Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
7/18/2014
Bechtel said this week that it is establishing a program aimed at developing cyber security experts in conjunction with the two nuclear weapons laboratories it runs. Early-career professionals will rotate through Bechtel headquarters and Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories during the three-year program, which is designed to provide the workers a broad perspective on cyber defense issues specific to the different institutions. “Cyber threats pose a danger to the government and the private sector. Bechtel protects assets in both areas and can uniquely join forces with two national laboratories,” Craig Albert, president of Bechtel’s government services business unit, said in a statement. “When you combine the resources and expertise of our three organizations you have a program that will make significant contributions across a broad spectrum of cybersecurity areas.”
Albert said the first two years of each employee’s training will be funded with corporate money rather than the government. Recruits will be evenly dispersed to Bechtel headquarters and the labs, and after spending a year at their original institution, they’ll rotate to the other two institutions for more training before returning to where they were hired as a permanent employee. The intent is that the employees will “blend” hands-on experience in Bechtel’s global cyber operations with cyber research and development at the labs. “This is a cooperative commitment to the nation’s cybersecurity,” Albert said. Matt Myrick, the cyber security architect who will lead the Livermore program, added: “The benefit to the nation is that private industry will be better able to defend itself and the national labs will develop an enhanced capability to defend U.S. cyber assets.”
