RICK GAMACHE, CISSP, C|CISO
I grew up on the rugged coast of Maine and I love Cybersecurity;
After fourteen years, serving as a Telecommunicator in the United States Coast Guard, I decided to leave the military and follow in the footsteps of my grandfather and father, building ships in Bath, Maine. Having a background in both technology and security, I was convinced by a friend to work with them as a defense contractor as a systems engineer. Little did I know this would change my life’s trajectory.
My first two years as a systems engineer were rather dull but like many, the events of 9/11 found me taking up a new charge. Knowing the demand for security professions was great, I consumed all the knowledge I could about cybersecurity. By 2010, I was performing cybersecurity audits for the U.S. Navy. These were complex systems storing and transporting some of our nation’s most sensitive information.
In 2012, I embarked on an entrepreneurial journey with a dedicated team of cybersecurity professionals. First serving as the CIO for the Red Sky Alliance, I quickly moved into the role of Managing Partner and Director of Threat Intelligence of Wapack Labs, where I managed a global team of privately sourced intelligence experts, providing threat intelligence to more than half of the Fortune 50. Over the next four years, our team provided Level II and Level III cyber-threat intelligence reporting for the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and many other global organizations.
Looking to bring my knowledge of the threat landscape to a broader audience, I left Wapack Labs in 2017 and went to work for BerryDunn in Portland, Maine where I consulted with State and Local governments on how to best protect their technology and data from some of the world’s most notorious hacker groups and nation-states. In this role, my greatest challenges and perhaps greatest accomplishments were serving as a Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO), improving and managing cybersecurity for government organizations.
As a public speaker, I have traveled throughout the United States and Europe, talking to government and business leaders about the challenges of cybersecurity. I feel my greatest strength as a public speaker is engaging my audiences with my enthusiasm and passion for simplifying complex topics into easily understood, jargon-free conversations. Most recently, I have presented on Threat Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, and disruptive technologies. By using the knowledge I’ve gained about cybersecurity over my nearly thirty years in the industry, I use real-world examples and plain language to help my audience easily understand the challenges and opportunities in the Cybersecurity industry.
As an avid researcher and analyst, I have authored many notable cybersecurity papers with a focus on nation-state threats to critical infrastructure in the countries of Iceland, Brazil, and India as well as threats to supply chains dependent on China.