| Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with alumnus Jeremy O’Mard, senior managing consultant at IBM, about how artificial intelligence is changing the cybersecurity landscape.
| Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with alumnus Jeremy O’Mard, senior managing consultant at IBM, about how artificial intelligence is changing the cybersecurity landscape.
I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend and you're listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Jeremy O'Mard, a Behrend alumnus who now works as a senior managing consultant in the hybrid cloud management practice at IBM Consulting. Welcome here, Jeremy.
Jeremy O'Mard:Thanks for having me.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, you're not a stranger. I known you for a few years. But I'm going to take a few minutes. And I'm going to read through your biography, because it's quite impressive. You're a 2013, graduate of the Management Information Systems Program here at Behrend. And very nicely, you were just one of 16 Alumni chosen to receive a 2021 Penn State Alumni Achievement Award, which honors alumni, 35 years of age and younger for extraordinary professional accomplishments. And only about 100 alumni have received that to date. And eight of them are Penn State Behrend graduates. And we're super proud that you got that award. And you should be as well. Absolutely. And I'll go a little further. As a managing consultant and systems engineer with IBM says you're responsible for the installation, maintenance and security of the company's commissary, advanced rescaled transaction system, hardware software solution used at the Department of Defense commissaries around the world. And some of that may be a little out of date, we'll get into all the things that you do, I just want to talk a little bit about you know, recognize the work that you do care for bear and your treasure of barons, black leadership alumni Coalition, which we all affectionately call here be black. And you are president of the university's African American alumni organization of DC interest group. And you also volunteer with the Maryland Defence Force, a Volunteer State Military agency, and one of the four components of the Maryland military departments. So a lot of great accomplishments and only 10 years out. Anyways, I'll just start by saying what brought you to Penn State Behrend? How did you end up here?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so I always knew that I wanted to come to Penn State. During the college recruiting cycle. My focus was really on Penn State, Virginia Tech and Maryland. Maryland, of course, being where I'm from was way too close to home. So I decided to not go to University of Maryland. Great decision, by the way. So it really came down to Penn State and Virginia Tech. And when I actually came to visit Behrend campus, I fell in love with the faculty, the staff, the campus life, and the fact that there's just so much natural beauty around the Behrend campus. Decide the Simon way.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, as we were discussing when you came in today, well, I'll mark the date today is Monday, November 6, and you've got a day full of activities, including being the featured speaker here on campus in the Behrend speaker series this evening, and we'll talk about that. But you said the first place that you came to campus is the building that we're in right now, which is the historic Glen Hill Farm. So did you just wander in here and knock on the door? How did you end up in this building?
Jeremy O'Mard:For whatever reason they told us to report here, we did a campus tour. And I know Miss Felicia was here. And Giselle Hudson was here as well. And they were one of the first two faculty that I met, when ironically, I still keep in contact with them to this day. So today feels almost like a mini homecoming, just because I'm kind of going through the motions and revisiting the campus. I'm looking at it from a unique perspective now being an alumna.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, you know, now that you mentioned, when you came here to visit, we actually had the admissions people probably here in this building. And shortly thereafter, we move them to the Metzger, alumni and admission center once that was built, so it makes a lot of sense. So, you know, you decided to choose management information systems, did you have a career path in mind? Or did it just sound like, hey, that's something interesting that I wanted to study, or did you know what you wanted to do?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so I always knew I wanted to get involved with technology. That was the easiest part. Honestly, I actually started as a computer engineer major, and I was having a conversation with my RA. And I know I kind of want to get into consultant and he kind of gave me an overview of the MIS program. And in my opinion, that aligns perfectly with what I wanted to do, because it provided you both with the business aspect, as well as the technology aspect. And I was also able to get my SAP certificate on top of that. So once I learned about the benefits mis how the program was structured, and how it really allowed you to focus on both the technical and business side, I decided to have a conversation with one of the academic advisors. And once I had that conversation, I felt really comfortable about switching to mis and here I am today, senior managing consultant at IBM and I felt as though I made a great decision.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, it's a great combination bill to get that degree. And then like you said, like SAP certificate and a lot of other things that you can add on and mask who are the influential faculty members in the MIS program.
Jeremy O'Mard:So one caveat, I really have to say that I really did love my time at Behrend, especially as a MIS practitioner and the course that material that was provided it really prepared me for the real business world. Ironically, my first project and IBM is federal sector was working with Citizenship and Immigration Services. And the project was based on Agile software development, which is exactly what I learned during my time at Behrend. So it was nice to actually learn about the topic and actually see it come to fruition, coming out of undergrad, because I know one of the biggest concerns is you learn so much in university, but you really get to apply what you learned. And I can say, without a doubt, Behrend did prepare me for the real world. Now going back to the question or the topic of faculty who really left an impression on me, first and foremost, Dr. Noce to this day, I still have conversations with her. And she really helped to shape my early professional career track, but you don't miss it as well, especially when we focused on all things business intelligence, that was one of my first standout positions within IBM as well, having that course load focusing on IBM Cognos Tableau Power BI. And when I worked with our Business Intelligence Team for USCIS, I was able to kind of just hit the ground running because I understood those early foundational concepts. So I definitely say those two are people who to this day, I want to say thank you for just being able to provide me with real world insight.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, they're great faculty members of his great faculty for the entire program. And, you know, I'm not in the program, but I'm a computer electrical engineer, and have had the pleasure to work with them. And I know they're very passionate about systems design, all those things make sense to me. And by the way, I'm a former IBM or myself. And I wrote a book on engineering design, which was really a systems design bucking, I've always held that if I didn't have that experience, integrating complex systems when I was at IBM, I would have never written that book. And I think that it really added a lot because of that, that experience of really added a lot to the profession that was missing. But anyway, so let's talk as well. So you know, you had the great academic side to your experience here. But let's talk about the things that you did outside of the classroom. What were the things that you were involved in? I know you were involved in Delta Chi and Multi Cultural Council and some other organizations? What was that experience? Like here on campus?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a firm believer of to get the whole college experience, you have to focus on both the academic side as well as the social aspect. And honestly, getting involved with the various student organizations have helped me to take leadership roles, not only within IBM, but then the Maryland Defence Force as well. The beauty of working with student based organizations are they're all diverse based on the nature of the organization. And just like in the real world, whether it's corporate America, whether it's in the public sector, whether it's an academia, being able to kind of work with a diverse populace is a strength in itself, because you have diversity of thought. And you understand that you have the option or the ability to look at things from a unique perspective. So getting involved with those students, organizations really allowed me to hone my leadership skills really work with a diverse set of individuals, and really get to try things in a relatively safe manner. Because as a student leader, if you fail, you often fail, recover, and try again. And I feel as though if you've never had the opportunity to fail, or as I like to say, fail fast. When you get into the business world or the post grad world, you're kind of shy or hesitant to try or take risks, because you just never had that opportunity or forum to really fail in a safe manner. So student organizations really did allow me to kind of hone hone my leadership skills, and try new and unique things.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And you were not only involved in leadership organizations, but you served as a mentor, you were in a program known as the Fast Start Peer Mentor Program. Do you remember that and what it was?
Jeremy O'Mard:Absolutely. So Fast Start really connects. There's a three components of it. There's a student piece for the income refreshments, and you have student mentors, you have alumni mentors, and then you have faculty mentors, and I actually was able to participate both as a student mentor and as well as an alumni mentor, and best starts a great way to pay for it because I remember my first couple of weeks at Baron, you're trying to kind of, you know, figure out what to do with how to navigate the college life scene. And having someone who's been there done that had this t shirt to prove it was a great way to kind of pay for them. Help them the next generation of Penn say there's really kind of understand what's out there. As far as academia goes. And
Dr. Ralph Ford:while you're here, you received a university wide award. Notice the Jackson Lethbridge tolerance award. And it recognizes a student for outstanding efforts to create a community where everyone is equally valued in our community. So what did what did receiving that mean to you?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so it caught me completely off guard because sometimes, when you do what you love, and when you just really just want to continue to make your campus a better place. You kind of don't really think about awards or receiving any type of recognition. So when I got the letter of notice, stating that I was the recipient of the award and they were having ceremonies both at Behrend as well as University Park campus. It caught me completely off guard just because I was recognized for providing the solution working with the client In the educational equity to provide a proof of concept for information system that would consolidate student data's. So admissions faculty and other staff would be able to kind of monitor the progress of students and understand some of their pain points when it comes to traversing the academic lifecycle. And that was probably one of my mis projects. And it just made sense for me just because of how involved that was with educational equity. So when I was recognized for it, I didn't even think anything of it just because it was just something I wanted to do, the better the university. So it's nice to be recognized for stuff that advances the cause of a major university. But they've just really caught me off guard.
Dr. Ralph Ford:It was nice, and that it really connected what you were doing in the classroom and your your coursework. And so great experience. And right now you're you're currently involved. So you've remained involved at Barrington. I'm always happy to see you at the parents family alumni weekend, and probably more than that each each and every year as you come back to campus. But one organization that's been formed in the last few years is something called the Behrend Black Alumni Coalition, and it's having a large impact. What is it? And what do you do?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so what do I do? I'm the treasurer for BBLAC. I'm the inaugural treasurer at that. So that's kind of cool. And be back is really a way to kind of foster the alumni experience, postgrad. One thing, having been involved with the AAA owes the African American alumni organizations within the Penn State Alumni Association. And one of the number one complaints that we receive is, once you leave the university, whether you're at University Park, whether you're at one of the commonwealth campuses, if you're outside of the state of Pennsylvania, it's kind of hard to foster that Penn State relationship. So leveraging what I knew and what I experienced with the AAAO's, I worked with the leadership for Black to really provide a way for black alumni and supporters of the mission to be black to kind of have a way to stay involved with the university to understand some of the major key points such as recruitment and retention of students of color, and really to provide them with a forum for where they can kind of voice their concerns. So I'll work with the university as well as students to come up with programs and ideas to recruit and retain students of color, and to really still stay connected with the university.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So do you have any particular students that you're working with right now and mentoring through that?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yes. So ironically, one of the students that I'm mentoring actually wasn't Ruby black, but it was through my work with IBM, and she actually participated in IBM had a program that just kind of provided various some overviews of the different tracks and consultants, which is business analytics, cybersecurity, infrastructure and software development. And we kind of foster the relationship just based on the fact that we were both 10 sailors who magically were assigned to each other. And she was also focused on cybersecurity as well. And to this day, we still have ongoing conversations. She's doing postgrads studies at Penn State again, which is awesome. And she's still pursuing additional certifications within cybersecurity looking to obtain their security plus, so that's the beauty of Penn State, there's always people who want to continue to hone their skill sets and leverage the experience of alumni. And I just love the ability to be able to give back and pay for it to the next generation of students and alumni leaders.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Well, we appreciate it. And the whole institution benefits. Let me switch now though, to to your industry career. So you've served in a number of roles and IBM since 2014. I'll just run through a few you helped the Department of Homeland Security transition the US Citizenship and Immigration Services from a form and paper based system to a new electronic platform. You've helped the army develop and maintain a web based tool for tracking the professional development of noncommissioned officers. My guess is you do a lot of top secret work that you can't really talk about, and tell us. But what's your job look like day to day? What is it that you do?
Jeremy O'Mard:So the beauty of consultant is my job changes based on my client, which is awesome, because every new clients a new job or a new opportunity. So if you're someone who gets bored of doing the same thing over and over again, I highly recommend consultant because you can kind of shape your day to day activities. Currently, I still support the Defense Commissary Agency. And the beauty of that project is, wherever the Department of Defense has a commissary around the world, IBM has a footprint. So it's a powerful gift in the curse, because I work with our system engineering team. And I'm responsible not only for the availability of the application, but security standpoint as well. So monitoring over 5000 endpoints distributed across 100 Plus locations around the world as a job in itself. But I do like the work that I do. I get the ability to travel overseas. I've been to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, I've been to Okinawa, and I've really just had the ability and the opportunity to see how our solution actually benefits our service members. And they always joke and say that commissary privileges are their number one benefit for serving our nation. So to ensure that those systems are up and running, and that they are able to kind of capitalize on those benefits is a huge win. My book. So you,
Dr. Ralph Ford:you're based in DC, Virginia, Maryland area correct. And you've haven't had to move around, but you get to travel all over the world. Absolutely. That's pretty good deal. Like you're close to home, you're close to learn the action in this country. So it's a good place to be. So you work directly with the federal government. Correct? And how do you like working with the government? You know, we know it's large and complex, you know, but it sounds like you're doing some really interesting projects.
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah. So I always knew once I graduated from Penn State, one to work with government in some capacity, whether it was being a civil servant, or whether it was being a contractor. And IBM gave me the ability to kind of wear both hats, especially since we have a large federal clientele. So I do like working with the federal government. Because ultimately, when you advance their mission has real world impacts on the average citizens. And residents of the United States as well as our allies as well. In my space, I focused on defense and Intel. So not only am I working with us based organizations, but I'm working with some of our partners as well. And I'm actually a part of a internal consortium within IBM that focuses on the defense and intel community across the world. So it's nice to work with other practitioners in the UK and Italy and France, and kind of pick their minds and see how their government organizations are handling certain issues, especially in the cyberspace domain.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And you also you volunteer for something called the Maryland Defense Force. Correct. And what is that?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so the Maryland Defense Force is one of a number of state defense forces within the United States and its territories. The big difference between state defense forces and a state or territory is National Guard and state defense forces are strictly a state asset, they fall under Title 32, whereas National Guard to be federalized under Title 10. So the biggest differences were strictly state asset, we have no federal funding whatsoever, which is unique, because there are oftentimes opportunities where we're cross training with our state's National Guard, because they're getting ready to be deployed overseas or support the federal mission. And we serve as a force multiplier for our National Guard counterparts. Because, of course, when they leave their respective states or territories, that leaves a critical shortfall within that given area of responsibility. And that's where state defense forces really have the ability to kind of shine and focus on that critical gap that needs to be maintained.
Dr. Ralph Ford:It's pretty amazing, actually, that that's a volunteer force and the importance of the work that you do.
Jeremy O'Mard:Absolutely. The historical origin of state defense forces, some states refer to them as state guards or state military reserves. It goes back to the early colonial times where states only had the militia. But the formal statute goes back to the early 1900s, during World War One. And sometimes there are opportunities for paid positions, especially when you're called up to say active duty. But nine times out of 10, most folks who served with the state defense force are literally serving on volunteer status, which is also unique in itself, because of course, our National Guard counterparts do get paid when they have their traditional drill weekends. And there's a running joke, especially in Maryland with our National Guard and our state defense force, where they like to say that, hey, the folks from the Maryland Defence Force, they're here because they want to be here. So you guys have to make sure that you're doing your job because they're here to do it no matter what.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Very nice. Well, in you know, more recently, in 2019, in your work at IBM, you started to oversee the day to day operations, something known as the security infrastructure team, which provides authentication and disaster readiness for the Social Security Administration, hugely important to this country. And you manage a whole variety of things from security to maintenance and upgrades. Can you tell us what that's about?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yes. So that was unique project in itself, because, again, like he focuses on the defense and Intel side, so going to Social Security, I kind of wanted to shake things up and still stay within the security infrastructure domain, but focus on different client tell base, and just learn about the Social Security Administration, and how the application that we oversaw, really was the focal point for everything. So security did that in itself was amazing, because every service has to go through our system. And just seeing the amount of transactions that are being run the amount of personal identifiable information and sensitive information going through the system and understanding how you need to secure that information. That was kind of eye opening, because Social Security does impact us all. So having that footprint and having a project that has such a high level of importance. I was kind of humbled to be a part of that project, because our team literally worked around the clock to make sure that the application was up and running, and that the security services were running in the background. And ultimately, that folks who were entitled to their benefits, were able to get them in a timely and efficient manner.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Yeah, I can imagine that. It's a ripe target for hackers and phishing and trying to trick people and you know, as they say, defenders have to be right 100% of the time, but bad guys only have to be right once. Absolutely. That's puts a lot of pressure on you.
Jeremy O'Mard:It does. I think the beauty of it though, is you understand the importance of set system so they kind of offset some of the pressure, not 100% Because there's always going to be the Last year, when you're working on services or systems that have national importance, but at the end of the day, when they run you, you kind of feel rewarded, because your system is literally doing something that people depend on at the end of the day.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So, you know, can you give us a flavor, we always know hackers have been a threat. We all experience it on a day to day basis, but what you see has to be super sophisticated. Can you tell us a bit about what are the threats like and how are they constantly evolving?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so it's interest that you brought the sophisticated aspect of it, because it really depends on the threat actor. So for example, working with a lot of mine, defense contractors, most of our biggest adversaries are other nations. And of course, they have unlimited resources to leverage the latest tactics, techniques and procedures to exploit the system. So sometimes you really do see some advanced exploits being thrown at your system. But nine times out of the 10. In most use cases that I'm tracking, one of the biggest attack vectors is social engineering, because at the end of the day, humans are both the strongest and the weakest link in the security chain. From a security and cyber awareness perspective, if you're aware of what the adversary is doing, you're less likely to fall for their scams and compromised system. But if you're not aware, they don't necessarily the hack into the system, they just need to hack you. So social engineering has been a huge thing that we're focusing on. And even in my role with the Maryland Defence Force, one of our biggest campaigns is to reach out to the communities and host cyber awareness and digital hygiene related courses so that those in the community understand how hackers how scammers compromised both people as well as systems and what you can do as the average person to stay ahead of the adversary at the end of the day.
Dr. Ralph Ford:You know, it is it is amazing. And you think you're really smart, figuring them out, and seeing them. But it's not always so clear now that I actually got caught in one a few years ago, when I was trying to get a passport, it looked to me like it was the United States Government website, and I had no idea it was a different one, I was able to resolve it pretty quickly. But my point is, I often associate this with people who don't work day to day with computers. And the one day they got me it was, it was a humbling experience, actually, to realize I just didn't quite look far enough into it.
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, I think both the cool and scary part about social engineering, they're literally companies that work a nine to five to focus on scamming people. And when you think about just how organized some of these organizations are, it's kind of impressive, but it's also kind of scary at the same time, because they have people who are clocking in just like you and me on a day to day basis to kind of understand how humans traverse the internet and how to kind of compromise them at the end of the day. So it becomes a digital game of cat and mouse to see who's going to stay ahead of each other.
Dr. Ralph Ford:It's rather frightening, but you know, it is human nature, we shouldn't kid ourselves, you think that people would spend, if they were going to work nine to five, they might actually work on something productive, but they find themselves trying to do that. And that's what happens a lot out there. And they know, of course, we know security, they trying to prey on elderly people. And you know, there's a lot there that all of us have a vested interest in from our family members and parents and the like. So anyways, it's it's important that we have people like yourself trying to protect them. So now, you know, as we hear about cybersecurity, and every day in the news, we hear the term AI Artificial Intelligence. What does that mean, in terms of the work that you do? And is it changing what you're doing?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yes. So the beauty of AI right now, especially in the federal spaces, the biggest thing that we're focusing on is regulation, and everything that stay the security and privacy related because one of the biggest concerns with AI is the fact that technology is outpacing current regulations. And one of the focal points is, so you have these systems that are able to ingest data and manipulate data to provide you with services and value at the end of the day. But who owns the data? And who's responsible if the state is leaked? And how do we ensure that these systems don't have bias or an end to them, because for most AI systems to learn, they have to be provided with a sample set of data. And who's to say that that data is both representative of the user base that you're trying to serve? Who's to say it hasn't been compromised. So regulations really the biggest thing from my side of the house that we're focusing on, because especially with the federal government, if your systems aren't federally certified, you can't deploy them into production. So there are a lot of things such as IBM Watson, there's Chet GPT, there's Google barred, but really, the government can't touch these systems unless they're on their federally certified platform as well. So we're trying to figure out how to certify that the systems are working as designed and that the algorithms behind set systems are transparent so that the average person can understand how these decisions are being made.
Dr. Ralph Ford:And I assume you're also trying to use the technology to better the security in the defense of our federal systems too.
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so a lot of people think AI is good to take everyone's job. But as far as what we're focusing on the federal space, we're trying to leverage AI as the quote unquote loyal wingman, how can AI kind of take some of the mundane tasks that the average cybersecurity analyst has to work on, so that they can focus on some of the more critical pieces of the job. One great example is log analysis, whether you're in cybersecurity whether you're a software engineer or developer, if you had to comb a set of logs, you would go crazy after a while, also to have AI based solution that can just go through the data and say, Okay, here's where the threat actor may have tried to compromise the system. Or this is where a fault in the system took place. In law, your engineers, your developers, your security analysts that actually focus on the task at hand, that's a huge win. IBM produces a study, both in the cost of a data breach as well as security operation center report, the kind of underlying some of the pain points that security practitioners go through. And one of the biggest things with security practitioners have to deal with so much data that it actually inhibits them from performing some of their critical tasks. So leveraging AI to kind of comb through the data to look for red flags, and allow the security analysts, the engineers, the practitioners to actually respond to threats, is gonna be one of the best outcomes that we can get from AI based solution.
Dr. Ralph Ford:What are the ones that I'm gonna have a specific example. So switching back to a little bit about what we hear in the news every day, is that organizations and companies are hacked, and their data is held hostage. In fact, it's happened quite a few school districts, I know what happens to companies. Are there any options that a company has once you've been hacked that way to not pay the ransom?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yes. So there are various resources that organizations could leverage. First and foremost, one of the best ones is to reach out to your local, FBI department or center. The only downside to this is just like anything in government, sometimes it does take several days, two weeks for the paperwork to go through the motions. And for case agents actually work on set of requests. So the next best thing to do, probably the best thing to do is to practice good digital hygiene, whether that's backing up your systems on a day to day basis, or as often is necessarily based on your use case and your risk appetite. And ensuring that you have safeguards to restore your system, if it has been compromised, is a great alternative to paying the ransom. Some people do pay the ransom, just because historically, some threat actors have been more reliable to release today, the but then when you actually work with a threat actor to have them release your data, there's a good opportunity that you're going to be extorted again, because just because they gave you access to your system doesn't mean they don't have access to the data that was already compromised. So the best thing to do is to ensure that you're doing routine backups of your system, that you're working with partners, whether it's federal partners, whether it's other organizations to share what are known as indicators of compromise, and to just work across the greater cyber community to kind of understand how these threat actors gained access to your system. And how you can actually restore your system are great alternatives to paying the ransom.
Dr. Ralph Ford:My guess when you pay that ransom to, they've put their own latent hacking technology that they can make sure that they get in there at some future date if they want as well.
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, we've seen everything from threat actors reentering someone's system and re compromising their system to most hackers just after they received the payment from the ransom, they actually just put the data on the dark web and then sell it to another third party. So now they're getting paid twice. So it's better to kind of safeguard and strengthen and harden your systems and to pay the ransom because you're never guaranteed the fact that that data is not going to get out in the wild again.
Dr. Ralph Ford:So can you give us a little preview of what you're going to talk about at the your lecture this evening?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so without spilling the secret sauce. The presentation is going to focus on the offensive use cases, the defensive use cases, as well as the future of AI in the cyberspace domain. And I suppose also cover key examples of some of the latest technologies that are being implemented both by the fenders as well as adversaries as well.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Sounds like it's going to be interesting talk looking forward to it. And let me ask you this, what advice do you have for current prospective students? Who or anybody out there who's considering a career in cybersecurity?
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, so, to me, there's three things to focus on one, if there's a position or there's a company that you're interested in, make sure to reach out to someone, whether it's alumni, whether it's students, whether it's faculty, to get an understanding of the role of the company and things of that nature. Because at the end of the day, there's always a statistic saying that there's millions and millions of jobs in the cyberspace domain that are going unfilled. A lot of practitioners including myself, we want to advance the next generation of cyber warriors because I always joke I want to help people because I also want to be able to retire. And if these jobs are hard and go are going unfulfilled, that means that I have to work longer and harder at the end of the day too. So help me help you. Let me know if there's something that you're interested in and I will be glad to share my experiences with you as well, too. A lot of people want to focus strictly on technical skills right out there academia, I would also say focus on some of those soft skills, especially problem solving. Because problem solving is one of those skill sets that you can use in technical roles and non technical roles. At the end of the day, we're all problem solving something. So the sharper and your problem solving skills, that's going to allow you to see whether you're in a technical role or a managerial role, or even client facing role. And then three, don't be afraid to fail. Oftentimes, people hold themselves back from getting into a new position or learning a new skill set, because they want to stay as an expert in one domain, or they don't want to seem as though they're incompetent in another domain, but being able to try something new, figure out if you like it or not. And even if you fail, you can always reach out to someone get additional help, and then become the future Smee in that given skill set or that domain as well. And it also allows you to kind of feel as though you have to prove yourself, because if you fail, then you can either quit, or you can try again. And most people who are going to try again, are the ones that do everything right the next time. So they're going to study harder, they're going to reach out to their connects, they're going to conduct their independent research, and then they're going to try again, and they're gonna do better than their previous attempt. So don't be afraid to fail, because you can only move forward at the end.
Dr. Ralph Ford:Great advice and sounds like a fascinating career. And to your point, we need a lot of cybersecurity experts for the future of this country. So we're coming to the end of our show. Do you have any final words or any anything
Jeremy O'Mard:Yeah, going back to the earlier point about just you'd like to add? staying connected and acts and questions. If there's anyone who's interested in cybersecurity, IT consultant, anything technical, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. My name is Jeremy O'Mard, that's J. E. R. E. M. Y. And O. apostrophe M. A. R. D., and then put a note in your friend requests that you're reaching out to me because you listen to the Behrend Talks podcast. I often joke with those who reach out to folks on LinkedIn, especially being a cybersecurity professional, if you just send me a friend request and we have no mutual connections, and it just comes out of the blue. I'm probably just going to assume that the spam and not accept it. So help me help you and just let me know that you want to reach out to me based on this talk or a given area of expertise.
Dr. Ralph Ford:All right. Well, thank you for your generous offer. Always great to see you. My guest today has been Jeremy Omar. He is the senior managing consultant in the hybrid cloud management practice at IBM consulting. It's been a pleasure Jeremy.