If you are a member of security leadership then this blog is especially for you.  If you are responsible for security, but you are not part of leadership then stay tuned because one of your challenges will be to get leadership on board.  We have dealt with some excellent people in leadership that really knew their job and take it seriously.  One such person was an Air Force Colonel.  He knew what he was doing.  He was born and raised in the UK, had been a member of Scotland Yard, and then for reasons I never heard, immigrated to the US, and became part of the US Air Force’s Security Forces.

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Visitor Management is a community effort

Visitor Management is a community thing!  Good Visitor Management takes a team with a common playbook to which everyone understands and agrees.  Team members work for different departments within the organization but all of them are part of the overall security team.  Each team member will have requirements that must be met for them to do their job effectively.  Since they are all part of the security team that has different but related requirements, I refer to them as “stakeholders.”

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“Goodbye Judy” – Neil Armstrong said to Judy Sullivan on July 16, 1969,

from the suit lab before the Apollo 11 launch.

Early Life and Education

Judy Sullivan is a true pioneer of women in STEM. Judy was born in 1943 to Robert and Mary Shanaberger.  As a young girl, Sullivan was always interested in science. After graduating as valedictorian of her high school in Alabama.¹³  She attended Jacksonville State College in Alabama where she majored in biology and minored in chemistry and math.  She was inspired by John F. Kennedy after she heard his speech encouraging more scholars to study engineering, science, and math. ^{See Footnote Below}  She graduated in 1964, the second in her class at college, and started her career as a high-school math and science teacher in Cocoa Beach Florida.¹  In the summer of 1966 she applied for a summer job at NASA.

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Visitor Management has advanced a great deal in the past 20 years.   For decades, except for the most secure locations, at best, visitors signed in on a clipboard and that was about it.  One of the military bases that we worked with a few decades ago went to lengths to make sure that everyone entering the facility, especially during times of meetings, had an up-to-date security clearance…unless you were part of the cleaning crew.  Then you were allowed in without question including at times when classified meetings were in progress.

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Have you heard this one: “WARNING – TO AVOID INJURY DON’T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB?”  There are lots of workplace jokes including those about “lost time accidents” but workplace safety is no joke!

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Grace Murray Hopper working on the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University, 1946.

Who is Grace Hopper?

“Sometimes people think Hopper was ‘only’ a foundational computer scientist or ‘only’ a naval officer,’ but that was just the beginning,” said Julia Adams, head of Grace Hopper College and professor of sociology. “It’s important that people realize that she had four or five illustrious careers, each of which would have done her great honor: mathematician, foundational computer scientist, naval officer, teacher, and public intellectual.”²

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Trusted! But … Not Really

One of the most tragic attacks on the US military in recent history was the shooting at Ft. Hood.  It is tragic not only because of the loss of life but also the survivor’s guilt.  Like school shootings, it happened in a place of perceived safety.  In hindsight it is easy to spot the warning signs but why so often do these warning signs go overlooked?  Those trusted with protecting Ft. Hood, like so many other secure facilities, are faced with the awful guilt and reflection when determining if they could have or should have been able to prevent this.  Like the Navy Yard shooting a few years later, both attacks were carried out by trusted personnel.  While these incidents have been thoroughly investigated and additional measures have been put in place to prevent future incidents one fact remains true, the strongest fences won’t help when the enemy can walk in through the front gate.

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It’s Starting to Look very Cloudy!

As cloud computing becomes more and more popular, the question is often whether to install that new enterprise system in an on-premises data center or trust the cloud to house what may be very sensitive information.  There is not a single right answer but let me walk you through how we made the decision.

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Have you ever spent time working on a document or software project and became so engrossed that you forgot to hit “Save” for a while?  Then the power went out and all was lost since the last save.  Fortunately, that is not as common as it used to be since a lot of us use laptops and they have their own onboard power, but you get the idea.  Computers need to have power and an unexpected power loss can be disastrous. (more…)

What is Ada Lovelace Day?

Ada Lovelace Day is the second Tuesday in October and in 2021 that day is October 12th.  Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  This day seeks to increase the profile of women in STEM to create role models that will encourage more girls into STEM careers and support women currently working in STEM.¹ 

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