The Augustana Chronicle - Wired for Success

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By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

The location of the U.S. Army's Cyber Command at Fort Gordon is the biggest economic development to hit Augusta in recent history.

Part of being a good host to the headquarters of America's next-generation warriors will be ensuring it has a good reservoir of talent from which to draw. And that means having a well-educated and well-trained community.

Think of it as helping serve those who serve us.

Georgia Regents University is making plans now to work with the Army and the National Security Agency to meet current and future cyber-educational needs. An important first step in that process begins Thursday with the Cyber Education Summit at the new J. Harold Harrison, M.D., Education Commons Building on the GRU Health Sciences Campus downtown.

The one-day summit, scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., will bring together defense, industry and academic leaders to discuss the Cyber Command's educational needs and ways to promote cyber education in the Augusta metro area.

Hopefully, the lessons learned will lead to development of a full-fledged cyber curriculum at GRU.

The event, free to students, educators and government/military personnel, will feature keynote speaker Adm. Michael S. Rogers, director of the NSA and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, will be the event's guest host.

Foreign governments -- particularly China, Iran and Russia -- have for years employed hackers to conduct espionage and sabotage against other nations. Augusta's cyber warriors will be part of a front-line defense against attacks on the domestic information systems controlling such things as military and government communications, the nation's electric-power grid and its banking system.

"As our nation continues to face growing cyber security threats from around the world, cyber education is critically important to strengthening our ability to defend our systems from future attacks," Chambliss said in a statement.

Panelists at this major engagement between higher education and defense officials here will discuss the programs government and industry have to attract young people into cyber careers, as well as current and emerging cyber threats and what the U.S. and other countries are doing to guard against Internet-based attacks.

A full event schedule and registration information can be found at gru.edu/cybersummit.

The growth potential for cyber warfare is immense, as Cyber Command is still in its developmental stages. Created in 2010, it was the first new Army branch established since Special Operations in 1987.

Moving Cyber Command from suburban Washington, D.C., to Augusta is expected to create more than 2,600 military, 900 civilian and 200 contractor jobs at Fort Gordon by 2019.

Those folks are going to need training and education to hone the hard and soft skills needed for a career in cyber security. And the best place for that training and education to occur should be right here in Augusta.

Kudos to GRU, the NSA and the Army for starting the dialogue to make that happen.

A cyber education initiative is being developed on another front, too. School leaders in Richmond and Columbia counties have submitted to the Georgia Department of Education plans for a cyber security curriculum for high schools. Fort Gordon, GRU and Augusta Technical College are collaborating with the counties.

The right ingredients are coming together. The CSRA is poised to become the nation's big brain for cyber security, in an era when ironclad cyber security grows more important every day.

Rising to that challenge would help write one of our area's biggest success stories.

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