The opportunity to shape security, significantly improve organizational practices, and make a difference in other people’s lives has motivated me in my career. There is nothing quite like watching those you coach grow, succeed, and thrive.

I started out as a security analyst responsible for a variety of security tasks - appsec reviews, security monitoring, vendor security reviews, customer security conversations, etc. As someone with a strong sense of responsibility, I found myself caring more and more about the overall structure and processes of the security program and found myself being entrusted by the organization to build it and shape it.

OWASP is a huge reason I am where I am today. I try to give back to the community by helping run the Portland Chapter where I serve as Chapter President. I also help out with their mentorship program, training day, and occasionally podcast. We have a very vibrant chapter with regular monthly meetings, a study night for hands-on-learning, a regular podcast on Spotify, and an annual training day in September. Lots of people give their time and energy to our chapter and I try to keep pace with them. It’s one of the most supportive communities I’ve been a part of.

Empathy, collaboration, honesty, perseverance. Making things more secure is about so much more than just finding vulnerabilities. The only way I know how to accomplish security initiatives is to work hard to understand where my teammates are coming from, what their day to day pressures are, and how their performance is measured. I work hard to collaborate alongside them to factor security more into their work without disrupting their performance.

Deserve it. Work hard on building out your technical acumen. Also don’t forget people. Get involved in your local OWASP chapter, contribute to OWASP Projects, reach out to people to get to know them. The best advice I can give on networking is asking people about their day to day to try to isolate what it is you really want to do and then ask people, “If you were me what would you do?” to get into their line of work. Follow their advice and follow up with them on how it went. Over time you will build a group of friends, mentors, and advocates.