Orange County Welcomes New Deputy Sector Navigator

A new Deputy Sector Navigator in the Information Communication Technologies and Digital Media Sector (ICT-DM) is poised to make Orange County a leader in the state’s cybersecurity education initiatives.

Steve Linthicum, former ICT-DM DSN in the Greater Sacramento region recently moved to Southern California to assume the ICT-DM DSN position in the Orange County region. Linthicum also serves as Co-Project Director for the Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Innovation Grant issued by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to Coastline Community College.

Linthicum accepted the position after retiring from his role as a tenured faculty member at Sierra College in June. He continues to teach and support other community college faculty in a variety of classes that focused on network administration, information assurance and security, and virtualization/cloud technologies.

Linthicum’s initial DSN efforts have focused on revitalizing high school classes to insure they serve as a pipeline to college for students seeking high wage positions in the information technology field. He is currently developing a class that will be taught at three of the region’s high schools that will focus on CompTIA A+ certification, coupled with general security concepts, building teams that will compete in the cyber defense CyberPatriot program.

CyberPatriot and the California Cyberhub are key Doing What Matters initiatives that are taking hold at community colleges across the state. Linthicum’s leadership will ensure that Orange County, one of the state’s most populated regions, is at the forefront of those efforts.

“California’s community colleges are uniquely positioned to provide students with relevant training relating to cybersecurity workplace skills because of the ways they can easily adapt to necessary course content changes in this rapidly evolving field,” Linthicum says. “We align our courses with recognized IT and cybersecurity certifications that are often a mandated credential for employment.”

For more information about Linthicum, visit his blog at http://slinthicum.edublogs.org/ or contact him at .