Intelligence & national security:
savvy techies are always in demand

While other industries may be downsizing, technical jobs in security and intelligence continue strong

“I see the value of a diverse workforce on a daily basis.” – Karron Small, director of aviation engineering, Defense Supply Center Richmond

By Sue Marquette Poremba
Contributing Editor

'The job market for people with intelligence or security backgrounds has continued to increase since 9/11,” says Karon Webb, acting director of the human resources directorate at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA, Fort Belvoir, VA). “Given today’s environment of increasing and emerging security threats, DLA needs security specialists with a broad array of expertise, like physical security, personnel security, information security and communications security.”

DLA, Webb notes, looks for education and/or certifications and experience in one of a broad range
of security-related disciplines, plus a well-rounded background. “Of course, applicants must be able to maintain a security clearance,” she says.

Webb is eager to see women and minority candidates.
“A diverse workforce brings with it viewpoints and experiences that can positively impact performance within an organization,” she declares.

Karron Small is director of aviation engineering for Defense Supply Center Richmond, the DLA’s lead center for aviation support. She agrees. “The supply center places a strong emphasis on diversity, and the success of a diverse workforce is clearly apparent in our aviation engineering directorate, for example,” she says. “The experience and perspectives that employees from varied backgrounds and cultures bring to the table are incredible. I see the value of a diverse workforce on a daily basis.”

Zacha Vogt: sourcing and reliability at Defense Supply Center Richmond
While she was a student at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, Zacha Vogt juggled school with a fulltime job. “It was hard to balance work and school,
but I needed to work to be able to pay for school,” she says.

A couple of years after she got her 2002 BSME she went to a career fair
and talked with recruiters from Defense Supply Center Richmond. “I asked
if they were looking for MEs,” says Vogt. “They said they were, and I got the job here.”

She began in 2004. DSCR is the Defense Logistics Agency’s aviation demand and supply chain manager, providing parts and other operating supplies. Vogt works in the sourcing and reliability programs group, solving problems with sourcing.

“When a warfighter does not have a needed part or the manufacturer does not produce the part any more, we look for additional sources,” she explains.

Some aircraft have actually outlived the companies that originally produced their parts. When parts are needed but unavailable, Vogt and her group may get into reverse engineering and re-engineering. “We reverse-engineer the part and create a beta package so we can procure it,” she says. Reverse engineering starts with an existing part, testing the materials, taking measurements and creating the data to build the same part again. “We’re going from product to data rather than from data to product,” Vogt explains. “This is all you can do when a manufacturer no longer exists.”

Another aspect of her job is authenticating capability data received from prospective suppliers. “We review the data and do an economic analysis to see if the new vendor would benefit the government,” she says.

“The bottom line of my job is to increase the industrial base and solve problems with sourcing.”

Moving away from her home in Puerto Rico meant many changes in Vogt’s life, including getting used to the weather in Virginia. “When I left Puerto Rico it was 85 degrees,” she says, “but when I landed in Virginia it was 18 degrees and snowing.”

The job has let to an even more basic life change. “I met my husband at work,” Vogt says. “Now we have a one-year-old.”

Stephanie Spragg: defense analyst at the DIA
Stephanie Spragg has been working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA, Washington, DC) since 2000. She’s currently a defense analyst.

Spragg is the daughter of a career Army chaplain and an educator. She thinks that growing up with the military helped shape her own career path. “That’s probably why I’m comfortable working for the government,” she says.

After graduating from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998 with a BSE in materials science and engineering, Spragg took a job with Westinghouse Electric (Pittsburgh, PA). She worked there for two years before she was laid off. But she did not mind too much. “I knew I wanted a government job,” she says. A government job, she felt, would allow her to make contributions to society and she liked that.

She found her job through a NSBE career fair that happened to be in the city where her grandmother lived. She noticed that three government agencies, the CIA, DIA and State Department, were lined up in a row. “I made a beeline for that section of the fair. I interviewed with all three and wound up with the DIA.”

Working in the DIA’s directorate for analysis, “We monitor adherence to international security agreements on counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” she explains.

She finds that her engineering background helps her assimilate the complex information she confronts. “It also helps me understand the technical aspects of the information or at least know where to go to get the answers.”

The job fits her interests perfectly. “The analytic side of engineering is what has always appealed to me, so this job with its focus on analytic skills works for me!

“From day two of school, engineers are trained in how to analyze data, collate it, disseminate it and put it into reports. And that’s what the DIA does to support policymakers,” she says. “It’s a good alternative for engineers who don’t necessarily want to work in hard-core technology.”

William Asmond: lead IS engineer/scientist at Mitre
As a young man in South Carolina, William Asmond loved to play football. When he began at South Carolina State University he hoped to continue his football career. He soon learned, however, that he wouldn’t be able to fit all the engineering classes he needed in with the football schedule. “I wanted to graduate in four years,” Asmond says, “so I had to make a decision. I chose not to play football.”

He graduated from South Carolina State in 1987 with a BSCS, and later attended North Carolina A&T for his 1993 MSEE.

Over the years his career took him to the Department of Commerce, IBM and Lockheed Martin. Eleven years ago he joined the Mitre Corp (McLean, VA), where he’s a lead IS engineer/scientist.

The job gives him direct interface with his customers. “I advise them on decisions regarding research, training and skills development,” he explains. As the world of technology becomes more and more sophisticated, finding people with the right skill sets and having the budget to support them has become more difficult. “So we decided the best approach was to provide in-house training for our customers, and I lead that role.”

One current Asmond customer is involved in investigating security. “Company X’s computer systems was broken into and credit card numbers were compromised,” Asmond explains. “Eventually there will be an investigation of that,” and Asmond will be project lead of a team
of IT security people who take charge of the investigation.

“This is a job you have to be excited about,” he says. “There are frustrating moments and a number of walls you run into, but conquering those problems is why I come to work each day.

“It’s a challenge. A lot of times you have to understand what someone intended to do with undocumented code.” In the end, he adds, when he sees how his work leads to uncovering or solving a major problem, “It is extremely rewarding.”

Susan Farley: Windows and database development at Booz Allen Hamilton
Susan Farley decided to go for a BSCS because she was good with computers. “I didn’t know I could get a job with that degree until I started looking,” she says with a laugh.

Farley actually has both her BSCS and another BS in math, both acquired in 1998 from the University of Georgia. “I started in pre-med and got the math degree because of that,” she explains, “but I decided I probably wouldn’t like med school so I switched to CS.” In 2001 she received an MEng in modelling and simulation from Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) and she’s now working on a PhD. She’s an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA), where she’s involved with Windows and database development.

“I take whatever the users need and make an application and develop a database behind it,” she explains. “I had to do a lot of optimization for the last project I was on because it had so much data.”

Farley recently worked with a law enforcement agency on an electronic surveillance data project. Her job was to make the base data easier to read. “We also gave the agency tools to analyze data better so they can track ‘persons of interest,’” she explains.

Booz Allen Hamilton was a good choice for Farley: she wanted a company involved in national security issues. “I liked the idea of working somewhere that would make a difference and keep people safe,” she says.

She tries to make a difference herself, both on and outside her job. She teaches Sunday school, and she’s chair of the Richmond chapter of IEEE’s Women in Engineering (WIE) group. Through WIE, Farley is working with the Girl Scouts to develop a “girls go engineering” patch. She’s also involved with “It’s Electric,” a program in conjunction with Dominion Power that introduces girls to careers in engineering and science. And she serves as a “Rebuilding Together” house captain, part of a Booz Allen program that “makes people’s homes safer places to live,” she explains.

Eventually, after she completes her PhD, Farley thinks she might like to be a college professor. She figures she’s well on the way, because “I found that when I had classes with teachers who had real-life experience, the lessons made more sense,” she says.

Joseph Akinyele: securing the computing platform and network at JHU APL
Joseph Akinyele was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, but moved to the U.S. when he was seven, when his father took a teaching job at Bowie State University (Bowie, MD). When he grew up, Akinyele went to Bowie State for his 2006 BSCS. Then he went on to Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) for a 2007 MS in IT, specializing in software engineering.

While he was an undergrad, Akinyele worked as an intern with Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL). He worked on research to understand hacker motivation, techniques, tools and tactics, and became deeply interested in computer and network security.

In 2007 Akinyele went to work at APL fulltime as a software engineer. He’s on a team that develops prototype software for proving the trustworthiness of computer systems, leveraging virtualization technology and developing a hardware-enabled trusted computing base. The work supports APL’s mission to boost U.S. capabilities in information ops by securing the computing platform and network. “For example, we are developing a prototype platform with built-in capabilities to provide end users with a higher assurance that they are operating in a secure environment.”

Akinyele has participated in his department’s mentoring program. He also plays on intramural sports teams, which helps him network with other employees at the lab.

He appreciates how his internship shaped his career path. “I want to extend that same opportunity to others. That’s why I recruit for APL at other universities,” he says.

RAND’s Natalie Crawford works in aircraft survivability
Natalie Crawford began her career in 1964 at the Research and Development Corporation (RAND, Santa Monica, CA), the nonprofit research organization, as a computer programmer. “Ninety-nine percent of the work I’ve done at RAND has been for the Air Force,” she says. “My work has centered on issues of aircraft performance, avionics and weapons performance, survivability of air platforms and space systems, and electronic warfare. It’s a very broad background.”

Her first job was to write an “anti-aircraft attrition” model. “It was a simulation that predicted how often airplanes might be shot down by anti-aircraft guns,” she says. “That evolved into a study of weapons characteristics and effects.”

She eventually moved into aircraft survivability. Today, as a senior Fellow at RAND, Crawford doesn’t do modeling, “but I’m still involved in that type of work,” she says. She coordinates disaster recovery and business continuity planning, leads an Air Force project, and more. She also acts as a mentor for new staff, and she’s on a recruiting committee.

“When I went to UCLA, I knew I wanted to major in math because I loved the subject,” she says. “I figured I could do almost anything with that degree.” She completed a BA in math in 1961.

She had wanted to work for RAND since her family moved to California when she was a junior in high school. But when she applied after college, she was told she needed other work experience before she could be considered. So she took a job with another company for three years. “Then I heard there was a job opening as a computer programmer at RAND,” she says. “I applied, and the rest is history.”

Crawford has seen a lot of changes in technology over the years, but she’d like to see more women going into science and engineering fields. To help, she has established scholarships at Santa Monica high school in memory of her late husband, for students who are strong in math and science. At least half the applicants each year are girls.

“I interview the girls, and they are all taking AP science courses and getting straight A’s,” she says. She wants to see these bright girls get into meaningful careers. “It’s important that they use their abilities to help drive changes in the world,” Crawford believes.

D/C

Sue Marquette Poremba is an engineering and construction writer in State College, PA.

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