Here & Now: Cybersecurity Training

A former FBI agent opened the doors on a cyber security training and workforce hub in North Texas. Fox 4 Sean Rabb has more on the training center in this week's here and now conversation. A new type, a different structured cyber security workforce training program coming to North Texas through Mary N Cheney, a former FBI agent who specialized in cyber security and counterterrorism and now serves as a consultant to many corporations in the cyber security world. Thank you for taking time to talk with us about this new style workforce training you're bringing to North Texas. In North Central Texas, we have a very good abundance, healthy cyber security community. And employers are looking for the types of talent that we have. But what we see through the statistics would be something of the amount of, the employers are looking for individuals to have three plus years of experience. And that's not, you're a student, you go to school, you get your degree, you get your certifications, and then you say, well, I've done everything that I need to do from an education standpoint. What exactly, how am I supposed to get experience if you're not gonna hire me? Correct. What we've done here with the MNC Cyber Security Workforce Hub is we're bringing together disparate communities, right? I've been doing cyber security apprenticeships, I've been doing cyber security leadership development. And so I have this purview of I'm working with employers, I'm working with state and federal entities, I'm working with the students. And it's a disconnect between what it is that the students believe that they have going for them and what the market says it needs in order to be ready. How do you build a bridge from A to B, so to speak? Exactly, and so I started after doing this for seven, eight years now. It's applied learning, right? So I started the Mary N Chaney Cyber Security Training Center. And what that is, is it's a three year residency program. Because no longer, gone are the days in cyber security that you can get a certification and get a job, that's not happening. You have to have some type of skill and learning. So we're bridging that gap by allowing the residents over our 39 month program. It's more than a training solution, it's more, I'm going to now teach you cyber security. I'm gonna teach you from the ground up. Am I getting a stipend during this 39 months? Do I need to keep my job, or how do I move forward? It is designed for people that are working full time. So all of our content is on Saturdays. We're bringing internships, we're bringing apprenticeships. We're bringing contract to hire roles for organizations that really understand, okay, I know I can't go out there and purchase at market rate at six figure salary a cyber security person. But I can guide an individual to be what I need them to be, by understanding that they don't have all the experience. But through our program, they have all of the support they need to be successful. Okay, so how do I apply for your program? Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean, I think you go out to www.mnc-ctc.com. And you look at the requirements. Only thing that's required really is a, I'm sorry, a high school diploma or GED equivalent. You have that, you come in, you apply for the program. We take a look at it, we assess for your readiness. Okay, so September 19th is the Cybersecurity Workforce Infrastructure Summit. Now, it's a free event, but space is limited. And you must register in advance at www.mincybsec.org backslash Cybersecurity Workforce Infrastructure Summit. Thank you for, you know what, deciding that we needed to prepare people in a different way that they might be successful in a new career. And you've got another event coming in October. We'll talk about that next month. Thank you.