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Hall, Heather | EMPLOYERS
Heather Hall is a Department of Defense-trained cybersecurity professional aka Hacker with a master's in cybersecurity and information assurance. She also maintains 16 professional IT certifications, 14 of which focus on security. Those certifications where earned while working as the warrant officer in charge of Computer Network Defense for the Nevada National Guard. Her background includes knowledge grown while holding roles that range from computer specialist, database administrator, system administrator, programmer, and information assurance manager. Currently, Hall is the information security program manager for EMPLOYERS, a nationwide workers compensation company. Her role has her managing third-party vendor risk reviews, vulnerability management, penetration testing, security awareness training and data loss prevention. She also advises the business on security and manages incidents as they arise.

Dr. Hays, Rick | Cybersecurity State Coordinator (CSC) (Carson City, Nev.) Region IX, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
Dr. Rick Hays is the cyber state coordinator (CSC) from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to the state of Nevada. CISA is the newest branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The mission of cybersecurity advisors is to provide direct coordination, outreach and regional support in order to protect cyber components essential to the sustainability, preparedness and protection of the nation’s Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) as well as state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) governments. This is primarily accomplished with tools and assessments to test an organization’s resilience and cyber maturity.

Prior to working for CISA, Dr. Hays was a 24-year active duty member with the Nevada Air National Guard, fulfilling his duties as the base cyber security manager. He went on to fill a higher role at the Air National Guard Readiness Center, Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. In this role, he led 98 Air National Guard wings/bases across the United States in cybersecurity for the last five years of his 35-year military career. Upon retiring from active duty in the Air National Guard, he went on to work as a cybersecurity program manager at the Joint Forces Headquarters Department of Defense Information Network (JFHQ-DoDIN) at Fort Meade, Md. There, he headed up three branches -- Cyber Fusion, Vulnerability Management and Cyber Counter Measures -- in coordination with the Department of Information Systems Agency (DISA), United States Cyber Command (USCC) and the National Security Agency (NSA). In his last civil service role in the national Capitol region, he performed the cyber assessment role for the Air Force’s Special Access Program (SAP) at the Pentagon.

Dr. Hays now stands ready to support his home state of Nevada, where he has returned to foster an elevated culture of cybersecurity awareness and practices to ensure better cyber hygiene and the protection of the state’s critical information, information systems and its residents. 

Krueger, Mark J. | Chief Deputy Attorney General and Consumer Counsel, Bureau of Consumer Protection
Mark Krueger currently serves as a chief deputy attorney general and consumer counsel in the Bureau of Consumer Protection, where his practice primarily focuses on complex antitrust, consumer protection, data privacy and multi-state litigation. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Krueger was the assistant district attorney in Carson City and Lyon County respectively. Over the course of his career, Krueger has gained extensive experience in civil and criminal litigation and administrative law. Krueger has argued and practiced before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Nevada Supreme Court, various district courts and numerous justice and municipal courts. He has tried more than 40 criminal jury trials. Krueger has authored legislation, regulations, legal opinions, ordinances and municipal codes and a chapter for an educational book regarding forensic interviewing of victims of child abuse. He holds a Juris Doctorate from California Western School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Rahmeyer, Shaun | Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Blue Coyote 
Shaun Rahmeyer is the chief executive officer (CEO) for Blue Coyote and is responsible for providing strategic direction, as well as financial and operational leadership, for the company. Rahmeyer brings more than 20 years of experience in government, with a proven track record for developing and implementing high-impact programs. He most recently served as Nevada’s first cybersecurity administrator, designing and implementing an array of cyber programs that support state, local and private sector entities. Rahmeyer also drafted Nevada’s first administrative code (NAC) regulation for cybersecurity. Rahmeyer has served on numerous advisory boards and commissions, including the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Board of Advisors, the Nevada Commission on Homeland Security and the University of Nevada’s Cybersecurity Center Advisory Board. He is known throughout the cybersecurity community and is a regular speaker at conferences and to communities of interest. He has a wealth of experience advising government leaders, C-suite executives and members of Congress. Rahmeyer began his career in the military, serving in the intelligence community for more than decade and supporting numerous operations throughout the world. Rahmeyer holds multiple SANS cybersecurity certifications and has a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

Ramirez, Steven | Chief Information Security Officer, Renown Health
Steven Ramirez is the chief information security officer (CISO) for a major Nevada-based regional healthcare organization, where he provides leadership and oversight in the strategic planning, execution and assessment of the organization’s cybersecurity strategies, policies, procedures and guiding practices. Ramirez has extensive experience in healthcare information security, working in both the payer and provider work streams, with organizations such as Catholic Health Initiatives (now CommonSpirit Health), UofL Health, IBM and McKesson. Ramirez holds two master’s degrees, a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) and Master of Science (MSc) in Safety, Security and Emergency Management. Ramirez is a certified information systems manager (CISM). He also is part of the teaching team that supports the Harvard cybersecurity executive certification “Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age”.

Rucci, Antonio | InfoSec & Threat Intelligence Consulting
Antonio A. Rucci is a retired counterintelligence special agent and U.S. Army warrant officer, with more than 35 years of technical security experience. Rucci runs a private security consulting firm in Knoxville, Tenn., performing penetration testing, passive network assessments and incident response professional services to both private government and commercial entities. Rucci ran technical espionage and computer crimes investigations for a good portion of his operational career. He served as the counterintelligence operations officer at the White House, serving two administrations from 1998 to 2004. He led the technical accreditation for the MultiProgram Research Facility (MRF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, then ran the lab's cybersecurity programs for the IC before being recruited to move to Reno, Nev., to build a data center for one of the beltway bandits. Since then, Rucci has started three of his own companies; has served as the chief security officer for two others; and has run incident response and threat intelligence for two others before stepping back into private consulting. Rucci continues to serve national security efforts with his cybersecurity consulting firm in Knoxville and gets in the way a lot while his wife of 35 years, Pam, is taking care of their two amazing grandbabies! You can follow Rucci on Twitter: @InsiderThreats

Truppi, Jason | Shift State Security (S3)
Jason Truppi is a veteran in the information security industry who continuously improves security capabilities within organizations by applying practical and scalable technology, operational guidance and best practices to companies of all sizes and industries. His two decades of experience include working on some of the largest national security and criminal cyber intrusion cases as a cyber special agent for the FBI and developing threat detection capabilities at scale for Fortune 500 companies as a director of security at Tanium. In addition to founding ShiftState Security, Truppi is an advisor to several software technology startups and continues to drive cyber policy as a cybersecurity fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Watson, Josh | Retired law enforcement
Josh Watson is a retired police detective, having served more than 20 years in the Reno Police Department (PD). After six years in the patrol division, he transitioned to the detective division for the remainder of his career. For more than a decade of his law enforcement career, his predominant focus was digital forensics related to criminal investigations. From 2016 until his retirement in 2022, he was the lead detective and forensic examiner/investigator at the Reno PD. During his time as a member of the Reno PD Computer Crimes Unit, he assisted numerous state, local and federal agencies, and has completed more than 2,500 exams of digital devices. He has held certifications for several forensic tools, including Cellebrite, FTK, Lantern, GeoTime, Blacklight, Autopsy and various Magnet Forensics tools, and is trained and experienced in the use of many other forensic tools and methods. Watson is a guest lecturer and instructor at the ÍƼöÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Computer Science & Engineering Department and has testified numerous times as an expert in county, state and federal courts.

Wilcox, Brian | BlackRidge Technology
Brian Wilcox is a business professional serving both private and public-sector organizations since 1985. His career experiences range in organizational size from Fortune 5’s to startups, while holding a variety of positions spanning C-Level executive to individual contributor. The first half of his career focused on medical devices, advanced manufacturing, historic preservation and community development. In the second half of his career, Wilcox transitioned to security-related supply chain, information security and consulting engagements. More recently, Wilcox served in a public-sector capacity as a state of Nevada DMV information security officer culminating as the state’s chief information security officer (CISO). Presently, Wilcox has transitioned back to the private sector service as BlackRidge Technology International's CISO.