I didn’t start in cybersecurity by following the playbook. Honestly, there wasn’t one.
In the early 1990s, I was in community college trying to learn COBOL from professors who’d never written a line of it for an actual employer. I was already programming COBOL on the job, and the gap between what I was doing at work and what I was being taught in class was wide enough to fall through. I struggled. Not because the material was beyond me, but because I was trying to learn a craft from people who’d never practiced it. That experience shaped how I think about teaching to this day.
By the early 2000s, I was tired of the corporate grind and decided to start my own business. It failed. Not because the idea was wrong, but because I didn’t yet have the business acumen to run a company. I had technical skills and ambition, and I’d mistaken those for enough. They weren’t.
If you’ve ever felt that quiet fear that maybe you’re not smart enough, not technical enough, I want you to know I’ve sat exactly where you’re sitting. I know what it feels like to want a career in tech and have no idea how to get one. I know what it feels like to bet on yourself and watch it not work out.
The turning point
At 39, I joined the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
It wasn’t Plan A. It wasn’t even Plan C. But it gave me something I’d been missing for years: clarity about what actually matters. I became a Signal Support Systems Specialist. Fifteen years later, I’m a Master Sergeant, and I’ve spent that time learning what worked and what didn’t, assessing risk, and making decisions when the stakes are real and the timeline is short.
That foundation changed everything. Not because the military is magic, it isn’t, but because for the first time, I had a framework for thinking that traveled with me into every room I walked into afterward.
What I do now
Today I’m a Senior Application Security Team Lead at Lehigh Valley Health Network, protecting systems that serve more than 65,000 people. I hold a Master’s in AI & Machine Learning from Drexel University, and I’m pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration with research focused on how organizations actually adopt AI responsibly, not in theory, in practice.
But the part of my story that matters most for you isn’t on my résumé.
Over the years, I’ve mentored more than 145 people through the exact transition you’re trying to make: soldiers leaving service, students staring down graduation, career changers in their thirties, forties, and fifties, wondering if it’s too late. (It’s not.) I’ve watched what works and what doesn’t. I’ve seen people waste two years and thousands of dollars on the wrong certifications, and I’ve seen others land roles in months by focusing on the right things.
That’s why this site exists.
What I believe
Employers don’t hire certifications. They hire people who can think clearly about risk, communicate well, and solve problems that matter.
Tools change every quarter. Frameworks evolve. Certifications expire. But the ability to ask “what could go wrong here, and why does it matter?” That’s what gets people hired. That’s what I teach.
I’ve competed for and won roles where CISSP and CISM were listed as requirements, because I could demonstrate the judgment those certifications are meant to signal. You can learn to do the same thing. That’s not a sales pitch, it’s the most honest thing I can tell you about how this industry actually works.
Why I’m not another YouTuber
There’s no shortage of people online telling you how to break into cybersecurity, or that “the time is now,” or that the time would have been five years ago. Content like that is designed to be an inch deep and a mile wide. It’s built to keep you watching, not to get you hired. You finish the video feeling motivated, but you walk away with no system, no plan, and no real-world guidance from anyone who’s actually done the work.
What gets you hired is experience. And the question every beginner asks is: how do I get experience when no one will give me a shot? That’s where I come in. I help people find the starting points, build the right kind of experience, and avoid the dead ends.
But before any of that, you have to ask yourself the harder questions. Do you actually like engaging with people and solving their problems? Are you okay with the phone ringing at 2 am because something’s broken and someone needs you? Is this a job you want, or is it a career you’re willing to build for the rest of your working life?
Those are the questions a YouTube video won’t ask you. I will. Because the worst outcome isn’t picking the wrong certification, it’s spending two years and ten thousand dollars chasing a career you were never going to enjoy in the first place.
There’s no one solution that fits everyone. Every person I work with has different goals, different starting points, and different definitions of what success looks like. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m still learning too. This field changes every year, and anyone who tells you they’ve got it all figured out is selling you something. I’m adapting to new technologies right alongside the people I mentor. That’s part of what keeps the guidance real.
No hype. No shortcuts. Just what works.
If that’s the kind of guidance you’ve been looking for, you’re in the right place.
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