KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Keesler personnel went on a discovery tour of the newly established Georgia Cyber Center in Augusta, Georgia, March 5.
On this tour, 81st Training Group and wing leadership explored what the new cyber center had to offer and fostered relationships with other attendees from the state of Mississippi.
Attendees included academic representatives from The University of Southern Mississippi, Mississippi State University, Mississippi College, and military personnel from the Mississippi Army Guard and Reserve Cyber Operations offices.
“We’re establishing lines of collaboration and partnerships with our own state representatives, and institutions to improve our collective cyber/technology knowledge and capabilities,” said Martin Rivera, 81st Training Group chief technology officer.
Col. Chance Geray, 81st Training Group commander, stressed the importance of establishing such partnerships. “Cyberspace is growing exponentially and in order to keep up we need to be innovative and collaborate with others,” said. “We cannot do it alone.”
Recent legislative advancements in the Mississippi defense initiative encourages state partnerships like the one founded here. Keesler is looking to cultivate these partnerships to ensure the cyber students are always being trained with the most up-to-date and effective techniques.
“Cyber is always evolving,” said Col. Geray. “Being able to put people together to figure out the best practices across the board will effectively help Keesler teach the most relative curriculum. Modernizing our curriculum will help us across all the career fields we train. We’re looking into virtual and augmented reality and how to leverage those techniques to better train our students.”
The importance of staying ahead of the ever-growing domain of cyberspace remains a priority.
“We are in the age where everything is connected to information technology systems,” said Geray. “Staying ahead of this rapidly growing environment is key in protecting our own resources and winning engagements with our adversaries. Visiting the Georgia Cyber Center and meeting their personnel along with our Mississippi partners will open up doors for Keesler.”
Geray emphasized cyberspace is an essential part to enhancing our multi-domain operations because cyber links the other domains together. And these partnerships established at the Georgia Cyber Center are steps to becoming an even more lethal force.
“If we don’t focus on cyber we put ourselves and our nation at risk,” said Geray.