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Industry Advisory Board

Connor Pate

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Connor Pate graduated from NIATEC in 2017, earning his MBA with an emphasis in information assurance. He is a proud Bengal who also competed for the University in Track and Field while getting his Bachelor's in Applied Economics.

Within NIATEC, Connor helped build and host collegiate cyber competitions. In between his first and second years, he worked at NASA Glenn Research Center developing Industrial Control System (ICS) risk assessment methodologies and standard operating procedures. Shortly after graduation, he started working in Washington, DC as a cybersecurity consultant at Good Harbor Security and Risk Management under the mentorship of a former National Security Councilman. Connor was then selected into a Department of the Army Leadership program. During this experience Connor worked extensively with the Network Cross-Functional Team who were tasked by the Secretary of the Army to modernize their ability to communicate securely in the face of near peer adversaries. It also led to work with cyber portfolio programming and various science and technology projects. Connor was then hired at the Department of the Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8. As an Information Assurance Manager he had the responsibility to safeguard the Planning and Programming information for the entire United States Army. Connor is currently a cybersecurity auditor at the Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General (OIG). His mission is to detect and help remediate ineffective security practices across the Department and its thirteen bureaus.

He is passionate about national security, information assurance, continuous learning, and STEM education. For recreation Connor enjoys the mountains and all of their activities.

Clark Morsbach

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Clark Morsbach is currently the Assistant Information System Security Manager at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where he oversees security assessments for INL’s information systems to support the Lab’s risks management program. Prior to working at INL Clark was the Director for Cybersecurity and Control Assessments for The U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General. As a Director he planned, oversaw, and conducted cybersecurity audits of the Departments mission critical systems. Clark graduated from Idaho State University in 2005 completing his MBA as part of the National Information Assurance and Training Education Center (NIATEC) cybersecurity program.

Laura Martin

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Prior to starting work at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) five years ago, Laura Martin owned her own business. After having lived that dream, she was ready to take on new challenges. She was introduced to the Cybercorps: Scholarship for Service program and decided to go back to Idaho State University to learn how to be a leader in the cybersecurity domain for the federal government. After earning her MBA with an emphasis in Information Assurance, she had the opportunity to work for the Department of Energy and in the Intelligence Community before coming to work at NSWCDD.

At NSWCDD, Laura has held increasingly technical and complex roles. She started with the penetration test team which is now the Navy Red Team. From there, she had the opportunity to do project management across a business portfolio for approximately 40 scientists and engineers. She then developed the initial data standards for measuring cyber lethality for cyber weapons for the tri-services. After completion of the data standards, Laura worked as a combat system cyber engineer and went on to write the NAVSEA Cyber Engineering Manual. Most recently, she was asked to lead the enterprise NSWCDD Hybrid Cloud project which was successfully transitioned to the operations team while she is currently working to instantiate an enterprise software factory capability.

NIATEC National Science Foundation Information Assurance Directorate Department of Homeland Security CISSE Scholarship For Service