The CEO of an Ewa Beach-based information technology consulting company has been named to a national council with the goal of strengthening cybersecurity within the industry.
John Barnette, a Navy veteran who launched Optimal Defense Solutions, LLC, or ODS, in Hawaii in 2015, was one of 15 people recently named to the Champions Council by the Illinois-based nonprofit Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA.
ODS provides professional and technical support for local defense contractors, and since 2019 has gone for its own contracts at the state and federal level, Barnette told Pacific Business News.
Barnette, who graduated from Hawaii Pacific University with a degree in computer information systems, said he is grateful to have the chance to be in the room — virtual or otherwise — with peers in the rapidly changing industry. The council is a part of CompTIA's Information Sharing and Analysis Organization, or ISAO.
"For one person to have their finger on the pulse of what's going on in this day and age is just virtually impossible," Barnette said. "With the help of this council, I believe we'll be able to know what's happening in the tech space and what's coming down, and be better prepared to assist our customers with some of this new technology."
Barnette said he was contacted by ISAO senior vice president and executive director MJ Shoer about joining the council of managed services providers after Barnette reached out to CompTIA about becoming a corporate member of the group.
“The CompTIA ISAO is the only cybersecurity information sharing and analysis organization built to address the unique needs and requirements of [managed services providers], managed security services providers, technology solution providers, vendors, distributors and consultants who are the [server message block] backbone of the global economy,” Shoer said in a statement.
The majority of members on the council are East Coast-based. So far, the interactions with this group have been virtual, Barnette said, but he is not opposed to face-to-face meetings in the future.
Since CompTIA's ISAO was established in March 2020, it has provided more than 450 cybersecurity alerts to its 1,000-plus corporate members, the group said.
