Page 1 - March ARB Beacon 12-4-15

Vol. 80, No. 47
NEWS BRIEFS
OPERATION WARM
HEART RUNS
THROUGH DEC. 15
The 452nd Security Forces
Squadron and the Air Force
Security Forces Association
will have their annual Christ-
mas Toy Drive (Operation
Warm Heart) at March Air
Reserve Base through Dec.
15, after which all donations
will be delivered to the March
Field Fire and Emergency Ser-
vices building. A band of vol-
unteers will place the toys into our home and family to the world of cyber
food baskets to be given out to
Team March members who are
in need of a little help during
the Christmas holidays.
Collection boxes will be
located at the Main (Cactus)
Gate and at the Law Enforce-
ment Desk (building next to
wing headquarters). The SFS
and AFSFA teams agree that
March members are like one
big family, and families take
care of their own. Thank you
and have a very happy holiday
season. 452nd SFS & AFSFA.
OEF/OIF
(SOCAL VETS)
SCHOLARSHIPS
AVAILABLE
Full scholarships are avail-
able to Southern California
OEF/OIF Veterans to learn
Transcendental Meditation. If
you are interested in reducing
stress, improving the quality
of your sleep, and enjoying
better relationships, the David
Lynch Foundation is offer-
ing a limited number of free
courses in the evidence-based
Transcendental Meditation
(TM) technique to OEF/OIF
veterans in Los Angeles and
San Diego.
Through a generous grant
from the David Lynch Founda-
tion, you will be able to learn
the technique that has been
See BRIEFS page 3
March Air Reserve Base, California
First Sergeant/Cyber Mom mentors youth
by Greg Grenier
U.S. Air Force Reserve spouse
Tech. Sgt. Elizabeth Grenier, my wife,
and a cyber systems operations specialist
and first sergeant for the 452nd Commu-
nication Squadron, is known as “Cyber
Mom.” Although she doesn’t have super
powers, her involvement and incredible
success in cultivating leaders within the cy- Grenier pulled together a group of individuals to compete as a team.
ber defense field earned her the nickname.
When our eldest son entered the online,
National Youth Cyber Defense competi-
ton, “CyberPatriot,” in 2009, we opened
defense by providing space and systems
to him and his teammates. Elizabeth and
I coached our son throughout the process,
resulting in his team placing third in the
nation, out of 200 teams from 44 states,
South Korea, and Japan.
Our eldest daughter’s team placed
third in the 2012 open division finals; our
youngest daughter’s team has attended
finals twice, although not yet nationally
ranked; and our youngest son’s team won
the very first middle school division com-
petition in 2013.
According to uscyberpatriot.org, the
CyberPatriot competition puts teams of
high school and middle school students
in the position of newly hired IT profes-
sionals tasked with managing the network
of a small company. Conceived by the Air
Force Association (AFA) to encourage stu-
dents toward careers in cybersecurity or
other science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) fields, the competi-
tion follows teams of five who are given a
set of virtual images that represent oper-
ating systems and are tasked with finding
cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the im-
ages and hardening the system while main-
taining critical services.
Teams compete for the top placement
within their state and region through
school, squadron or home computers for
a place in the final round. Each team re-
ceives one point for every vulnerability
they fix. They are then ranked by points
and times completed.
The top teams in the nation earn all-
expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C.
for the National Finals Competition
Friday, December 4, 2015
courtesy photo
Harmont Grenier, CyberPatriot VI team captain (with trophy) stands with his win-
ning team as Tech. Sgt. Elizabeth Grenier, 452nd Communication Squadron and
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was offered to middle schools. Since their local middle school did not have a team,
where they must secure machines while that they “are doing great,” to group train-
dealing with hackers. This is where they ing sessions, Elizabeth teaches more than
can earn national recognition and schol- computer skills. She teaches leadership,
arship money. followership and how to work as a team, no
matter the stressors these youth face, in or
Currently coaching and mentoring more out of competition.
than 60 middle school and high school
competitors in CyberPatriot, Elizabeth has Looking back, Elizabeth recalls one of
enlightened more than 230 students to the the toughest competitions being CyberPa-
possibilities of careers that these students triot IV. Our daughter was team captain for
are not traditionally exposed to, such as cy- her Palos Verdes Peninsula High School
ber defense, networking, digital forensics, team, and they were given only four hours
and cryptology, and she shows no signs of to secure a network of ten computers. It
slowing down. sounds workable, except that those com-
puters consisted of more than 15 different
Elizabeth is a rare exception to the tra- servers, operating systems and work sta-
ditionally male role of cyber security. She tions, and were being attacked by experi-
is someone who is willing to share her life enced, industry professionals from Science
experiences, knowledge, and time with Applications International Corporation,
the next generation, volunteering more one of the competition’s major sponsors.
than 2,500 hours of her time over the past
seven years. If that networking challenge was not
enough, competitors also had to decrypt
She continues to inspire and encourage secret messages, configure Cisco routers
young people to reach for their dreams and and switches, and conduct a digital foren-
not let obstacles stand in their way. From sics investigation, which had teams search-
something as simple as empowering a less- ing a mannequin for digital media, like dis-
experienced individual to take control of guised or hidden flash drives.
the keyboard and mouse during practice
and competition, to individual pep talks Elizabeth’s coaching and mentoring
telling competitors that they “can win this”
See CYBER page 2