Austin, Texas Chapter 179
January Chapter Meeting

Chapter 179 is pleased to present Vern Williams, ISSA Distinguished Fellow, IEEE Senior Member as our guest speaker during the January chapter meeting.

Information Assurance as a field is a relative newcomer to the professions.  So, what can we learn from those who have come before us?  Engineering as a discipline keeps our bridges supporting traffic and our missions to space safe, unless they don’t.  What can we, as security professionals, learn from the lessons that have been learned the hard way by others in this world?  We will look at several engineering disasters and take lessons from what went wrong and what was done to correct the root causes of the disaster. 

Vern Williams (CISSP ISSEP CSSLP CBCP CCSK ISAM), Experienced leader and security professional who has over 20 years of demonstrated performance in the IT and security arena, 20 years driving nuclear submarines for the US Navy and qualified as a Navy Nuclear Engineer.  Graduated from the US Naval Academy with a degree in Physics/Oceanography and before retiring obtained a Master’s of Science in Information Systems followed by teaching at the master’s level at Hawaii Pacific University and undergrad level at the Naval Academy. A strong supporter of security education through conferences, starting the Texas Regional Infrastructure Security Conference in 2005, and as lead instructor and initiator of a CISSP class at Austin Community College for over 20 years.  Active in volunteer leadership as Director of Operations for ISSA International, Chapter President of the Capitol of Texas ISSA chapter, Chair of the local ASIS chapter and Director of Membership for the Austin InfraGard chapter.  Frequent speaker for local ISSA chapters, Keynote for the ISA Bluebonnet conference and many other speaking and teaching events including RSA, Department of Veterans Affairs, SANS, ISACA, IIA, InfraGard and a founder and Steering Committee member for the first and second annual ISO27000, Summit of the Americas.  He is currently serving as the Dell EMC Chief Federal Cybersecurity Architect.