Tag Archive for: veterans

Coding for Veterans offers second career after military

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PETAWAWA, ONT. —
Current and retired armed forces members could go shopping for bread and for a new career at the Canex store in Petawawa Wednesday.

The Coding for Veterans caravan has set up on base at CFB Petawawa for two days, offering a second career path for veterans in the cyber security space after a life in the military.

“People need a purpose when they transition and leave the forces,” says Pat Shaw, director of academic partnerships at Coding for Veterans. “They will find that sense of purpose in the continued protection of Canadians data and information.”

The course, in partnership with the University of Ottawa, teaches secure software development, network security, and cyber architecture. Shaw says they are jobs that can be done remotely, with anywhere from 150,000 to 250,000 current openings for IT jobs across Canada.

“We’re trying to assist those veterans to train up or up-skill to be able to do those software development and cyber security jobs,” says Shaw.

After working for the armed forces for 35 years and recently retiring at the age of 53, current Coding for Veterans student Elena Vazquez tells CTV News Ottawa that her pursuit of a new career is a natural fit for her.

“I’m a fixer, so when at work or at home there are issues with my computer, I like to be the one trying to fix it,” says the young retiree. “I find that super interesting, honestly, I love it.”

Vazquez retired as a Human Resources manager, but said she still wants to serve that sense of security and protection that she developed after a career with the Canadian Armed Forces.

“If I can find a job in that field to help defend any cyber attacks that we get, that would be great,” says Vazquez, who adds she only has six months left of learning on her course.

An information booth for Coding for Veterans will be set up at 14 Ypres Blvd. in Petawawa again on Thursday, Oct. 21.

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NetAbstraction Adds Two Cyber Security Veterans to Advisory Board |

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CHANTILLY, Va., July 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — NetAbstraction, the security by obfuscation company, today announced that Jenny Menna, Vice President, Business Cybersecurity Risk at Humana, and Rob Truesdell, Senior Director of Product Management for Splunk have joined its Board of Advisors. Both will help shape the company’s product, technology and corporate strategy.

“Jenny and Rob bring decades of cyber security experience in government, healthcare, financial services and the vendor community to our board of advisors,” said Gordon Lawson, CEO of NetAbstraction. “Their diverse experience as practitioners and technology providers, as well as their industry relationships, will help NetAbstraction accelerate adoption for our obfuscation technology in key markets.”

Jenny Menna is Vice President, Business Cybersecurity Risk at Fortune 500 healthcare provider Humana. Previously she served as the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer for U.S. Bank. She has also held a variety of senior cybersecurity leadership positions in the Department of Homeland Security. Her industry leadership roles include the FS-ISAC Board of Directors, the Global Cybersecurity Alliance Strategic Advisory Committee, the Financial Top Level Domain Board of Directors, the Risk Committee of Early Warning Services, and the National Cybersecurity Alliance Board of Directors. She is a Visiting Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.

“Organizations face increasingly sophisticated threats targeting their employees and infrastructure,” said Jenny Menna. “NetAbstraction provides a veil of secrecy that prevents attackers from monitoring their activities and targeting their footprint. I look forward to working with the company to grow the market for this exciting new approach to cyber security.”

Rob Truesdell has been a leader in the cybersecurity space for over 15 years specializing in early stage and high growth products. He currently leads product direction and execution for the cloud-based security operations products at Splunk. Previously, Rob led product management for the award winning Phantom Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform…

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Veterans charity CEO calls for reset on approach to funding

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Veterans charity CEO calls for reset on approach to funding

Sir Keir later made the point that money was “being sprayed at companies that don’t deliver” | Credit: PA Images

‘Make online contributions to charities that are struggling’ was the Prime Minister’s plea to MPs in a recent exchange about Government support for veterans organisations. As the Government pledges another £254m to tackle rough sleeping, now more than ever, it is important to target spending wisely.

In a recent Armistice Day exchange about government spending, Labour leader Keir Starmer invited the Prime Minister and fellow MPs to praise the ‘remarkable work’ of veterans’ charities – singling out two of the nation’s largest and most well-known for mention.

Sir Keir pointed out that they had seen a significant drop in funding since the start of the pandemic – to the point where they were having to make ‘difficult decisions’ about redundancies and keeping facilities open.

Of course this is also true of the wider charity sector, to which my points are equally relevant.

The exchange provoked a rightfully enthusiastic and positive response, but it was a general one; predicated, I suspect, on an assumption that veterans’ charities were homogenous and equally engaged in providing practical and immediate support for struggling veterans.

This clearly isn’t the case and I want to push for greater thought about this area prior to any allocation of new funding. 

Government support for charities in the present climate must be needs driven. This is a time of crisis, in which financing of non-essential services seems very  inappropriate.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation predicts that 2.5m households are worried about paying rent over winter, with 700,000 already in arrears and 350,000 at risk of eviction. This will only be compounded by a rise in unemployment, predicted to be the sharpest for half a century. Naturally, some of those affected will be ex-servicemen and women.

Let’s get much smarter about how Government money is used to address social exclusion. 

To date Veterans Aid has provided 275 days of uninterrupted service…

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