Category: Ecosystem builders
There are roughly 30,000 cybersecurity job openings in Maryland and more than half a million openings nationwide, and a Baltimore company is working behind the scenes to fill them.
BCR Cyber, a cybersecurity workforce development company, has trained thousands of people to work in the industry, and that number is about to get bigger, President Michael Spector said. The company and the Maryland Association of Community Colleges were awarded $936,000 from the Maryland Department of Commerce for their joint Cybersecurity Workforce Accelerator to expand cyber training across the state. Spector sees the program as a way to bring more students into an industry that desperately needs them.
"Maryland is a cyber hub, but this is an industry-wide issue. There are not enough skills to meet the industry’s needs," Spector told the Baltimore Business Journal in an interview.
The Workforce Accelerator will expand BCR’s current reach with an additional $2 million from Congress, educating both credit and non-credit students at community colleges.
One tool for that education will be a new model of BCR’s cyber ranges, which are training grounds for learning the dynamics of cybersecurity. Community colleges in the accelerator program will receive BCR Cyber Series 3000 Cyber Ranges, opening simulated experiences to thousands of students.
"If you wanted to figure out how cyber attacks happen in real time without attacking your own network, this can simulate that for you," Spector said.
BCR convenes a public-private panel of more than 30 cybersecurity companies and government agencies twice per year, and now that consortium will give ideas to the community college workforce teachers and students.
The Maryland program will begin in April 2025, and Spector is most excited about the potential to grow the model.
"Maryland is the pilot, and beyond that, we want to go nationwide," he said.
