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| Gary Palmer: Guiding Students in Orlando April 2011
With a little help from MITRE's Gary Palmer, a team of Orlando, Fla.-area Civil Air Patrol cadets took first place to receive the Commander in Chief cup in the All Service division of the Air Force Association's (AFA) CyberPatriot III National Final Competition on April 1 in Washington, D.C. From more than 650 national high school and service teams, the five local cadets and one alternate were named one of five service teams to make it to the final round of the cyber defense competition. Open to high school students nationwide, the contest is designed to motivate students to consider science, technology, engineering, and mathematics academic disciplines—and raise a generation of cyber defenders. Palmer is certainly doing his part. A cyber specialist supporting the Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation, Palmer volunteered to mentor the cadets last October. As Palmer tells it, several colleagues mentioned that the AFA was looking for coaches and mentors to help students prepare for the CyberPatriot Competition. "My wife, Debi, and I are empty nesters so I figured why not? I may have something to offer," Palmer says. "I went into this thinking I needed to teach these kids a thing or two. I am amazed every time we meet how much they know and what I learn from them." Since then, he's spent 12 to 20 hours per week meeting with team members to prepare them for the competition. "On Friday evenings a little after 5, I would hear the doorbell ringing and the sounds of the Cyber Kids joking and carrying on as they arrived," says Anita Zabek, a program area manager at the Orlando site. "Then as Gary got them focused they would quiet down and get immersed in the project. When I would stop by the conference room on my way home, I could barely get their attention, they were so captured by the activities. And they would go at it for hours! There was many a night I got a call from MITRE Security wondering why the Orlando site was still open after 8 on a Friday." When Palmer learned the team didn't have enough computers for practicing, he approached MITRE, and the company donated three laptop computers to the team. When the shipping bill came, Palmer stepped up to pay the bill out of his own pocket. As Palmer sees it, it was simply an investment in America's future. "If I can teach them anything, it's how to organize for efficiency, document all they do for recovery, and to always communicate as a team—share what they observe and never be ashamed to throw out an idea," he says. "They give me hope for our future. It's great to see that our young American citizens are interested in more than video games or becoming rock stars. These kids truly amaze me. I'm very lucky to be a part of a great organization like AFA and CyberPatriots." —by Russell Woolard Page last updated: May 2, 2011 | Top of page |
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