Security Cyber Geek

Mr. Tim Harmon was raised in Denver, Colorado and he graduated from Lakewood Senior High School in Lakewood, Colorado. He then moved to San Diego, California.

 

In April 2012, Mr. Harmon started the Cisco Networking Academy program at San Diego Continuing Education to learn about the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification and further his education in the Information Technology field. While going through the program, he was introduced to Cisco Live (Cisco's Annual Conference) that was held in San Diego in 2012. Some of his classmates and him got the Explorer Pass that enabled them to go see the Keynote Sessions and the World of Solutions (WoS) Expo. The conference was amazing and they had a Customer Appreciation Event (CAE) that featured Zepparella (Led Zepplin Tribute Band), Weezer and a world renown DJ. The Closing Keynote featured the guys from Mythbusters and he enjoyed it so much that he wanted to work for Cisco Systems.

 

In September 2012, Mr. Harmon started the Master of Science in Computer Science at National University in San Diego. This program taught him the programming aspect of computer science in order to be more well-rounded and diverse. He learned programming languages, such as Python, Java and C#. He learned about software engineering and the Unified Modeling Language (UML). His capstone project for this program was a website for students and companies to collaborate on capstone projects for the program. He officially graduated with his M.S. in Computer Science in 2013.

 

After finishing the Masters program, Mr. Harmon started working for a cyber security startup company in Del Mar, CA as a Security Analyst.  While in this position, he became motivated to learn more about cyber security and this got him to want to further his education. He decided to go back to National University for the M.S. in Cyber Security and Information Assurance program that started in September 2014. This program taught him the ins-and-outs of cyber security and helped him to become a cyber security professional.

 

While in the Cyber Security program, he was selected for the 2015 San Diego Cisco Live Dream Team. This team helps the Cisco Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineers deploy access points (APs) and switches at the venues for the Cisco Live conference. The conference in San Diego was held at the San Diego Convention Center, Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel and Hilton Bayfront Hotel. The team deployed 1500 APs and 300 switches and the network was considered the most reliable wireless network in Cisco Live history.

 

What makes Cisco Live successful is not only because of Cisco employees and their partners, but also with a team of students and alumni of Cisco Network Academy that are hand selected by Cisco. This team is called the Cisco Live Dream Team and features students and alumni from all over the United States. The Dream Team was formed for the 2011 Cisco Live in Las Vegas, Nevada and has become a big success with the Dream Team growing each year, thanks to Gena Pirtle. The Dream Team consists of a two-part team: National and Local. The National Dream Team consists of students selected from around the United States while the Local Dream Team consists of students that are located in the local area of where Cisco Live is going to be held. For example, the 2015 Cisco Live Local Dream Team has students and alumni that live in San Diego County and the National Dream Team are students from outside of San Diego County.

 

During the M.S. in Cyber Security program, a team from a previous cohort asked Mr. Harmon's cohort for volunteers to participate in a cyber security capture the flag (CTF) competition. He decided to participate and enjoyed it so much that he made a decision to do a CTF for his capstone project. His team got the CTF planned, designed and implemented, and it was very successful. They helped Their participants learn more about cyber security and made their learning fun. When planning the CTF, he searched far and wide for tutorials, books and other resources that would give him insight on how to develop and host a CTF but with no luck on finding tutorials or books. After his team's CTF event, he decided to create a blog series that would help anyone trying to develop a CTF event. This blog series was able to come to a reality thanks to him being selected for the 2016 Cisco Champion Program. He graduated the Masters program near the end of 2015 and received two (2) Federal certifications: National Training Standard for Information Systems Security (INFOSEC) Professionals and National Information Assurance Training Standard for Senior Systems Managers.

 

The Cisco Champion Program recognizes experts in the industry that want to share their passion with the rest of the world via social media. The Cisco Champions create blogs about several different topics and participate in different events (Cisco Champion Radio, Product pre-briefings, exclusive meet and greets with Cisco executives, etc.). Mr. Harmon has been in the Cisco Champion Program for 8 years (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023). As a part of the Cisco Champion Program, he had created seven (7) blogs that are on the Cisco Perspectives Blog. You can check out those blogs here: https://blogs.cisco.com/author/timothyharmon. He has created more blogs and they are on the site you're on right now as the people in charge of the Cisco Champion Program suggested I create a blog site.

​

In 2017, Cisco came out with the Global Cyber Security Scholarship Program where they gave out $10,000 worth of training for their new certification, the Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate. Mr. Harmon was lucky to be in one of the cohorts for this certification and He did the training with Global Knowledge, one of Cisco's learning partners. He took the exams and passed, earning the certification.

​

2021 was a busy year for Mr. Harmon as he was going through a program called the Professionally Evil CISSP Mentorship Program where they go through the official CISSP certification book and practice tests and basically do a deep dive with it. This program helps students get ready for the most advanced security certification written exam they will take by ensuring they understand the concepts and get them into the manager mindset. On September 18, 2021, he attempted the actual CISSP exam, a 3 hour and up to 150 question computer adaptive test (CAT) that will make the questions harder as you answer correctly. He had less than an hour left when he had completed the exam and found out that he had provisionally passed, thereby becoming an Associate of ISC2. To get the full CISSP, you need to have 5 years of experience in two (2) of the 8 domains of the certification. Mr. Harmon, unfortunately, did not have that experience at the time.

​

In the summer of 2023, Mr. Harmon submitted all of the forms and application to be considered for a spot in the 10th cohort of the Masters in Advanced Studies in Data Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego). He was accepted into the cohort that started in the Fall 2023 Quarter with the first course being DSE 200: Python for Data Analysis. He was also able to add a course and with the approval from his advisor, he added the Intro to Programming with Python course (CSE 8A). This course helped him learn how to program in the Python programming language and it definitely helped him in his Python for Data Analysis course. The fall quarter was a little bit of a challenge for him but he did a great job with having to be on campus Tuesday through Friday every week and all day every other Friday for both courses. One quarter down and four quarters left to go. Graduation is now not too far away and it is great to be the only student with a cyber security background.