Rick Myers - VCISO, Caldera Cybersecurity Services

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Work Background

Caldera Cybersecurity ServicesChief Information Security Officer

Feb. 2025Albuquerque, New Mexico, United StatesAs the Chief Information Security Officer in Albuquerque, NM, I lead the cybersecurity consulting practice, working closely with clients to develop tailored security programs. By conducting security assessments, providing training, and designing robust security architecture, I ensure the protection of sensitive data and mitigated cyber threats effectively.

Confidential Financial ServicesChief Information Security Officer and Head of Technology Infrastructure

Jun. 2021 - Jan. 2025Tampa, Florida, United StatesAs the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Head of Technology Infrastructure, IT Operations and Engineering, I am responsible for all facets of cybersecurity, technology infrastructure engineering, and platform operations. This role has the overall responsibility to provide strategic direction and leadership across the IT Infrastructure, Operations, Security, and Risk Management functions to significantly improve security, service quality, resiliency, and performance of the underlying infrastructure, computing capacity, and associated operational processes that support the Enterprise 24X7. This role is also a dynamic, forward-thinking leadership position that plans, directs, and executes operations in support of the company's growth. Primary Responsibilities: • Design, develop, optimize, and execute a proactive Information Security Strategy & Architecture that evolves with the business needs and the threat landscape that is aligned with regulatory requirements, security policies, standard & controls and guidelines. • Lead a team of security analyst(s)/engineer(s) to ensure the proper hardening of the technology environment to include proactive monitoring & detection, audits, assessments, and remediation. • Develop and optimize an organization wide security awareness and training program focused on everyday examples and techniques used by hackers and unethical entities. • Respond, manage, and remediate IT security alerts, NOC/SOC escalations and security incidents that could include malicious attacks, detected anomalies, malware, unauthorized users, data extraction, insider threat, etc. • Lead Cyber Incident Response working with multiple parties including internal team members, security vendors, consultants, etc. • Instituted Data Loss Protection (DLP) protocols in our Office365 tenant, and a data classifying tool that scans filesystems looking for personally identifiable information (PII) and reports violations to security.

Ultimate Medical AcademyAssociate Vice President, IT Engineering and Information Security

Jul. 2020 - Jun. 2021Tampa, Florida, United StatesSenior leader responsible for driving transformational change within the IT organization and across all lines of business that engages in higher education for the healthcare industry. At UMA, I worked extensively with Microsoft technology like Azure, Active Directory, and Office 365. My responsibilities include mentoring and managing the infrastructure engineering and DevOps, service desk, PC support, network engineering, storage engineering and information security. Notable projects and accomplishments: • Deployed an all-fiber Metro-Area Network with dual ingress to all major locations that was later utilized to increase internet bandwidth and connectivity to Microsoft’s Express Route service. • Created UMA’s first-ever Network Operations Center (NOC) to centralize the alarm monitoring across all critical systems and expedite response and resolution times. • Potential outages were averted by proactively monitoring for small degradations and averting system impacting events. Overall system uptime increased by 30% the first year the NOC was in operation. • In 2019, optimized the IT Business Continuity Storm Preparedness Plan with remote access capabilities. • During the 2020 pandemic, seamlessly migrated over 2,500 employees to work from home status within 2 days. Today, UMA is still mostly a remote work environment with minimal need to access the office. • Adopted a “cloud-first” approach to new server deployment utilizing Azure for offsite storage replication and DR/BCP planning. • Leveraged Azure for cloud computing when we deployed a web-based Student Portal. Supported access to our online Learning Management System LMS), backend Student Information System, and Office365 applications. • Implemented a robust Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution that reduced network failures for staff working from home by 70% utilizing Microsoft’s Always-On VPN solution.

Ultimate Medical AcademySenior Director, IT Engineering and Information Security

Jan. 2016 - Jul. 2020Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida AreaSenior leader responsible for driving transformational change within the IT organization and across all lines of business that engages in higher education for the healthcare industry. At UMA, I work extensively with Microsoft technology like Azure, active directory and Office 365. My responsibilities include mentoring and managing the infrastructure engineering and DevOps, service desk, PC support, network engineering, storage engineering and information security teams. Notable projects and accomplishments in this role: • Led for GLBA, FERPA, NIST audit support and remediation within the IT organization. • Created UMA’s first-ever security awareness programs that won awards from our vendor for creativity and effectiveness. We reduced the staff’s vulnerability to phishing attacks by over 80% in 1 year. • Assembled UMA’s first-ever security team and led them in implementing an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), a log reporting tool, and updating the web-filtering and internal firewalling software. • Led the evolution of the organization’s technology infrastructure developing a team that became experts in Microsoft technology such as Azure, Active Directory, and Microsoft 365. • Directed a Migration to Office 365 Mail for over 2500 users. Migrated over 30% of critical applications and services to Azure and the remaining 70% to a new secure data center. • Created UMA IT’s Business Continuity Plan. Served as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s • Local Agency Security Officer maintaining Level 2 certification protecting UMA’s criminal justice information (CJI). • President's Award - Ultimate Medical Academy, 2018 recipient in recognition of the implementation of a new remote data center to house critical applications in a secure location as part of the business continuity plan.

Syniverse TechnologiesSenior Director of Technology

Mar. 2009 - Jan. 2016Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida AreaDirected automation initiatives and works autonomously to reduce overall operational costs for data centers in the U.S and India which supported back-office operations. Maximized the efficiency and effectiveness of the department by developing and implementing best practices related to the operations of 80 SLA-driven enterprise grade applications, capacity planning, release management, disaster recovery, business continuity planning, SOX Compliance, new application rollouts, hardware deployments, and OpEx and CapEx budget planning. Attentive leader dedicated to the coaching and development of 50+ employees and contractors in the U.S, Costa Rica and India. Applied expertise in enterprise reporting, business analytics, enterprise billing and financial clearing operations in order to meet the needs of the business. • Project managed new international data center migrations and actively managed technical operations in 7 data centers worldwide. • Designed and implemented migration strategy of Solaris-based applications to LINUX x86 and RedHat VM architectures to drive down OpEX expenditures by 70%. • Led daily operations, capacity planning and effective business continuity planning for global 5-9’s SOA, Enterprise Reporting/Data Warehouse and web-based platforms. • Increased the effectiveness of the department by 100% and reduced outcalls by 50% since 2011 with the implementation of the follow-the-sun model by building effective and trained operational teams in India and Costa Rica. • Drove metrics management to monitor and improve SLA compliance and customer satisfaction.

Syniverse TechnologiesSr. Manager - Technology Operations

Jul. 2008 - Mar. 2009Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area

Syniverse TechnologiesTechnology Manager

Feb. 2001 - Jul. 2008Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida AreaEnsured the efficient operation of a large-scale web-based enterprise reporting platform leading the operations support team in a 24X7 environment. Applied expertise in project management, product management to exceeded performance expectations related to SOX audits and compliance reporting; release installations; customer care; ticket resolution; and quality assurance for more than 8,000 reports generated daily. • Recipient of the President’s Club award in 2009 for operational leadership during the industry launch of NRTRDE product.

SourceTrackTechnical Product Manager

Jan. 1999 - Dec. 2001Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida AreaAs technical product manager, my role was to provide to provide technical input into the design and development of new online procurement tools that mirrored the customer's expectations. By utilizing my technical skills, I was able to provide and improve the planning and prioritization of new product enhancements. Using my understanding of the business needs, I was the conduit in which these business requirements were translated into technical requirements.

IBM Global ServicesIT GLOBAL SERVICES CONSULTANT

Oct. 1996 - Oct. 1999Middletown, RIIT consultant for a national practice within IBM Global Services. During my tenure, I was responsible for client relations and deployment of internet based technologies. Some of my more notable projects included working with IBM Labs to create and market web-based collaboration tools and website content indexing platforms.

GTE Data ServicesSenior System Engineer

Jan. 1991 - Dec. 1996Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area