The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has named U.S. Air Force (USAF) Brigadier General (Ret.) Guy M. Walsh as the founding executive director of its National Security Collaboration Center (NSCC).
The NSCC, an initiative in UTSA’s Downtown Campus expansion, will advance research, education and workforce development in cybersecurity, data analytics and cloud computing while anchoring the creation of an emerging high-tech corridor to support San Antonio’s future.
Walsh brings a wealth of experience in building strategic alliances between federal and state government, academia and industry partners. He is among the nation’s foremost leaders in national security as the strategic initiatives lead for U.S. Cyber Command, the Department of Defense’s newest Combatant Command, which is co-located with the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort George Meade, Md. His expertise includes cybersecurity operations, international affairs and partnerships, risk mitigation and crisis response, strategic planning and execution, and local and state emergency management.
In 2011, Walsh was handpicked by the NSA’s director and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command to operationalize cyber as the newest combat organization in the Department of Defense. His strategic vision led to the creation of Cyber Command’s Guard and Reserve Directorate in 2011, where he established numerous partnership and policy initiatives in collaboration with senior officials on the national security staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, National Guard Bureau, National Governors Association, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.
In 2015, Walsh was a founding member and deputy director of the Capabilities Development group, charged with integrating USCYBERCOM’s prioritized cyberspace capability development to rapidly deliver joint operational products and services required for generating, facilitating and monitoring effects in and through cyber space. He was also a founding member, co-developer and champion for CYBER GUARD, a Tier 1 level exercise to develop a “whole of nation” (federal, state and private sectors) response to cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure and key resources.
“It is an honor and privilege to lead UTSA’s National Security Collaboration Center,” said Walsh. “My recent team building experiences commanding combat operations in Afghanistan and being on the ground floor in establishing the U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade have prepared me well for mapping a path for government, industry and academic to collaboratively deliver outcomes improving national security. I’m eager to connect with the San Antonio community – Cyber City, USA – and build on UTSA’s track record as a leader in cyber innovation.”
The National Security Collaboration Center is giving government, university and industry entities the ability to collaborate on scientific investigations and business enterprises by providing research laboratories with state-of-the-art hardware and software; a computational innovation factory and business incubator to develop prototypes and concepts for the public good; a visualization laboratory to translate big data into images for large-scale, high resolution digital walls; and a high-performance computing center to support the research and development of algorithms and systems for addressing computational and data-intensive problems.
