking, reading, writing, fitness, gaming of all kinds, and travel. I’ve run four half marathons, spent a solo Christmas in Japan, visited Cuba, speak French conversationally, and briefly lived in the United Kingdom.
Want to get in touch? I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me at jmcma2sy [at] icloud [dot] com.