Background
I started in IT, managing networks and servers for a school district. That gave me a foundation in how systems are built and where they break. When I joined the Marine Corps, I went from maintaining infrastructure to leading people. I rose to Staff Sergeant, directing teams of 60+ on security and electrical projects stateside and overseas.
Law enforcement was a natural next step. I came in through corrections and patrol, but the cases that pulled me in were all digital: fraud, identity theft, cybercrime. I made detective, then senior detective, and built the department's forensics capability from nothing. I secured grant funding for cryptocurrency tracing tools, trained other detectives to use them, and spent ten years working those cases. There is no cybercrime without crime, and understanding both sides matters.
Now I command incident response at Thrive. The job is the same job it's always been: figure out what happened, take charge, protect people. Just at a different scale.