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group, which was tasked with integrating USCYBERCOM’s cyberspace capability development, and now looks to elevate San Antonio’s position in the fields of cybersecurity and data science. “A lot of people have an opportunity to command or lead an organization, but very few have the opportunity to stand it up from scratch,” he says. You have experience working with government, industry and academia. How do those work together to improve national security? Let me start with the relationship between the government and industry. My grandmother worked in a box factory putting stuff together back in World War II. It was the industrial base of the U.S. that gave us that success in terms of aircraft building. You don’t move a military forward unless you have that industrial base supporting it. As we started to cut costs in the government, we became much more dependent on industry for many years. You can start with Silicon Valley and some of the work that was done here in San Antonio, building from computers to chips to technology. The relationship between government and industry has been building over the past 40 years.
Cyber City, USA Guy Walsh, founding executive director of UTSA’s National Security Collaboration Center, hopes to create a hub for cyber industry and academics alongside the new School of Data Science at the university’s downtown campus BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA
n 2019, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General (Ret.) Guy Walsh, 64, was named the executive director of the UTSA National Security Collaboration Center (NSCC), which broke ground this winter along San Pedro Creek downtown. Walsh spent 25 years as a pilot in the Air Force, providing close air support for both U.S. and coalition troops. In 2010, a year after retiring, he was tapped by the NSA’s director and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command to focus on cyber as the newest combat command organization in the Department of Defense. He later became an original member and deputy director of the Capabilities Development
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Resume: U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, United States Cyber Command, UTSA’s National Security Collaboration Center Education: Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Sciences, United States Air Force Academy; Master in International Relations and Strategic Studies, University of Southern California
How does academia fit in? The academic piece is the interesting part because that’s exactly why we stood up here at San Antonio—we’re not creating the workforce that is needed, whether it be in industry or in national security or in the federal government. Cybersecurity is the one that everybody reads about, but it’s not just cybersecurity, right? It’s all about data science. It’s all about artificial intelligence. What we’re trying to do is be able to create that workforce in academia. If you don’t bring in the academic part, you don’t have the workforce that you really need out there. What does the next 10-20 years look like for everyday folks as artificial intelligence continues to infiltrate our lives? Part of our focus on the national security side is (being aware of the fact that) just as many positive changes as there are, we’re starting to see some of those same things on the bad guy side, right? That’s a big focus of what we’re trying to do within the broader national security spectrum is ILLUSTRATION BY VICENTE MARTÍ
4/1/21 12:19 PM
