[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  THE CYBER TALENT PIPELINE: EDUCATING A
                   WORKFORCE TO MATCH TODAY'S THREATS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                     CYBERSECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE
                       PROTECTION, AND INNOVATION

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 29, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-27

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
                                     

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                                     

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-039 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                               
                               

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

               Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas            John Katko, New York
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island      Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey     Clay Higgins, Louisiana
J. Luis Correa, California           Michael Guest, Mississippi
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan             Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri            Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey
Al Green, Texas                      Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Yvette D. Clarke, New York           Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
Eric Swalwell, California            Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
Dina Titus, Nevada                   Andrew S. Clyde, Georgia
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey    Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida
Kathleen M. Rice, New York           Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Val Butler Demings, Florida          Peter Meijer, Michigan
Nanette Diaz Barragan, California    Kat Cammack, Florida
Josh Gottheimer, New Jersey          August Pfluger, Texas
Elaine G. Luria, Virginia            Andrew R. Garbarino, New York
Tom Malinowski, New Jersey
Ritchie Torres, New York
                       Hope Goins, Staff Director
                 Daniel Kroese, Minority Staff Director
                          Natalie Nixon, Clerk
                                 ------                                

     SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, AND 
                               INNOVATION

                 Yvette D. Clarke, New York, Chairwoman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas            Andrew R. Garbarino, New York, 
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island          Ranking Member
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan             Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Kathleen M. Rice, New York           Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
Ritchie Torres, New York             Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi (ex  Jake LaTurner, Kansas
    officio)                         John Katko, New York (ex officio)
               Moira Bergin, Subcommittee Staff Director
          Austin Agrella, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
                   Mariah Harding, Subcommittee Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Yvette D. Clarke, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of New York, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on 
  Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation:
  Oral Statement.................................................     1
  Prepared Statement.............................................     3
The Honorable Andrew R. Garbarino, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of New York, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
  Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation:
  Oral Statement.................................................     4
  Prepared Statement.............................................     5
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on 
  Homeland Security:
  Prepared Statement.............................................     6

                               Witnesses

Mr. Kevin Nolten, Director of Academic Outreach, Cyber.Org, Cyber 
  Innovation Center:
  Oral Statement.................................................     7
  Prepared Statement.............................................     9
Dr. Tony Coulson, Ph.D., Professor and Executive Director, 
  Cybersecurity Center Lead, National Centers of Academic 
  Excellence in Cybersecurity Community:
  Oral Statement.................................................    15
  Prepared Statement.............................................    16
Mr. Ralph F. Ley, Department Manager, Workforce Development and 
  Training Infrastructure Assurance & Analysis Division, National 
  & Homeland Security, Idaho National Laboratory:
  Oral Statement.................................................    25
  Prepared Statement.............................................    26
Mr. Max Stier, President and CEO, Partnership for Public Service:
  Oral Statement.................................................    29
  Prepared Statement.............................................    31

                                Appendix

Statement of Bitwise Industries..................................    59

 
   THE CYBER TALENT PIPELINE: EDUCATING A WORKFORCE TO MATCH TODAY'S 
                                THREATS

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, July 29, 2021

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                    Committee on Homeland Security,
                            Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, 
                                 Infrastructure Protection,
                                            and Innovation,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Yvette D. Clarke [Chairwoman of the subcommittee] 
presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clarke, Langevin, Slotkin, Rice, 
Torres, Garbarino, Harshbarger, and Clyde.
    Chairwoman Clarke. The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity 
Infrastructure Protection and Innovation will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare the 
subcommittee in recess at any point.
    Good morning and thank you to our witnesses for joining us 
today for this hearing on strengthening our Nation's 
cybersecurity work force.
    A recent report by the cybersecurity firm Sonicwall found 
that ransomware attacks in North America increased 158 percent 
between 2019 and 2020. Another report by Comparitech found that 
cyber attacks against U.S. Government organizations affected 71 
million Americans and cost over $18 billion in down time and 
recovery.
    The surge in cyber attacks against State and local 
governments, hospitals, and school districts, coupled with 
recent headlines about SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline, and 
Kaseya have galvanized new calls to action to better defend the 
internet ecosystem. I am encouraged by the momentum, and I am 
committed to putting more resources in the hands of State and 
local governments and improving CISA's awareness of malicious 
cyber activity through cyber incident reporting.
    But without a capable cyber work force, all of our 
investments in tools and data will be in vain. The number of 
high-profile cyber incidents over the past year has emphasized 
just how essential cybersecurity has become. The truth is the 
number of trained cybersecurity professionals has not increased 
to the levels necessary to meet the demand from industry and 
Government. In fact, recent data show a deficit of over 460,000 
trained cybersecurity professionals in the United States, 
relative to our current needs.
    While the Federal Government has undertaken several 
initiatives in recent years to expand and better train our 
Nation's cybersecurity work force, we must do more. This 
hearing will give us an opportunity to hear from experts in the 
field who are working to educate the next generation of 
cybersecurity workers, so we can learn more about the programs 
that are currently in place and where greater investment is 
needed. There is no silver bullet. We will need a multi-pronged 
approach that focuses on training the cybersecurity work force 
of the future in schools and universities, re-skilling existing 
workers for the jobs that are currently available, and making 
sure we have the right training in place to address the 
disparate cybersecurity challenges in information technology 
and operational technology.
    During my 15 years in Congress working on cybersecurity 
issues, I have heard consistently about the importance of 
prioritizing K-12 cyber education to grow and diversify the 
talent pipeline. Over that time, an entire generation of 
students has graduated high school and entered higher education 
or the work force, and we still are behind where we need to be 
in including cyber education at the elementary and secondary 
level. However, CISA's Cybersecurity Education and Training 
Assistance Program, CETAP, has begun to show meaningful 
results. I am glad Congress demonstrated support for CETAP by 
formally authorizing the program in last year's National 
Defense Authorization Act, and it is essential that Congress 
continues to provide it with the resources necessary to carry 
out its mission.
    I look forward to hearing today from the CETAP grant 
recipient, cyber.org, to learn more about their progress in 
developing curriculums for K-12 educators and what more can be 
done to both expand resources to teachers and build awareness 
of existing programs. Reaching children in the K-12 environment 
is an important step in making sure we don't leave talent 
untapped. Just as important, however, is that we reach students 
in college, contemplating college, or mid-career who may not 
have considered a career in cybersecurity to be a viable 
option. That is is where bringing cybersecurity work force 
programs to overlooked communities and re-skilling programs 
come in, and I look forward to hearing from California State 
University at San Bernardino on its important work in this 
space.
    Finally, as we look for new opportunities to redouble our 
efforts to grow our Nation's cyber talent, I want to be mindful 
that cybersecurity training is not one size fits all. The 
recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack highlighted the 
significant impact any incident involving critical 
infrastructure can have. While the attack only affected the 
information technology systems of the pipeline company, the 
precautionary decision to shut off operational technology 
systems reflected the vulnerability of our industrial control 
systems.
    As we work to address our cyber work force shortage, we 
must remain cognizant of the different skills and positions 
involved in securing industrial control systems and ensure that 
our training programs fully reflect the broad range of 
cybersecurity threats we face.
    Before I close, I want to commend Secretary Mayorkas for 
making enhancing the cyber work force the second of DHS's 60-
day cyber sprints. By prioritizing this aggressive approach, 
Secretary Mayorkas has made meaningful progress in reducing the 
significant number of cyber vacancies at the Department while 
taking additional steps to address the shortage of cyber 
professionals nationally. A diverse and skilled work force has 
always been a competitive advantage for our Nation against our 
adversaries, but with constantly evolving cyber threats, we 
must continuously be looking to enhance our cyber education to 
stay ahead.
    I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses and the 
discussion today so this subcommittee can continue working to 
enhance our Nation's cyber work force.
    [The statement of Chairwoman Clarke follows:]
                Statement of Chairwoman Yvette D. Clarke
                             July 29, 2021
    A recent report by the cybersecurity firm Sonicwall found that 
ransomware attacks in North America increased 158 percent between 2019 
and 2020. Another report by Comparitech found that cyber attacks 
against U.S. Government organizations affected 71 million Americans and 
cost over $18 billion in downtime and recovery. The surge in cyber 
attacks against State and local governments, hospitals, and school 
districts, coupled with recent headlines about SolarWinds, Colonial 
Pipeline, and Kaseya have galvanized new calls to action to better 
defend the internet ecosystem.
    I am encouraged by the momentum, and I am committed to putting more 
resources in the hands of State and local governments and improving 
CISA's awareness of malicious cyber activity through cyber incident 
reporting. But without a capable cyber workforce, all of our 
investments in tools and data will be in vain. The number of high-
profile cyber incidents over the past year has emphasized just how 
essential cybersecurity has become. And the truth is the number of 
trained cybersecurity professionals has not increased to the levels 
necessary to meet the demand from industry and Government. In fact, 
recent data show a deficit of over 460,000 trained cybersecurity 
professionals in the United States, relative to our current needs.
    While the Federal Government has undertaken several initiatives in 
recent years to expand and better train our Nation's cybersecurity 
workforce, we must do more. This hearing will give us an opportunity to 
hear from experts in the field who are working to educate the next 
generation of cybersecurity workers, so we can learn more about the 
programs that are currently in place and where greater investment is 
needed.
    There is no silver bullet. We will need a multi-pronged approach 
that focuses on training the cybersecurity workforce of the future in 
schools and universities, re-skilling existing workers for the jobs 
that are currently available, and making sure we have the right 
training in place to address the disparate cybersecurity challenges in 
Information Technology and Operational Technology.
    During my 15 years in Congress working on cybersecurity issues, I 
have heard consistently about the importance of prioritizing K-12 cyber 
education to grow and diversify the talent pipeline. Over that time, an 
entire generation of students has graduated high school and entered 
higher education or the workforce, and we still are behind where we 
need to be in including cyber education at the elementary and secondary 
level. However, CISA's Cybersecurity Education and Training Assistance 
Program, or CETAP has begun to show meaningful results.
    I am glad Congress demonstrated support for CETAP by formally 
authorizing the program in last year's National Defense Authorization 
Act, and it is essential that Congress continues to provide it with the 
resources necessary to carry out its mission. I look forward to hearing 
today from the CETAP grant recipient, CYBER.ORG, to learn more about 
their progress in developing curriculums for K-12 educators and what 
more can be done to both expand resources to teachers and build 
awareness of existing programs. Reaching children in the K-12 
environment is an important step in making sure we don't leave talent 
untapped.
    Just as important, however, is that we reach students in college, 
contemplating college, or mid-career who may not have considered a 
career in cybersecurity to be a viable option. That is where bringing 
cybersecurity workforce programs to overlooked communities and 
reskilling programs come in, and I look forward to hearing from 
California State University, San Bernardino on its important work in 
this space.
    Finally, as we look for new opportunities to redouble our efforts 
to grow our Nation's cyber talent, I want to be mindful that 
cybersecurity training is not one size fits all. The recent Colonial 
Pipeline ransomware attack highlighted the significant impact any 
incident involving critical infrastructure can have. While the attack 
only affected the information technology systems of the pipeline 
company, the precautionary decision to shut off operational technology 
systems reflected the vulnerability of our industrial control systems. 
As we work to address our cyber workforce shortage, we must remain 
cognizant of the different skills and positions involved in securing 
industrial control systems and ensure that our training programs fully 
reflect the broad range of cybersecurity threats we face.
    Before I close, I want to commend Secretary Mayorkas for making 
enhancing the cyber workforce the second of DHS's 60-day cyber sprints. 
By prioritizing this aggressive approach, Secretary Mayorkas has made 
meaningful progress in reducing the significant number of cyber 
vacancies at the Department while taking additional steps to address 
the shortage of cyber professionals Nationally. A diverse and skilled 
workforce has always been a competitive advantage for our Nation 
against our adversaries, but with constantly-evolving cyber threats, we 
must continuously be looking to enhance our cyber education to stay 
ahead.

    Chairwoman Clarke. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking 
Member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. 
Garbarino, for an opening statement.
    Mr. Garbarino. Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you very much. 
This is a great hearing. Thank you for holding this critical 
conversation regarding our cyber talent pipeline and our shared 
efforts to develop a robust cyber work force.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. I 
look forward to a constructive dialog on this important issue.
    Is it not working?
    Chairwoman Clarke. Mr. Garbarino, I think for some reason 
we are not hearing you. Try unmuting once again. We still 
aren't hearing you.
    Ms. Slotkin. Madam Chair? I could hear him the first time. 
I heard him loud and----
    Mr. Garbarino. Can you hear me now?
    Ms. Slotkin. I can.
    Mr. Garbarino. It worked? So now it is working? OK. Thank 
you.
    All right. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this 
critical conversation regarding our cyber talent pipeline and 
our shared efforts to develop a robust cyber work force.
    I would like to thank our witnesses for being here today. I 
look forward to a constructive dialog on this important issue.
    Everyone in this hearing should understand the multitude of 
issues contributing to our cyber work force shortage, which is 
particularly acute in the Federal sector. Lack of exposure, 
uneven education, and issues with Federal agency on-boarding 
all contribute to the problem. Fortunately, President Biden's 
choices for the top three cyber professionals in the 
administration are real professionals and there is a wealth of 
private and Federal sector experience among them. I am 
confident that Jen Easterly, Anne Neuberger, and Chris Inglis 
will have the experience, the talent, and drive to address the 
issue, as well as the many others facing our Nation in the 
space.
    The administration's work has already been seen in CISA's 
deployment of Stopransomware.gov, the U.S. Government's 
official one-stop location for resources to tackle ransomware 
more effectively.
    But their work is not done. CISA has been plagued by hiring 
delays, elongated on-boarding processes, a lack of professional 
human resources specialists, and duplicative and arbitrarily 
onerous vetting requirements. It is important that we continue 
to hold CISA and the Department accountable when it comes to 
these troubling issues. I appreciate the Chairwoman working 
with me on our oversight of the cyber talent management system 
roll-out. I am pleased that CISA director Jen Easterly has said 
this will be a top priority during her tenure.
    Our concerns are particularly relevant to today's hearing 
because no matter how much education we provide to our 
students, no matter how much interest we cultivate, none of it 
matters if we can't bring qualified and interested individuals 
into the Government service in a professional and timely 
manner. Quite simply, we will continue shouting into the wind 
until we fix these issues.
    I look forward to exploring all these issues with our 
witnesses today and I hope to hear about concrete proposals for 
oversight in legislation, not just broad stroke ideas, which 
have been the output of similar hearings in the past and have 
proven ineffective.
    Again, I thank the Chairwoman for holding this timely and 
important hearing today.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Garbarino follows:]
            Statement of Ranking Member Andrew R. Garbarino
    Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this critical conversation 
regarding our cyber talent pipeline and our shared efforts to develop a 
robust cyber workforce. I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here 
today. I look forward to a constructive dialog on this important issue.
    Everyone in this hearing should understand the multitude of issues 
contributing to our cyber workforce shortage, which is particularly 
acute in the Federal sector. Lack of exposure, uneven education, and 
Federal agency on-boarding issues all contribute to the problem.
    Fortunately, President Biden's choices for the top three cyber 
professionals in the administration are real professionals, and there 
is a wealth of private and Federal sector experience among them. I am 
confident that Jen Easterly, Anne Neuberger, and Chris Inglis have the 
experience, the talent, and drive to address this issue as well as the 
many others facing our Nation in the space.
    The administration's work has already been seen in CISA's 
deployment of stopransomware.gov, the U.S. Government's official one-
stop location for resources to tackle ransomware more effectively.
    But their work is not done. CISA has been plagued by hiring delays, 
elongated on-boarding processes, a lack of professional human resource 
specialists, and duplicative and arbitrarily onerous vetting 
requirements.
    It is important that we continue to hold CISA and the Department 
accountable when it comes to these troubling issues, and I appreciate 
the Chairwoman working with me on our oversight of the Cyber Talent 
Management System rollout. I am pleased that CISA Director Jen Easterly 
has said this will be a top priority during her tenure.
    Our concerns are particularly relevant to today's hearing, because 
no matter how much education we provide to our students, no matter how 
much interest we cultivate, none of it matters if we can't bring 
qualified and interested individuals into Government service in a 
professional and timely manner. Quite simply, we will continue shouting 
into the wind until we fix these issues.
    I look forward to exploring all of these issues with our witnesses 
today and I hope to hear about concrete proposals for oversight and 
legislation, not just broad strokes ideas, which have been the output 
of similar hearings in the past and have proven ineffective.
    I again thank the Chairwoman for holding this timely and important 
hearing today.

    Chairwoman Clarke. I thank the Ranking Member.
    Members of the committee are reminded that the committee 
will operate according to the guidelines laid out by the 
Chairman and Ranking Member in their February 3 colloquy 
regarding remote procedures.
    I am looking to see whether our Chairman or Ranking Member 
have joined us today. They are not present yet, so let me move 
forward. Statements may be submitted for the record.
    [The statement of Chairman Thompson follows:]
                Statement of Chairman Bennie G. Thompson
                             July 29, 2021
    Today's hearing builds on a long-standing priority for the Homeland 
Security Committee--addressing the shortage of skilled cybersecurity 
professionals. This problem is not new, but the urgency is greater than 
ever in light of the increasing number of ransomware attacks and other 
significant cyber incidents.
    Fortunately, the Biden administration has made addressing 
cybersecurity workforce issues a priority, with Secretary Mayorkas 
launching a 60-day sprint on strengthening the cyber workforce earlier 
this year. This decision reflects an understanding that investments in 
technology are not sufficient on their own--we must also have a well-
trained workforce.
    In today's digital age, a basic cybersecurity education is 
essential for everyone, not just cybersecurity professionals. 
Individuals are vulnerable to cyber criminals, and an employee clicking 
on a link in a phishing email can expose a company's networks to 
intruders.
    By investing in K-12 cyber education, we improve cyber literacy 
across the board, while developing a pipeline of young people who can 
move into more advanced training and join the cybersecurity workforce. 
Unfortunately, many students currently receive limited cybersecurity 
education in school today, and the evidence suggests rural and low-
income schools with fewer resources are less likely to offer this 
important training.
    The Federal Government can help address this gap by providing 
resources to schools across the country, offering trainings to 
teachers, and developing cybersecurity curriculum that can be used 
nationally. Additionally, by starting education early, we can help 
address a long-standing concern of mine regarding the cybersecurity 
workforce--the low number of women and minorities in the field, 
particularly in senior roles.
    I am glad DHS is taking steps to address this through a partnership 
with the Girl Scouts that will help to educate school-aged girls in 
cybersecurity and that CYBER.ORG is partnering with HBCUs to help 
develop a pipeline of Black high school students into cybersecurity 
programs. These actions demonstrate the important role DHS can and 
should play in encouraging cyber education. These are important 
programs, but we'll need a lot more of them to make up for the current 
gaps. Many cybersecurity jobs are high-paying, and they required a 
variety of education levels, but many young people may not know about 
them or may not believe they are attainable.
    Federal investment in K-12 cyber education can raise awareness of 
these career opportunities to more students, increase the diversity of 
our workforce, and strengthen our National security. Additionally, 
programs supporting cyber education must continue at higher education 
institutions and in trainings that can provide cyber skills education 
to those already in the workforce. DHS's support for the National 
Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity and partnerships with 
other entities like the National labs are important examples of how 
Government, researchers, and teachers can work collaboratively to 
address our cyber workforce shortage. DHS must continue to strengthen 
these partnerships--particularly in collaboration with HBCUs and MSIs--
in order to develop the workforce we need to address the varied cyber 
threats we face today.
    I thank Chairwoman Clarke for her leadership in holding this 
hearing and for prioritizing this critical issue. The excellent 
witnesses here today have a broad range of expertise in the field of 
cybersecurity education and their insights will be valuable as we 
continue our work in defending the homeland from cyber threats.

    Chairwoman Clarke. I now welcome our panel of witnesses.
    First, I welcome Mr. Kevin Nolten, the director of academic 
outreach for the Cyber Innovation Center at cyber.org. At 
cyber.org Mr. Nolten helps advance cyber.org's K-12 cyber 
education program within age-appropriate content that aligns 
with State standards for education.
    Next is Dr. Tony Coulson who serves as the executive 
director of the Cybersecurity Center at California State 
University, San Bernardino, and as lead of National Centers of 
Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Community.
    California State University, San Bernardino is designed at 
a center of academic excellence in cyber defense education by 
the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland 
Security and it is also a minority-serving institution.
    Next is Mr. Ralph Ley, the department manager for Workforce 
Development and Training Infrastructure within the National and 
Homeland Security Directorate at Idaho National Labs.
    Mr. Ley leads educational programs and research to address 
cybersecurity issues and work force development needs.
    Finally, Max Stier, the president and CEO of the 
Partnership for Public Service.
    In that capacity, he is overseeing the creation and growth 
of a network connecting more than 1,000 colleges and 
universities with 80 Federal agencies. He is a thought leader 
on Federal work force issues and his work is aimed at inspiring 
a new generation to serve in Government.
    Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be 
inserted in the record.
    I will now ask each witness to summarize his or her 
statement for 5 minutes, beginning with Mr. Nolten.

   STATEMENT OF KEVIN NOLTEN, DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC OUTREACH, 
               CYBER.ORG, CYBER INNOVATION CENTER

    Mr. Nolten. Good morning, Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member 
Garbarino, and distinguished Members of the committee. Thank 
you for the opportunity to testify today.
    I am Kevin Nolten, director of cyber.org, an academic 
initiative of the Cyber Innovation Center, headquartered in 
Bossier City, Louisiana.
    As a nonprofit focused on National security and 
cybersecurity work force development for the past 4 years, we 
are supported by Federal grants and contracts, one of which is 
a Cybersecurity Education Training Assistance Program, as the 
Chairwoman mentioned, or CETAP, a competitive grant 
administered by CISA.
    One of the greatest threats to our National security is the 
lack of K-12 cybersecurity education. Recent cyber attacks have 
demonstrated our vulnerabilities, which can be partially 
attributed to the growing shortage of cybersecurity 
professionals.
    As a former K-12 administrator, I know the impact K-12 
education has on a child's future degree and/or career. A cyber 
literate population will secure our critical infrastructure. 
Cyber.org's K-12 cyber education program provides teachers with 
curriculum and professional development that align with 
individual State and local education standard and promotes 
cybersecurity technical knowledge and degree and career 
awareness opportunities for students.
    Through CETAP we have reached over 23,000 educators in all 
50 States. It impacted over 3 million students. We embrace a 
focus on underserved schools in low socioeconomic regions as 64 
percent of all new teachers are from Title 1 schools. We 
embrace programming specific to ensuring HBCUs have a talent 
pipeline and that we are focusing on opportunities for students 
with disabilities.
    While we are tremendously proud of the success we have had, 
however, with nearly 1 million educators and 52 million across 
the country, our work has just begun.
    Chair and Ranking Member, in your home State of New York, 
690 educators are accessing the curricula and my team has 
trained 301 teachers. Further, in all of the subcommittee 
Members' States combined, over 4,400 educators are accessing 
the curricula and my team has trained over 3,800 teachers. This 
is a program that works.
    As a recent study shows, high schools using cyber.org's 
curricula sent four times more students into cyber-related 
college or university degree programs, such as Cal State San 
Bernardino. We appreciate that Congress has begun to recognize 
the importance of cybersecurity education to combat the threats 
of tomorrow, as CETAP has received bipartisan support.
    For example, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission called for 
additional support for CETAP. As the Chairwoman mentioned, the 
fiscal year 2021 NDAA formally authorized CETAP within CISA. In 
fiscal year 2021 CETAP received an increase of funding 
totalling $6 million.
    This year we are requesting that CETAP be funded at $10 
million, which would enable further scaling of the program to 
reach more teachers and ultimately benefiting more students.
    As your committee considers the future of cybersecurity 
education, cyber.org offers the following recommendations: 
First, we recommend increased and sustained funding for 
cybersecurity education and work-force development. It is 
critical that CISA include funding in its annual budget request 
to expand the reach of CETAP in classrooms across the country. 
Second, CETAP should be formally recognized as the K-12 feeder 
program for other Federal cybersecurity work force programs. 
Third, we recommend special attention be given to the what is 
next after the different academic milestones, whether K-12, 
higher education, et cetera, to better connect students 
directly to cybersecurity jobs.
    CISA and cyber.org have made tremendous impact in States 
across the country, but it is time to scale. Stable continuous 
funding and legislative support for CETAP will enable the 
program to reach saturation in all 50 States and grow the 
talent pipeline. Further investment by Congress to build our 
National cybersecurity defenses must include K-12 education 
resources.
    Cyber.org appreciates the time to testify and we are 
willing to serve as a resource for the development of any 
future cybersecurity education legislation.
    Thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Nolten follows:]
                   Prepared Statement of Kevin Nolten
                  Thursday July 29, 2021 10 o'clock AM
    Good morning, Chair Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, and 
distinguished Members of the House Homeland Security Committee's 
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, & Innovation. 
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I am Kevin 
Nolten, director of CYBER.ORG, the academic initiative of the Cyber 
Innovation Center, headquartered in Bossier City, LA.
    CYBER.ORG is an initiative focused on cybersecurity workforce 
education and development. CYBER.ORG is appreciative of the support we 
receive from a grant from the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) 
Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) as the lead 
performer of the Cybersecurity Education Training Assistance Program 
(CETAP) program.
    I commend this subcommittee for seeking to address the long-
standing challenges facing cyber workforce development efforts, 
specifically as they relate to K-12 cybersecurity education and 
preparing the next generation for the jobs of tomorrow. My testimony 
will address the role K-12 cybersecurity education plays in creating a 
foundation of future cyber workers by closing the cybersecurity skills 
gap and supercharging the future cybersecurity workforce for DHS and 
industry.
    I would first like to provide the subcommittee with a brief 
overview of my background in education and the origin of CYBER.ORG. 
Prior to joining CYBER.ORG, I was an educator and school administrator, 
which provided me with a unique perspective on the education system and 
the critically important role educators play in providing students with 
the skills they need to succeed. This ignited my life-long passion for 
educating students, helping them prepare for their futures and 
ultimately improving K-12 education Nation-wide. In my role at 
CYBER.ORG, I direct the organization's programmatic outreach efforts 
and partnerships with the goal of increasing students' access to K-12 
cybersecurity curriculum. At CYBER.ORG, we approach the cybersecurity 
workforce gap as a National competitiveness issue and believe that 
increasing cybersecurity literacy will improve U.S. economic and 
National security. Providing students with an educational foundation 
and career awareness is imperative to advancing the U.S. cybersecurity 
workforce.
                            about cyber.org
    CYBER.ORG is the academic initiative of the Cyber Innovation Center 
(CIC), an economic development and technology innovation organization 
focused on growing the regional economy and supporting the National 
security enterprise through collaboration in mission-critical areas, 
such as the cybersecurity of our nuclear command, control, and 
communications systems. The CIC was founded in 2007 with the mission of 
diversifying the regional economy from primarily oil & gas and 
agriculture to include 21st Century, knowledge-based jobs in the cyber 
and information technology (IT) fields. The CIC recognized that to 
attract cyber and IT companies and jobs, the region would need a ready 
and able cyber workforce, and building that workforce would require a 
new approach to education. The success of our model has completely 
transformed the regional economy in northwest Louisiana: Cyber and IT 
are now equal to the oil & gas sector in economic impact and jobs. The 
operational success around cybersecurity the CIC gained at its 
inception furthered the demand for a comprehensive workforce 
development program--thus the launch of CYBER.ORG, whose K12 focus 
represents the entry point onto the Cyber Interstate.
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    Created in 2011, CYBER.ORG (formerly the National Integrated Cyber 
Education Research Center or NICERC) identified a specific need in K-12 
education for a systematic and integrated solution that would build the 
foundation for educating the next-generation, cyber-literate workforce. 
Our goal was to engage K-12 students in STEM, computer science and most 
importantly, cybersecurity. Since then, we have implemented an 
integrated curricular experience across multiple academic disciplines 
through the development of project-driven, hands-on curricula; 
delivered educator professional development; established K-12 
cybersecurity-based pathways; and created National cybersecurity 
competitions; and.[sic]
    CYBER.ORG was initially created using State and local funds but was 
identified by the Department of Homeland Security in 2011 as an 
exemplar program and received funding to scale its efforts across the 
country. As a result of this funding and support, over the last 8 years 
CYBER.ORG has built a K-12 cyber education program with age-appropriate 
content that aligns with individual State standards for education. The 
impact of that work is measured in thousands of teachers and millions 
of students with access to more content, resources, and training that 
will fuel the cyber workforce pipeline for the future.
                             the challenge
    The United States has been struggling to solve the cyber workforce 
shortage in this country for too long. The workforce gap that exists 
today is directly connected to the country's lack of attention to STEM 
(science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education 15-20 years 
ago. Very similar to the Space Race, the United States must ensure that 
our students, the future workforce of our country, are equipped with 
the knowledge, skills, and abilities to defend against vulnerabilities 
in cyber space.
    CYBER.ORG recognizes this mounting challenge and has built a 
successful educational model that is critical to ensuring that teachers 
can teach cybersecurity and students have the skills necessary to meet 
future workforce needs. The recent, unprecedented cyber attacks like 
the SolarWinds and Colonial Pipeline clearly demonstrate the adverse 
effects of our National cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which can in 
part be attributed to the U.S. workforce shortage. We must increase 
resources and partnerships with real investments in our future U.S. 
workforce to ensure we are better equipped to deal with emerging 
technological threats.
    Statistics highlight the urgency of this challenge, as increasingly 
complex attacks are occurring at a time when there are more than 
464,000 unfilled cybersecurity roles in the United States. Filling 
these positions is essential to protecting both public and private 
organizations from outside threats, advancing U.S. innovation, and 
diversifying our country's cybersecurity workforce. The first step 
toward doing this is educating students on cybersecurity literacy as 
early as kindergarten.
 cyber.org approach--empower educators to prepare the next generation 
                            cyber workforce
    Advancing the cybersecurity workforce is critical to protecting the 
country's National security and advancing its cybersecurity posture. K-
12 cybersecurity education plays a fundamental role in helping students 
develop the skills needed to pursue cybersecurity careers in greater 
numbers. As such, the CETAP Program is crucial to providing the United 
States with the professional-level expertise needed to solve the cyber 
challenges of tomorrow, but more can be done to support these efforts. 
CYBER.ORG has developed a multi-pronged approach to ensuring students 
Nation-wide have the educational cybersecurity foundation and career 
awareness needed to advance the National cybersecurity workforce.
QUALITY CURRICULUM AND EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
    Through CETAP, CYBER.ORG develops and distributes cyber and 
cybersecurity curricula to K-12 educators across the country at no cost 
to the educators. The CYBER.ORG approach supports cybersecurity 
curriculum development to provide resources for elementary and 
secondary school teachers that foster foundational cybersecurity 
awareness, cybersecurity career awareness, and technical cybersecurity 
skills. The curriculum is mapped to relevant State and National 
standards and includes resources that make up 20+ full years of 
curriculum (180+ hours). The curriculum is developed by subject-matter 
experts in K-12 education, including faculty from higher education 
institutions across the country and representatives from industry and 
Government. The CYBER.ORG team, who serve as lead developers, are all 
experienced educators, many carrying a master's and/or doctorate degree 
in curriculum and instruction, educational leadership, and educational 
technology.
    CYBER.ORG currently provides K-12 cybersecurity workforce 
development assistance to educators in all 50 States, with a cumulative 
estimated impact of over 3,000,000 students. More than 23,000 teachers 
are currently enrolled in CYBER.ORG's content platform and over 17,000 
teachers have been trained to use CYBER.ORG content for K-12 
cybersecurity education.
    CYBER.ORG, in August 2021, will publish the country's first set of 
National K-12 cybersecurity learning standards. Currently, there are 
only a few models of State-developed cybersecurity standards and no 
National standards specific to cybersecurity. The goal with the 
standards is to increased access to cybersecurity education 
opportunities for students that will prepare them to enter the 
workforce or to expand their study in college. The standards will take 
two approaches. The first is ensuring students have a foundational 
cyber understanding and knowledge to live, work, and play in cyber 
space safely. The second is ensuring students have the technical skills 
to pursue industry-based certifications such as CompTIA's IT 
Fundamentals, A+ and Security+.
NATION-WIDE DEPLOYMENT
    Over the past 8 years, CYBER.ORG has been the lead technical 
institution for CETAP as it has developed and distributed a scalable 
program for educating the next-generation, cyber-literate workforce 
through a replicable educational solution for State departments of 
education, school districts, and individual educators from across the 
county.
    CYBER.ORG has made a significant impact in advancing K-12 
cybersecurity education in States across the country thanks to 
partnerships with Government, educators, and school districts. With 
both a top-down and bottom-up approach, CYBER.ORG has been able to not 
only align programs to relevant State standards, help States develop 
cyber-related standards and pathways, and scale programming throughout 
the country, but also has been able to provide classroom-specific 
resources to educators wishing to implement modules on ransomware, or 
other cybersecurity topics.
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    In addition to partnering with State departments of education, 
school districts, and classroom teachers, CYBER.ORG also prides itself 
on engagement with community organizations, non-profits, and industry. 
For example, in partnership with Palo Alto Networks, CYBER.ORG worked 
with the Girl Scouts USA to develop 18 cybersecurity badges to 
introduce more young women to cybersecurity. To date, more than 200,000 
cybersecurity badges have been earned by Girl Scouts from across the 
country.
    CYBER.ORG is also working with another global cybersecurity defense 
contractor to develop a ``badging'' program to ensure K-12 students 
have skill sets and industry-based certifications to pursue 2- and 4-
year degrees or jump straight into the cybersecurity workforce 
immediately after high school.
    In the National delivery, CYBER.ORG has seen 64 percent of the 
teachers trained over the past 3 years come from Title 1 schools, that 
is schools that service students from low socioeconomic communities. 
Additionally, the efforts around diversifying the cybersecurity 
workforce have been very deliberate. Recently, CYBER.ORG launched a K-
12 Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and Minority 
Serving Institution (MSI) Feeder Program to further strengthen the 
talent pipeline and increase the number of minority students pursuing 
cybersecurity degrees. CYBER.ORG is in the process of developing a K-12 
feeder program for Grambling State University (GSU), a HBCU and the 
first university in Louisiana to create a cybersecurity undergraduate 
degree. In 2021-2022, CYBER.ORG will replicate this program between 
minority-serving school districts and HBCUs across the country.
    The current reach of the CYBER.ORG curriculum content has impacted 
student achievement and interest in STEM and cyber career pathways. In 
a 2021 evaluation conducted by CYBER.ORG, 66 percent of students who 
completed CYBER.ORG's Cybersecurity course wanted to explore career 
options in cybersecurity, while 48 percent of students intended to earn 
at least one cyber-related industry-based certification before 
graduating from high school.
CONNECTING STUDENTS TO CYBERSECURITY DEGREES AND CAREERS
    Many studies show that the formative years for a student's career 
trajectory occur around the middle school level, 6th-8th grade. This 
period, and the years leading up it, is critical for policy makers, 
industry, Government, and educators to begin introducing students to 
21st-Century options--jobs that many students don't know about, and in 
some cases jobs that do not yet exist.
    CYBER.ORG, as a workforce development organization, ensures 
teachers have the resources and confidence to prepare students for the 
next level--whether that is a 2- or 4-year college/university degree, 
or whether that is direct entry from high school into a cybersecurity 
career. This confidence is gained through the no-cost professional 
development offered by the CYBER.ORG team.
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    In addition to increasing teacher's confidence in introducing their 
students to cybersecurity careers, CYBER.ORG provides students with 
Career Profile Cards (https://cyber.org/career-exploration/cyber-
career-profiles) that introduces them to jobs in cybersecurity. Aligned 
to the NICE cybersecurity workforce framework, each Career Profile Card 
teaches students about the job, the skills sets required, the degree 
(if any) and the certifications (if any) needed for entry into this 
career.
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    The multi-faceted approach CYBER.ORG takes yields results. A 
regional study (https://cyber.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/
Louisiana%20Study.pdf) found that high schools with teachers enrolled 
in CYBER.ORG curricula on average sent, in total, four times more 
students into cyber-related college of university degree programs as 
those that did not.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   investing in k-12 cyber education
    The solution for solving the cybersecurity workforce shortage is 
developing a capable pipeline of cybersecurity professionals who are 
entering the workforce at every level of education. CYBER.ORG is 
enabling K-12 teachers to serve as force multipliers, educating 
students to build the cybersecurity workforce of the future. The CETAP 
model and CYBER.ORG have provided a clear blueprint for bolstering the 
U.S. workforce pipeline for other areas critical to U.S. economic 
development and global technological competitiveness.
    The work being done by CYBER.ORG through the CETAP program also 
supports the recommendations made by the Cyberspace Solarium 
Commission. The Commission's report on Growing a Stronger Federal 
Cybersecurity Workforce \1\ called out the importance of the CETAP 
program in helping recruit the talent needed to support the Federal 
workforce. The Solarium Commission also identified that the CETAP 
program has ``significant room to grow.'' To grow, CETAP would need 
additional funding and resources to:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ https://www.solarium.gov/public-communications/workforce-white-
paper.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Increased access to curricula for educators;
   Development of pathways for immediate job entry, more direct 
        connection of high schools to post-secondary workforce 
        pathways, and engagements with more HBCU institutions;
   Expansion of recruiting and retaining students from military 
        families for future cyber employment;
   Development of virtual curricula, resources that can be used 
        by schools for student asynchronous learning, particularly in 
        rural and underserved communities; and
   Launch of a virtual cyber laboratory specifically used for 
        K-12 educators, providing an application-based learning 
        environment for real-world cybersecurity lessons.
    Congress has recognized the importance of CETAP. With the help of 
this committee's former Chair Cedric Richmond as well as Senators Rosen 
and Cassidy, the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act 
(NDAA) formally authorized CETAP and codified the program's mission as 
a leader in the dissemination of cybersecurity-focused K-12 education 
resources and training. The fiscal year 2021 authorization was paired 
with an appropriation of the annual base amount of $4.3 million with an 
additional discretionary funding of $1.7 million for K-12 education at 
CISA. With the additional funding, CETAP utilized the additional $1.7 
million provided in discretionary support to enable the launch of three 
K-12 initiatives focusing on Historically Black Colleges and University 
(HBCU) feeder high schools and students with disabilities.
                            recommendations
    CYBER.ORG, through CETAP, has made a tremendous impact in States 
and districts across the country, but it is time to scale. Providing 
stable, continuous funding and legislative support for CETAP will 
enable the program to reach its short- and long-term goals of expanding 
programming in all 50 States so that every student in the United States 
is cyber literate and has the skills needed to pursue cybersecurity 
careers in greater numbers and fortify the workforce needed to combat 
increasingly complex attacks. The following recommendations and actions 
are important to large-scale impact of CYBER.ORG and CETAP.
   First, we recommend increased and sustained funding for 
        cybersecurity education and workforce development. It is 
        critical that CISA include funding in its annual budget request 
        to sustain and expand the reach of the CETAP program in 
        classrooms across the country. CETAP's cost-effective approach 
        will get proven successful curriculum into the hands of more 
        teachers who will continue to develop a strong, equitable 
        pipeline of cybersecurity talent.
   Second, CETAP should be formally recognized as the K-12 
        feeder program for other, Federal cybersecurity workforce 
        programs. Connecting students directly to programs such as 
        Centers for Academic Excellence, Scholarship for Service, 
        Federal Apprenticeship Program, and others will ensure these 
        Federal efforts complement one another and provide the best 
        workforce outcomes possible.
   Third, we recommend special attention be given to ``what's 
        next'' after the different academic milestones (K-12, higher 
        education, reskilling, etc.)--that is, addressing the need for 
        connecting students to cybersecurity jobs. Importantly, 
        connecting students, whether high school, college, university 
        graduates, or non-traditional students to the cybersecurity 
        workforce is a critical step in closing the workforce gap in 
        the country.
                               conclusion
    It has been an honor to appear before this distinguished panel of 
policy makers. Thank you, Chair Clarke, and Ranking Member Garbarino 
for your dedication to growing and advancing the cybersecurity 
workforce.
    K-12 cybersecurity education must be viewed as the vehicle in which 
we can introduce the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to 
careers in the field. Expanding K-12 cybersecurity education is 
critical to addressing the cybersecurity workforce shortage. DHS has 
created a proven, cost-efficient model to train educators in 
cybersecurity and reach more K-12 students in classrooms across the 
country with cybersecurity curriculum. The CETAP program requires 
additional investment to close the cybersecurity workforce gap and grow 
the cybersecurity skills pipeline.
    CYBER.ORG envisions a future where every student is cyber literate 
and has the option to pursue cybersecurity careers. We look forward to 
working with the committee and serving as a resource as it develops 
policies to advance K-12 cybersecurity. We also remain committed to 
working with committee Members in their States and districts to advance 
the CETAP program and expand access to K-12 cybersecurity education.
    CYBER.ORG appreciates the opportunity to join in this worthy 
discussion and is willing to serve as a resource in the development of 
any cybersecurity education legislation going forward. We are thrilled 
to participate in today's hearing and look forward to a long 
partnership where we can continue working to tackle this important 
issue.
    Thank you, and I'll be happy to answer any of your questions.

    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Nolten, for your 
testimony.
    I now recognize Dr. Coulson to summarize his statement for 
5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF TONY COULSON, PH.D., PROFESSOR AND EXECUTIVE 
   DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY CENTER LEAD, NATIONAL CENTERS OF 
         ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE IN CYBERSECURITY COMMUNITY

    Mr. Coulson. Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, 
Members of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Protection 
Innovation Subcommittee, thanks for having me.
    I am Tony Coulson from Cal State San Bernardino. We are a 
Hispanic-serving institution location in southern California. 
We have, under the leadership of Dr. Tomas Morales, expanded to 
over 20,000 students and are ranked 7th nationally for social 
mobility. But one thing we are known for is innovation.
    Now, you might ask yourself what does a regional university 
in California have to do with cybersecurity, and it is actually 
very simple. As has already been mentioned, we have a 
cybersecurity work force shortage. We know we have a crisis. I 
just looked up the number earlier before we came on, we have 
over 500,000-person shortage--500,000. Let that number sink in. 
This came from cyberseek.org. That is an absurd number. If this 
was doctors and nurses there would be a National outcry.
    Well, the good news is Cal State San Bernardino is 
committed to solve this work force problem. Recently our 
university established and began to lead the National Centers 
of Academic Excellence Cybersecurity Community. This community 
involves 5 Federal partners, the NSA, National Security Agency, 
who runs the program, DHS and CISA, NIST, and the NICE 
Initiative, as well as the FBI and the Department of Energy. 
Those Government partners are now coupled with the CAE 
community, the Centers of Academic Excellence community that we 
lead that has 335 colleges and universities working together to 
collaborate and solve the work-force shortage.
    Now, working with these partners, and also working with all 
of these universities, we have a lot of creativity and we have 
a lot of collaboration, but we also have an interesting vantage 
point where we see gaps and we see silos and we see 
duplication. We are trying to develop solutions. As cyber.org 
and Kevin, good friends, just said, look, we know that K-12 is 
a huge opportunity. There is a lot of activity in this space 
and there is a lot of investment through a lot of agencies. But 
there are still gaps. There is a lot of work to be done here, 
such as we need to increase diversity, but also in rural and 
home school networks.
    So the Centers of Academic Excellence community just 
released a program focusing on rural and home school. We just 
helped get AP cyber onto the National curriculum. We are 
putting together extracurriculars, such as camps and cyber 
competitions. Matter of fact, the gen cyber program at Cal 
State San Bernardino that we originally partnered with 
cyber.org, the genesis of that camp at Cal State San Bernardino 
that has now affected thousand of kids, led to a national Girl 
Scout badge.
    But it is more than K-12. The United States is facing a 
deficit in cyber research. We need to home-grow research skill. 
So Cal State San Bernardino and its partners in the community 
just launched the Information Security Research Education 
Program, a unique program where we take technical directors 
from the National Labs and the National Security Agency and 
others and work with student teams around the country in a 
variety of different institutions to solve real-world technical 
problems.
    Access is also a problem, access to technology, but also 
are we getting the return on investment, are we producing work-
force ready students? Well, Cal State San Bernardino created 
the NICE Challenge Project, a National cyber range in use by 
500 colleges and universities that provides technology and does 
work-force readiness assessment.
    These are a lot of programs and there is a lot of things. I 
will tell you this, the Centers of Academic Excellence 
Community, those 335 schools, colleges, and universities that 
are working together today are producing over 100,000 diverse 
quality students, re-skilling people, working with veterans, 
working in our communities. This is all based on one-time 
funding and most of it has come from the National Security 
Agency. What I would like to see is I would like to see the 
Department of Homeland Security move forward and support with 
sustainable funding such an important initiative.
    Thank you so much for your time today.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Coulson follows:]
                   Prepared Statement of Tony Coulson
                             July 29, 2021
    Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, and Members of the 
Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, & Innovation Subcommittee, I 
want to thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify 
today. My name is Professor Tony Coulson and I serve as the executive 
director of the Cybersecurity Center at California State University, 
San Bernardino (CSUSB).
    CSUSB is one of 23 campuses that make up the great California State 
University system--the largest 4-year public university system in the 
world. Under the leadership of President Tomas Morales, CSUSB is a 
Nationally-recognized university, serving more than 20,000 students, 
most of whom come from the Riverside and San Bernardino counties, an 
area in inland Southern California known as the Inland Empire. As a 
Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), we are recognized for our 
transformative influence in our community. More than 80 percent of 
CSUSB's students are the first in their families to earn 4-year college 
degrees, and two-thirds of our students come from economically-
disadvantaged circumstances. We are proud that CSUSB, with campuses San 
Bernardino and Palm Desert, is ranked No. 7 among top colleges and 
universities educating economically disadvantaged students and 
graduating them into well-paying jobs. CSUSB is recognized globally for 
our Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration and 
Nationally for our leadership in developing the country's cybersecurity 
workforce.
    I am here today to specifically talk about ways how to bridge the 
Nation's cybersecurity workforce gap, how CSUSB's Cybersecurity Center 
is currently leading Nation-wide initiatives in this effort, and how 
existing U.S. Government programs are working with universities like 
mine to achieve this goal. More than 12 years ago, CSUSB created its 
Cybersecurity Center (``Center''), focused on one mission--creating a 
cybersecurity talent pool and a corresponding job base within the 
Inland Empire region of California. This has always been a clear need 
as the Inland Empire has been an economically depressed region for the 
last two decades, experiencing economic challenges like so many of our 
communities across the Nation, but with one of the lowest degree 
attainment rates in the State of California combined with low high 
school graduation rates.
    To address these issues, CSUSB created a Cybersecurity Center with 
four undergraduate programs in a variety of disciplines including 
criminal justice, business and public administration, computer science, 
and information science. This led us to develop five master's degree 
programs along the same disciplines (business, computer science, 
information systems, and public administration) but with one broader 
goal, to integrate the NSA Centers of Academic Excellence in 
Cybersecurity with the Intelligence Community CAE program--creating a 
critical new program to produce intelligence analysts with cyber 
skills. This new master's program in National Cybersecurity Studies 
became a model curriculum adopted by universities around the United 
States. From 12 years ago with 10 students, CSUSB now has over 600 
students enrolled in these degree programs. While CSUSB has always been 
innovative in its approach, providing an environment that built 
curriculum based on Government and industry workforce needs, it was the 
students that provided the energy and truly showed their capabilities.
    CSUSB is on the front line training the next generation of cyber 
warriors. We are proud to say that CSUSB's student outcomes are so 
strong that one program director at the U.S. Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS) once said that CSUSB students ``are everywhere'' and 
have commended the skill sets that CSUSB students have when they 
graduate.
    The Nation has had a dearth of well-trained cybersecurity workers 
for many years; however, the problem is greatly exacerbated by the 
integration of technology into every sector of our economy, leading to 
an inevitable growth of cybersecurity attacks. These attacks have 
illustrated the need to expeditiously fill the estimated 500,000-person 
deficit in the Nation's cybersecurity workforce. As part of my 
testimony today, I want to stress the importance of partnerships across 
academia, with the Government, as well as with industry. The 2020 
Cyberspace Solarium Commission report states that `` . . . sometimes 
success in building a robust Federal workforce depends on elements 
outside of the Federal Government. In those cases, the U.S. Government 
can and should play a supporting role by providing its partners in 
workforce development the tools needed to accelerate the increase in 
cyber personnel.''
    A 2021 report on ``The Hewlett Foundation's Cyber Talent Pipeline: 
An Evolution Based on Equitable Evaluation Framework Principles'' 
states ``We identified 5 Minority-Serving Institutions to be in our 
evaluation sample; each has committed cyber faculty, existing 
innovative partnerships and the opportunity to further develop 
interdisciplinary education programs . . . Cal State San Bernardino 
leads a National collaboration of more than 300 universities and 
colleges dedicated to cyber and piloting innovations, many of which are 
community colleges.'' The report also states that ``the assumption that 
elite universities are best placed to enable multidisciplinary cyber 
education is not borne out by our evidence.''
    Just as President John F. Kennedy called for a greater goal for the 
United States to land a man on the moon, so must we as a Nation think 
about the global cyber race. In his speech before a Joint Session to 
Congress on May 25, 1961, the needs that President Kennedy highlighted 
still resonate today: ``I believe we possess all the resources and 
talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never 
made the National decisions or marshaled the National resources 
required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals 
on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as 
to insure their fulfillment.''
    I am happy to be here today to discuss this important challenge, 
describe what CSUSB is doing to help address the problem, discuss key 
Federal partnerships we have and the outcomes they are producing, and 
to share best practices for how we can address this problem head-on 
together.
      i. csusb and the national centers of academic excellence in 
                         cybersecurity (ncae-c)
    The National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-
C) program was created in 1999, beginning with just 7 schools, and 
through its successful partnerships, the program has grown to 335 
schools across 48 States.\1\ The NCAE-C program is the Nation's premier 
cyber workforce development initiative that leverages the unique 
capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the member 
schools to meet the Nation's needs for a specialized education program 
and unique curricula. NCAE-C is the first, and only of its kind, to 
have clearly defined academic standards, curricula, and designations 
for cyber education, holding the member colleges and universities to 
rigorous educational standards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ See Attachment A: List of schools in the NCAE-C program.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    CSUSB's Cybersecurity Center is part of the NCAE-C system and leads 
the Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Community. Six 
years ago, there were 100 institutions in the program, now there are 
335 NSA-Designated Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity, 
educating approximately 100,000 students in cyber-related disciplines.
    The CAE Community in Cybersecurity program allows for innovation 
with our Government partners at NSA, the Program Office, as well as 
DHS, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Initiative for 
Cybersecurity Education (NICE), and the National Science Foundation 
(NSF).
    These partnerships are important as each agency plays a unique role 
in the CAE program. To help increase a talent pipeline for students 
into the Federal Government, DHS serves as a strategic partner in 
promoting cybersecurity education and workforce development, as well as 
strengthening partnerships between institutions and Federal, State, 
local, and Tribal governments.
          ii. csusb and cyber corps: scholarship for service
    A strong example of the benefit of partnerships is NSF's 
CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program. This program has 
sponsored thousands of cybersecurity students leading them into 
Government cyber careers. This unique partnership with DHS, NSF, OMB, 
and the NSA CAE Program has produced thousands of quality cybersecurity 
graduates as well as building capacity for stronger cyber research and 
programs at colleges and universities. DHS and NSF further expanded the 
CyberCorps program by creating the Community College Cybersecurity 
Pilot scholarship program focused on veterans and persons with existing 
bachelor's degrees.
                   iii. csusb focus on k-12 programs
    CSUSB has a long-standing commitment to focusing not just on 
college-age students, but also on going deeper into the educational 
pipeline to start teaching cybersecurity skills to younger students. A 
great example of this is CSUSB's involvement in the GenCyber program--a 
partnership between the NSF and the NSA. The GenCyber program provides 
K-12 students the opportunity to go to ``cybersecurity summer camp'' 
for free and for teachers to participate in training camps to provide 
cyber literacy in the classroom. CSUSB's early work in this program 
involved partnerships with the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council as 
well as Title I middle schools, to reach underserved communities and 
promote diversity in cybersecurity talent. This successful series of 
camps serving over 1,200 girls eventually led to a National Girl Scout 
badge in cybersecurity.
    Through recent grant programs, the greater CAE Community schools 
are working together to create K-12 learning pathways to provide cyber 
literacy programs and prepare students for cyber careers. Cybersecurity 
teachers in schools around the country are learning new skills to teach 
cybersecurity and in doing so utilizing freely available CAE materials 
and those developed by our partners. The new Regions Investing in the 
Next Generation (RING) program from Illinois' Moraine Valley Community 
College and Alabama's University of Alabama Huntsville focuses on 
teaching cybersecurity skills in rural areas and home schools and 
provide resources for diverse communities including the economically 
disadvantaged, the deaf and hard of hearing, and the neurodiverse. 
Additionally, New York's Mohawk Valley Community College and Florida's 
University of West Florida have just launched the national Enigma 
cybersecurity competition. This National competition starts with 165 
12-person teams (1,980 high school students) to attack and defend in 
unique cyber scenarios as well as interact with potential employers. 
The CAE Community now has year-round extracurricular and in-school 
activities focused on cyber in K-12.
   iv. creating cutting-edge programs:--insure (information security 
                          research education)
    Federal grants have also funded future-oriented programs, meaning 
that CAE Community schools and Government partners are not just 
focusing on the cybersecurity skills of today but also are looking at 
the cybersecurity skills that are needed 5 years from now and beyond.
    Recognizing a shortage of domestic research talent, CSUSB, working 
with the NSF, NSA, and CAE Community partners, has advanced a cutting-
edge research program. Housed at CSUSB, this program, called the 
Information Security Research Education (INSuRE) program, works with 
technical directors from industry, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 
National labs, DHS, and the NSA, to partner with student teams around 
the country on real cybersecurity problems. The CAE Community is 
listening to industry and Government needs, adapting its curriculum, 
and focusing on research in artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous 
vehicles (AV), advanced networks, and critical infrastructure 
protection.
 v. csusb partnering with community colleges and the national science 
             foundation advanced technology education (ate)
    CSUSB's collaboration and partnership mission is further evident 
with the cooperation of the NSA and the NSF's Advanced Technology 
Education (ATE) program. The National Cybersecurity Training and 
Education Center, based at Whatcom Community College in Washington 
State, focuses on opportunities and the development of cybersecurity 
workforce capabilities at community colleges Nation-wide, and working 
with the CAE Community, established a National Cybersecurity Virtual 
Career Fair to match students from CAE colleges and universities with 
employers across the Nation. In 2020, this career fair saw more than 
1,400 well-qualified CAE students and 38 employers participate. This 
year, the CAE Community is seeking to double that number. Future 
collaborations include National apprenticeship initiatives partnering 
with CAE-designated schools.
         vi. csusb partnership with the nice challenge project
    Another strong example of how CSUSB's successful cybersecurity 
collaboration is the CAE Community's National cyber range, the NICE 
Challenge Project. The program is funded through grants from NSF, DHS, 
NSA, and the NICE program with a mission to create a range where 
cybersecurity participants can test their cyber workforce readiness, 
measured against the NIST Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (800-181) 
and NSA Knowledge Unit Standards. This system, free for use in higher 
education, currently serves thousands of students at 500 schools across 
the Nation. This program is exploring an expansion for helping 
veterans, and high schools, and working with CISA on Federal workforce 
training. With further funding from DHS, CISA, and NSA, this cyber 
range could be easily scaled to serve the Nation's high schools, 
providing progress toward workforce readiness. Working with CISA, CSUSB 
also sees opportunities for using the NICE Challenge as a means to 
train, develop, and validate the Federal workforce.
                           vii. looking ahead
    The Nation is grappling with a critical problem to address the 
cyber workforce challenge. Colleges and universities across the country 
are doing tremendous work to address the problem and CSUSB is doing its 
part each day to help bridge the workforce gap. As Congress grapples 
with solutions to these challenges, it must avoid creating new programs 
in the Federal Government, but rather provide steady-state funding to 
ones that are in existence and have a long history of success. The CAE 
Community has existed for 22 years and has amazing return on investment 
using Federal funds. Other programs such as those I have described at 
NSF and NIST, working with the DHS and other agencies, are successful 
programs making great strides to address the problem.
    What makes the CAE Community program unique is its willingness to 
collaborate with a wide range of entities, from both industry and 
Government, as a critical resource. DHS has a unique vantage point 
based on its mission to safeguard the Nation's homeland, and DHS should 
promote sustained funding and leverage the capabilities of the CAE 
Community in its efforts to address cybersecurity workforce challenges.
    The colleges and universities that make up the CAE in Cybersecurity 
Community have boundless energy, but what is needed from Congress is a 
concerted focus and dedicated funding for all of these programs along 
with the need to avoid creating overlapping and duplicative programs 
across all other agencies. The model created in the CAE community, 
working with DHS, FBI, NSF, and NIST have a long history of success. 
The program is also created and run by those who understand 
cybersecurity and the educational needs of our community. We need to 
sustain and encourage the non-profit, collaborative approaches that 
work and dedicated funding is critical to helping to achieve these 
goals.
    We also need to ensure the workforce of the future is diverse in 
nature as well. The CAE Community schools are engaged in many 
initiatives building out diverse workforce, including wounded warriors, 
neurodiverse, women, and minority-serving institutions. The recently-
launched Cyber Education Diversity Initiative (CEDI) is housed at 
Fordham University in New York State. This program is focused on 
building the capacity of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to become 
CAE-designated as well as inviting students from MSIs to join 
competitions, hosting workshops for faculty, and allowing for students 
to transfer from MSIs to colleges with a cybersecurity degree program.
    NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at the Cyber 
Defence Pledge Conference in London in 2019, stated: ``It takes just a 
`click' to send a cyber virus spreading across the globe. But it takes 
a global effort to stop it from inflicting chaos.'' He went on to say 
``But cyber goes beyond technology. The people behind the technology 
are just as important. We need to build a strong and diverse workforce 
of future cyber defenders.''
    The efforts by CSUSB and the Centers of Academic Excellence in 
Cybersecurity Community have generated undeniable results but tackling 
a 500,000-person workforce shortage is a problem that will require 
``all hands-on deck.'' Where there are programs that already exist with 
long-standing demonstrable results, Congress should support those with 
dedicated funding. Thank you for your time and I look forward to any 
questions.
  Attachment.--NSA Designated Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber 
                              Institutions
    Athens State University--AL
    Auburn University--AL
    Calhoun Community College--AL
    Jacksonville State University--AL
    Snead State Community College--AL
    The University of Alabama--AL
    The University of Alabama at Birmingham--AL
    The University of Alabama in Huntsville--AL
    Tuskegee University--AL
    University of South Alabama--AL
    University of Arkansas--AR
    University of Arkansas at Little Rock--AR
    Arizona State University--AZ
    Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott Campus--AZ
    Estrella Mountain Community College--AZ
    Glendale Community College--AZ
    Grand Canyon University--AZ
    The University of Arizona--AZ
    University of Advancing Technology--AZ
    California State Polytechnic University, Pomona--CA
    California State University, San Marcos--CA
    California State University, Sacramento--CA
    California State University, San Bernardino--CA
    City College of San Francisco--CA
    Coastline Community College--CA
    Cypress College--CA
    Long Beach City College--CA
    National University--CA
    Naval Postgraduate School--CA
    Ohlone College--CA
    Sierra College--CA
    University of California, Davis--CA
    University of California, Irvine--CA
    Arapahoe Community College--CO
    Colorado School of Mines--CO
    Colorado State University--Pueblo--CO
    Colorado Technical University--CO
    Pikes Peak Community College--CO
    Pueblo Community College--CO
    Red Rocks Community College--CO
    Regis University--CO
    United States Air Force Academy--CO
    University of Colorado, Colorado Springs--CO
    University of Denver--CO
    University of Connecticut--CT
    University of New Haven--CT
    Georgetown University--DC
    The George Washington University--DC
    University of Delaware--DE
    Wilmington University--DE
    Daytona State College--FL
    Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University--Daytona Beach Campus--FL
    Florida A&M University--FL
    Florida Atlantic University--FL
    Florida Institute of Technology--FL
    Florida International University--FL
    Florida State College at Jacksonville--FL
    Florida State University--FL
    Indian River State College--FL
    Nova Southeastern University--FL
    Saint Leo University--FL
    St. Petersburg College--FL
    University of Central Florida--FL
    University of Florida--FL
    University of North Florida--FL
    University of South Florida--FL
    University of West Florida--FL
    Valencia College--FL
    Augusta Technical College--GA
    Augusta University--GA
    Columbus State University--GA
    Georgia Institute of Technology--GA
    Georgia Southern University--Armstrong Campus--GA
    Georgia State University--GA
    Kennesaw State University--GA
    Middle Georgia State University--GA
    Middle Georgia State University--MSIT--GA
    University of Georgia--GA
    University of North Georgia--GA
    Honolulu Community College--HI
    Leeward Community College--HI
    University of Hawaii--West Oahu--HI
    University of Hawaii at Manoa--HI
    University of Hawaii Maui College--HI
    Iowa State University--IA
    Idaho State University--ID
    North Idaho College--ID
    University of Idaho--ID
    College of DuPage--IL
    DePaul University--IL
    Illinois Institute of Technology--IL
    Illinois State University--IL
    John A Logan College--IL
    Lewis University--IL
    Lincoln Land Community College--IL
    Loyola University Chicago--IL
    Moraine Valley Community College--IL
    Rock Valley College--IL
    Roosevelt University--IL
    University of Illinois at Springfield--IL
    University of Illinois, Urbana--Champaign--IL
    Indiana University--IN
    Ivy Tech Community College--IN
    Purdue University--IN
    Purdue University Northwest--IN
    Butler Community College--KS
    Fort Hays State University--KS
    Johnson County Community College--KS
    Kansas State University--KS
    University of Kansas--KS
    Wichita State University--KS
    Bluegrass Community and Technical College--KY
    Murray State University--KY
    Northern Kentucky University--KY
    Owensboro Community and Technical College--KY
    University of Louisville--Graduate Certificate of Cybersecurity--KY
    University of Louisville, Kentucky--KY
    University of the Cumberlands--KY
    Bossier Parish Community College--LA
    Louisiana Tech University--LA
    University of New Orleans--LA
    Boston University--MA
    Northeastern University--MA
    University of Massachusetts Lowell--MA
    Worcester Polytechnic Institute--MA
    Anne Arundel Community College--MD
    Bowie State University--MD
    Capitol Technology University--MD
    Cecil College--MD
    College of Southern Maryland--MD
    Hagerstown Community College--MD
    Harford Community College--MD
    Howard Community College--MD
    Morgan State University--MD
    Prince George's Community College--MD
    The Community College of Baltimore County--MD
    The Johns Hopkins University--MD
    Towson University--MD
    United States Naval Academy--MD
    University of Maryland--MD
    University of Maryland Global Campus--MD
    University of Maryland, Baltimore County--MD
    Southern Maine Community College--ME
    University of Maine at Augusta--ME
    Baker College--MI
    Davenport University--MI
    Delta College--MI
    Eastern Michigan University--MI
    Ferris State University--MI
    Grand Rapids Community College--MI
    Henry Ford College--MI
    Lansing Community College--MI
    Macomb Community College--MI
    Oakland University--MI
    University of Detroit, Mercy--MI
    Walsh College--MI
    Washtenaw Community College--MI
    Capella University--MN
    Century College--MN
    Lake Superior College--MN
    Metropolitan State University--MN
    St. Cloud State University--MN
    Walden University--MN
    Metropolitan Community College--Kansas City--MO
    Missouri University of Science and Technology--MO
    Southeast Missouri State University--MO
    St. Louis Community College--MO
    University of Missouri--Columbia--MO
    University of Missouri--St. Louis--MO
    Webster University--MO
    Mississippi State University--MS
    Great Falls College Montana State University--MT
    Missoula College--MT
    Alamance Community College--NC
    East Carolina University--NC
    Fayetteville Technical Community College--NC
    Forsyth Technical Community College--NC
    Montreat College--NC
    North Carolina A&T State University--NC
    North Carolina State University--NC
    Pitt Community College--NC
    Sampson Community College--NC
    University of North Carolina, Charlotte--NC
    University of North Carolina, Wilmington--NC
    Wake Technical Community College--NC
    Bismarck State College--ND
    North Dakota State University--ND
    Bellevue University--NE
    Metropolitan Community College--NE
    Northeast Community College--NE
    University of Nebraska, Omaha--NE
    Dartmouth College--NH
    University of New Hampshire--NH
    Brookdale Community Collge--NJ
    County College of Morris--NJ
    Fairleigh Dickinson University--NJ
    New Jersey City University--NJ
    New Jersey Institute of Technology--NJ
    Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey--NJ
    Stevens Institute of Technology--NJ
    Central New Mexico Community College--NM
    Eastern New Mexico University--Ruidoso Branch Community College--NM
    New Mexico Tech--NM
    University of New Mexico--NM
    College of Southern Nevada--NV
    University of Nevada, Las Vegas--NV
    University of Nevada, Reno--NV
    Binghamton University (SUNY at Binghamton)--NY
    Excelsior College--NY
    Fordham University--NY
    Mercy College--NY
    Mohawk Valley Community College--NY
    New York Institute of Technology--NY
    New York University--NY
    Pace University--NY
    Rochester Institute of Technology--NY
    Rockland Community College--NY
    Syracuse University--NY
    University at Albany, the State University of New York--NY
    University at Buffalo, the State University of New York--NY
    Utica College--NY
    Utica College--MS Cybersecurity--NY
    Westchester Community College--NY
    Air Force Institute of Technology--OH
    Cedarville University--OH
    Clark State Community College--OH
    Columbus State Community College--OH
    Franklin University--OH
    Sinclair Community College--OH
    Terra State Community College--OH
    The Ohio State University--OH
    University of Cincinnati--OH
    Wright State University--OH
    Oklahoma City Community College--OK
    Oklahoma State University--OK
    Rose State College--OK
    University of Tulsa--OK
    Chemeketa Community College--OR
    Mt. Hood Community College--OR
    Portland Community College--OR
    Portland State University--OR
    Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania--PA
    Carnegie Mellon University--PA
    Drexel University--PA
    East Stroudsburg University--PA
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania--PA
    Lehigh Carbon Community College--PA
    Pennsylvania Highlands Community College--PA
    Pennsylvania State University--PA
    Pittsburgh Technical College--PA
    Robert Morris University--PA
    Saint Vincent College--PA
    University of Pittsburgh--PA
    Valley Forge Military College--PA
    West Chester University of Pennsylvania--PA
    Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico--PR
    Community College of Rhode Island--RI
    New England Institute of Technology--RI
    University of Rhode Island--RI
    Clemson University--SC
    South Carolina State University--SC
    The Citadel--SC
    Trident Technical College--SC
    University of South Carolina--SC
    Dakota State University--SD
    Jackson State Community College--TN
    LeMoyne--Owen College--TN
    Roane State Community College--TN
    Tennessee Tech University--TN
    The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga--TN
    University of Memphis--TN
    El Paso Community College--TX
    Hill College--TX
    Houston Community College--TX
    Laredo College--TX
    McLennan Community College--TX
    Our Lady of the Lake University--TX
    Sam Houston State University--TX
    San Antonio College--TX
    South Texas College--TX
    Southern Methodist University--TX
    St. Philip's College--TX
    Texas A&M University--TX
    Texas A&M University--Corpus Christi--TX
    Texas A&M University--San Antonio--TX
    Texas State Technical College in Harlingen--TX
    The University of Texas at Austin--TX
    The University of Texas at San Antonio--TX
    University of Dallas--TX
    University of Houston--TX
    University of North Texas--TX
    University of Texas at Dallas--TX
    University of Texas at El Paso--TX
    Brigham Young University--UT
    Southern Utah University--UT
    Danville Community College--VA
    ECPI University--VA
    George Mason University--VA
    Germanna Community College--VA
    Hampton University--VA
    James Madison University--VA
    Liberty University--VA
    Lord Fairfax Community College--VA
    Marymount University--VA
    Mountain Empire Community College--VA
    Norfolk State University--VA
    Northern Virginia Community College--VA
    Old Dominion University--VA
    Radford University--VA
    Regent University--VA
    Southwest Virginia Community College--VA
    Thomas Nelson Community College--VA
    Tidewater Community College--VA
    University of Virginia--VA
    Virginia Commonwealth University--VA
    Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University--VA
    Virginia Western Community College--VA
    Champlain College--UT
    Norwich University--UT
    City University of Seattle--WA
    Columbia Basin College--WA
    Edmonds Community College--WA
    Green River College--WA
    Highline College--WA
    Spokane Falls Community College--WA
    University of Washington--WA
    Whatcom Community College--WA
    Madison College--WI
    Marquette University--WI
    University of Wisconsin--Stout--WI
    Waukesha County Technical College--WI
    American Public University System--WV
    Blue Ridge Community and Technical College--WV
    West Virginia University--WV

    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Dr. Coulson.
    I now recognize Mr. Ley to summarize his statement for 5 
minutes.

   STATEMENT OF RALPH F. LEY, DEPARTMENT MANAGER, WORKFORCE 
 DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING INFRASTRUCTURE ASSURANCE & ANALYSIS 
    DIVISION, NATIONAL & HOMELAND SECURITY, IDAHO NATIONAL 
                           LABORATORY

    Mr. Ley. Thank you, Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member 
Garbarino, and Members of the committee. It is an honor and a 
privilege to be with you today.
    My name is Ralph Ley. I am the department manager for 
Workforce Development and Training within the National and 
Homeland Security Directorate at Idaho National Laboratory. I 
am grateful for the opportunity to testify on the issues 
regarding the Nation's cyber talent pipeline and ways to ensure 
our work force is ready to meet future threats.
    As you probably all know, INL's long history with nuclear 
energy from its inception to the latest and recent work with 
small modular nuclear reactors, other energy sources, our one-
of-a-kind wireless ranges and the wireless networks that are 
continuing to expand across the United States, various 
infrastructures and their test beds helping industry. It is 
easy to understand why we have a deep understanding for 
industrial control systems, control systems in general and how 
to protect them. In fact, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 
called out INL as the Nation's center of excellence for 
industrial control system cybersecurity issues. Well-founded.
    Our department takes great pride in having the opportunity 
and responsibility to lead, influence, and execute a broad 
portfolio of educational programs and research that address IT 
and OT cybersecurity issues and work force development needs. 
Although INL supports and has its own numerous K-12 
cybersecurity initiatives and the great work, as you can see 
already some of the witnesses have testified, fantastic work, 
my primary focus today is to talk about issues relating to the 
post-secondary education institutes and existing work force 
already in business and Government agencies. That is an area 
that needs to be addressed and very quickly.
    For over 15 years DOE and DHS have asked us to provide ICS 
cybersecurity training courses to private-sector businesses, 
utilities, and Government agencies. The desired result was for 
participants to become aware of the difference between IT and 
OT networks and systems, how they interact with each other on 
the job, the IT and OT experts on businesses, and to develop 
projects within academia and industry to better understand the 
issues surrounding the cyber education of the Nation's work 
force--what are the impediments and influences in driving the 
cyber health, if you will, of organizations. One of our latest 
projects and documents you may have seen is in collaboration 
with Idaho State University, La Trobe University, titled 
``Building an Industrial Cybersecurity Workforce: A Manager's 
Guide''. This is just a first attempt and first product that we 
have developed to address the job roles required by ICS 
professionals and how an organization may establish a capable 
work force. NIST has recognized the value of our efforts and 
has asked us to join them in building out their NICE framework 
that focuses on IT cybersecurity and move it into and 
incorporate segments and areas and issues surrounding the OT or 
industrial control systems as well.
    To further flush out issues that need to be addressed: We 
have also established our own industrial cybersecurity 
community to practice. One hundred fifty participants from the 
universities, industries, organizations from around the Nation 
and internationally to look at the issues.
    The recurring issues that are most prominent and that need 
to be addressed are, as I have listed in the testimony, 
standardizing curriculum for cyber degrees, establishing a 
shared repository for cybersecurity curriculum so that all 
institutes, large and small, can have access to it. But our 
main focus here is to--and we recommend the focus of energy to 
help industry organizations understand what their actual cyber 
job roles are and the educational needs. We find many don't 
even understand what their organizations need in cyber job 
roles and leading to the education of those individuals, and 
also how to hire the right individuals.
    There are many other issues out there that need to be 
addressed, but those are the two areas that we need to look at.
    I appreciate the opportunity to testify and I want to thank 
you again for your attention to this very important issue of 
our Nation and I look forward to your questions on 
cybersecurity and the work force and increasing the flow of the 
cyber talent pipeline.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Ley follows:]
                   Prepared Statement of Ralph F. Ley
                             July 29, 2021
    Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, and Members of the 
committee, it is an honor and privilege to be with you today. My name 
is Ralph Ley, and I am the department manager for workforce development 
and training within the national and homeland security directorate at 
Idaho National Laboratory (INL). I'm grateful for the opportunity to 
testify on issues regarding the Nation's cyber talent pipeline and ways 
to ensure our workforce is ready to meet future threats.
    I want to thank this subcommittee for addressing what we believe is 
a foundational workforce development and education issue facing this 
Nation from the standpoint of a continuously changing cyber threat 
landscape requiring professionals who have career-long access to 
updated curriculum containing new tactics, techniques, and procedures 
to sufficiently protect their networks and systems.
    Our conversation today is an important step forward for 
establishing a unified team with a focused approach toward implementing 
solutions to cyber workforce issues and progress--our security will 
benefit from this unified effort, it is greatly needed and appreciated.
    INL's Nationally-recognized expertise in industrial control systems 
(ICS) or operational technology (OT) cybersecurity stems from its long 
history and primary mission to conduct research, development, and 
demonstration of solutions that assure the advancement of nuclear 
energy, clean energy, and critical infrastructure protection 
technologies. From the beginning related infrastructure were full of 
control systems to ensure their safe and efficient operations. My 
department takes great pride in having the opportunities and 
responsibilities to lead, influence, and execute a broad portfolio of 
educational programs and research which address cybersecurity issues 
and workforce development needs.
    For over a decade Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security 
Agency (CISA) sponsored ICS cybersecurity training courses have been 
conducted at INL in immersive classroom and hands-on learning 
environments. The target audience has been primarily private-sector 
businesses and utilities who need their staff to understand the 
differences between protecting IT and OT networks and systems. Simply 
put, IT cybersecurity is based on keeping a business's information 
readily available, accurate, and dependable, whereas OT cybersecurity 
lives in a cyber-physical world manipulating businesses assets which 
can impact production and throughput/output of materials. These 
sponsored courses offered by INL are designed to bridge the knowledge 
gap by bringing together people who operate either their company's IT 
systems or OT systems and force them to work together in realistic work 
settings. The results of these courses accompanied by the significant 
increase in recent threats to OT systems has contributed heavily to 
industry's awareness, or better described--awakening--to the need for 
improved OT cybersecurity practices accompanied by established 
standards for workforce development and training.
    Processes and procedures for securing IT systems are well-
documented in a wide variety of general overarching best practices and 
some industry-specific standards. The same guidance has been late 
coming for securing OT systems, however this guidance is now much more 
readily available than even just a few years ago. Along with 
established cybersecurity procedures or standards has been guidance on 
what education and training is required by cyber professionals to 
implement these new measures.
    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National 
Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) workforce framework, 
often referred to as the NICE Framework, is arguably the most well-
known cybersecurity education and training standard. It addresses the 
education and training needs of the cybersecurity workforce by 
providing common vocabulary for the field and a detailed list of 
cybersecurity Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Tasks (KSATs) for each 
identified cyber work role. While the NICE Framework is intended to be 
applicable to a wide range of cybersecurity workers in an organization, 
IT roles and IT KSATs are ultimately the focus of the competency 
recommendations provided. As IT and OT systems become increasingly 
connected and vulnerabilities associated with both increases, the need 
to extend the framework to incorporate ICS systems has begun.
    INL in collaboration with academic and industry partners has 
endeavored to assist in the efforts to address the lack of a similar 
framework and KSATs for OT work roles. A major first step was INL's 
collaboration with Idaho State University (ISU) and La Trobe University 
(LTU) in a two-phased project resulting in the ``Building an Industrial 
Cybersecurity Workforce: A Manager's Guide''. This non-prescriptive 
document is a first step toward identifying the unique knowledge and 
job roles required of ICS professionals and establishing a capable 
workforce. NIST has recognized the value of this effort and has 
requested INL's participation in expanding the NICE Framework to 
incorporate OT roles and OT KSATs.
    Lack of recognized OT job roles and associated KSATs has had a 
definite influence on the existing availability of OT-specific 
workforce training offerings. Years of research and development of 
education and training courses for CISA, DoD, and industry, 
collaboration with academic institutes, and interviewing students 
identified other potential influencers that appeared to be impeding the 
flow of the IT and OT cyber talent workforce pipeline. To validate 
INL's findings, we created a joint INL-ISU Industrial Cybersecurity 
Community of Practice (ICSCOP) recurring workshop and invited over 150 
representatives from universities, Government entities, and industry 
experts to participate. Participants were provided presentations on two 
known cyber workforce issues: (1) Curriculum Standards for ICS cyber-
related degree programs, and (2) ICS workforce development factors. The 
resulting group discussion by participants validated previously 
identified influencers and established working groups to address 
solutions. Influencers span IT and OT topics and included:
   First, standardized curriculum. There needs to be standard 
        curriculum requirements for cyber-related degree programs, IT- 
        and OT-focused, offered by academic institutes. For example, 
        the requirements to attain a degree in cybersecurity varies 
        from university, to university making is hard for employers to 
        know the level of competency of any individual possessing such 
        a degree and seeking employment. Lack of standards also leave 
        the individual unsure of their qualifications for jobs solely 
        based on the degree.
   Second, employers do not understand the existing 
        cybersecurity-related tasks their employees are responsible for 
        in their daily jobs. This makes it impossible to know what each 
        employee's cyber education and training requirements are or to 
        create a roadmap for improvement. It also makes it difficult to 
        identify if there is a need to hire additional staff to address 
        unfilled cyber job roles. Employers require a holistic process 
        that can assist with identifying the existing cyber job roles 
        of their employees, identify potential personnel gaps, suggest 
        individual cyber education and training roadmaps, and link the 
        level of education of employees to the cyber ``health'' of the 
        organization.
   Third, Human Resource (HR) departments do not possess the 
        necessary tools to identify and hire the best candidate for a 
        cyber-related job position. They are forced to use the same 
        hiring methods as other positions within their business: 
        Reviewing resumes and conducting interviews. Although academic 
        institutes cannot create different degree programs tailored 
        specifically for each individual business's needs, skills 
        testing matched to standardized KSATs would assist employers 
        with this issue and provide academic institutes a view of the 
        most requested cyber skills by employers to adjust degree 
        programs.
   Fourth, as mentioned previously, the pace of new 
        cybersecurity emerging threats, new technology, 
        vulnerabilities, etc., is faster than most of the existing 
        board certification processes used by academic institutes to 
        approve updated curriculum. This makes it harder for academic 
        institutes to rapidly update materials and offer students 
        programs with the most recent information. A central 
        clearinghouse for approved new ICS cyber-related curriculum 
        readily available for academic institutes to adopt if desired 
        may be one solution.
   Fifth, closely aligned with the first influencer is the lack 
        of availability of standardized hands-on or near-hands-on 
        training apparatus for ICS cybersecurity education programs, 
        especially in rural geographical areas. A shared repository of 
        curriculum and capabilities provided in a hub-and-spoke 
        regional model where all academic institutes benefit from a 
        National repository of resources is the needed.
   Sixth, the existing workforce needs continuing education 
        options from local academic institutes other than the time-
        consuming and expensive solution of employees obtaining another 
        degree. The continuing education options must be trackable by 
        individuals throughout their cyber careers and identify for 
        employers the currency of the education the person has 
        received. Academic institutes have begun establishing their own 
        educational badge and/or credential systems. A recognized 
        National standard for these systems is needed before employers 
        will put stock in the validity of these necessary systems.
    Outcomes from the ICSCOP workshops and working group meetings are 
not limited to validation of influencers impeding the flow of the cyber 
talent pipeline. INL is working with State and local government 
entities, academic institutes at all levels of education, and business 
around the State as collaborators and sounding boards of the workforce 
development solutions explored. The thought process to this approach is 
that if solutions can work in one State, they have a high probability 
of working in others.
    An example of these activities is the Associate Lab Director for 
N&HS is a co-chairperson on a new task force led by the Idaho 
Department of Commerce. The purpose is to make Idaho the most secure 
State against cybersecurity attacks aimed at businesses, Governmental 
entities, institutions, and citizens which will substantially improve 
and protect our growing economy. Activities include coordinating, 
informing, and training Idahoans across the State as to safeguards and 
resources from the perspective of many experts and interested groups. 
Recommendations from the task force will inform the Governor, 
legislature, and other stakeholders on major cybersecurity threats and 
opportunities for Idaho. This effort can easily be replicated by other 
States desiring a collaborative approach to addressing cybersecurity 
issues.
    Other efforts include Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in 
collaboration with industry, academia, and the science and research 
communities kicked off a multi-year Idaho Cyber Research Project 
(ICRP). This project is designed to apply existing solutions to some of 
the major influencers. A small army of interns (20 to 30) from Idaho 
universities and 2-year colleges are assisting INL staff by visiting 
organizations desiring assistance with cyber ``health'' issues and 
providing potential solutions. Solutions include using tools that can 
provide a cyber workforce evaluation resulting in cyber training paths 
validated by job roles for employees, assistance implementing new 
approaches to hiring cyber candidates and current employee cyber skills 
testing, cyber job posting solutions, consideration of apprenticeship 
opportunities, creating a workforce cyber competency profile for a 
business, and collaboration opportunities with academic institutes 
desiring partnerships to improve cyber curriculum offerings to their 
sector-specific needs. Solutions that resonate with local entities and 
are validated will be briefed at future ICSCOP meetings to discuss 
options for adoption by a broader audience.
    Finally, I would like to note that there are other issues facing 
the cyber workforce talent pipeline, but the ones listed are, in our 
opinion, the most problematic and biggest hinderances to a smoothly 
flowing talent pipeline. Many entities are working separately on 
solutions to the influencers I have outlined. This approach lends 
itself to creativity and flexibility with the multiple solutions 
offered to fit various entities needs; however, this approach can also 
lead to duplicative efforts and inefficient spending of scarce funds. 
We are seeing this issue arise with Federal and DoD entities. The CISA 
office of Cybersecurity Defense Education and Training (CDET) is 
uniquely poised to implement and manage National cyber workforce R&D 
programs along with education and training courses. CDET should be 
looked to as the lead office for all CISA workforce development 
efforts. DoD should establish a similar, joint office and directly 
collaborate with CDET for efficiency.
    INL stands ready to assist as needed in this Nation's efforts to 
increase the cybersecurity posture of all citizens whether through 
workforce development and education or bringing to bear its ICS 
cybersecurity control systems experts, cyber researchers, engineers, 
and threat analysts.
    I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and I want to thank you 
again for your attention to this very important issue for our Nation. I 
look forward to your questions.

    Chairwoman Clarke. I thank you, Mr. Ley, for your 
testimony.
    Finally, I recognize Mr. Stier to summarize his statement 
for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF MAX STIER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PARTNERSHIP FOR 
                         PUBLIC SERVICE

    Mr. Stier. Thank you, Chairwoman Clarke and Ranking Member 
Garbarino. It is a real pleasure to have the opportunity to 
testify before you this morning on such an important issue.
    Cybersecurity is so vital and our Federal Government is 
central to addressing this issue. My focus, as you indicated in 
the summary, of the Partnership for Public Service will be on 
the Federal work force. We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit 
organization really focused on better Government for a stronger 
democracy. We have been working on the issue of cyber for some 
time now.
    Just to give one stat that helps demonstrate how big the 
problem is, if you look at the cyber work force in the Federal 
Government right now, under 6 percent of it is under the age of 
30. So to be real clear, it is just extraordinary. There is no 
generational diversity more broadly.
    There are five reasons for this. The first is that the 
Federal Government's brand is damaged. Government shutdowns, 
hiring freezes, negative rhetoric, political interference in 
science, all these things have tarnished the brand. Second, the 
opportunities for young people to serve are hidden and scarce. 
Again, a devastating statistic. Just 4 percent--4 percent of 
new hires are drawn from Federal programs employing current 
students and recent graduates. So Government rarely gets talent 
coming in that is young, bluntly. No. 3, the hiring process is 
broken and the barriers to entry are many--could spend all 5 
minutes on this, and I am going to pass unless you want more 
detail later--100 days-plus to hire people and the assessment 
processes are broken. Very importantly and often overlooked, 
this is No. 4, we are not retaining the talent that we get. So 
if you look at those full-time employees under the age of 30 
who are leaving Government, three-quarters of them are leaving 
within 2 years. So if you do everything right on the front end 
and you don't address the retention issue, you actually don't 
solve the problem. Fifth, critically, the diversity is bad 
across the Federal work force, but it is much, much worse in 
the cyber arena.
    Now, cybersecurity has been on the GAO high-risk list since 
1997. we need to do more than admire this problem. Ranking 
Member Garbarino, I loved your point, let us have some concrete 
things to do. I am going to give you 10 of them.
    First and foremost, most important, we need to create 
higher expectations for the leadership in Government, and that 
includes, bluntly, Congress as well. We need leadership to pay 
attention and to see it as their responsibility to own getting 
the right talent into Government. By and large they don't do 
that and it is a big problem.
    No. 2, we need the leaders in Government to actually have a 
very different level of understanding around technology. I am 
not talking about obviously the CIOs and the CTOs. The general 
program leadership more broadly in the world that we live in 
today has to have a sophistication and fluency in technology 
that is often missing. They need to be upscaled or different 
people need to be brought in.
    Third, and equally important, we need more sustained 
leaders. Right now a Senate-confirmed appointee lasts only 2 
years on average. It is impossible, bluntly, to make a 
difference on these management issues like cyber without a 
longer-term tenure for leaders. So a very concrete example, 
Secretary Granholm wants to have a CESER career leader in there 
rather than a political appointee. That is very smart.
    No. 2, we need to utilize innovative talent models like our 
cyber talent initiative. Happy to describe that in greater 
detail.
    No. 3, we need to promote the Government mission. People 
will come to Government if they understand they are serving the 
American people. NASA does a great job. They have a custom-
built career website that includes videos of what they do. We 
produce a program called a Service to America Medals. We need 
to be able to highlight the great things people can do if they 
are in Government.
    No. 4, we have got to improve the recruiting and hiring to 
begin with. We had the National Commission on Military National 
Public Service. They did a fantastic job. Lots of 
recommendations that are ready for legislation now and they 
should be done. We should have exit interviews of those in the 
cyber fields so we are understanding why we are not holding 
onto talent that we need.
    No. 5, we need to get more young people in Government. Here 
this is basic strategy. Student internships ought to be the 
primary entry hiring for Government. They are not right now. 
They need to be paid internships or else we are not going to 
get the diverse talent.
    No. 6, we need to overhaul the pay system more broadly in 
Government and certainly around cyber. Know that this pay 
system in Government was designed in 1949. It is not 
sufficiently market-sensitive. That is a real problem.
    Seven, we have got to invest in the H.R. work force or you 
won't have these people coming in. We need an enterprise 
strategy.
    Eight, we need to embrace a culture that has technology and 
innovation collaboration that is central. That is a leadership 
issue. I mentioned DEI as being critical in this work force 
strategy.
    Ten, coming back around to the leadership side, we need 
continued oversight from this committee, we need to see this as 
an annual hearing, we need to see you visiting agencies that 
are doing well, and we need you looking out for the Government 
brand.
    As fast as I can talk. Look forward to questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Stier follows:]
                    Prepared Statement of Max Stier
                             July 29, 2021
                              introduction
    Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, and Members of the 
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and 
Innovation, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to 
discuss the importance of building a robust cybersecurity talent 
pipeline.
    The Partnership for Public Service is a non-partisan, non-profit 
organization dedicated to inspiring public service and increasing the 
efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal Government. The Partnership 
was founded on the premise that any organization's best asset is its 
people.
    Cybersecurity, a critical element of any organization's resilience, 
has been indispensable to the Federal Government's response to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. Early in the pandemic, security considerations moved 
to the forefront as more employees than ever before worked and accessed 
agency information networks remotely and used digital tools to continue 
operations and service delivery. As the Federal Government thinks about 
the future of work, it is clear that cybersecurity will remain at the 
forefront. And, of course, there are moments of crisis in securing the 
Nation's cyber infrastructure--the SolarWinds cyber attack in 2020 and 
the Colonial Pipeline hack in May 2021 illustrate the importance of 
having Federal cyber experts who can respond quickly to an increasingly 
sophisticated threat landscape.
    Although these cyber attacks shine a fresh spotlight on the 
country's vulnerabilities, cybersecurity has been identified as a GAO 
High-Risk List area since 1997.\1\ Despite being on the list for 24 
years, there remains a Nation-wide shortage of highly-qualified 
cybersecurity specialists, and the Federal Government has fallen behind 
in the race for this talent. Amidst the growing demand for cyber 
professionals, agencies have struggled to recruit, hire, retain, and 
train workers in the cybersecurity field. Many of the personnel issues 
confronting the cybersecurity workforce are endemic in the Federal 
system that makes recruiting and retaining the best and brightest 
talent in any career field a formidable challenge. To protect the 
country against current and future threats, Congress must focus on 
revitalizing and investing in the Federal cyber workforce.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 
``GAO's 2021 High Risk List: Addressing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse,'' 
March 2, 2021. Testimony from Eugene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of 
U.S. Government Accountability Office. Retrieved from https://
www.hsgac.senate.gov/gaos-2021-high-risk-list-addressing-waste-fraud-
and-abuse.
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    The Partnership offers a variety of programs that allow us to work 
with Federal employees to strengthen their leadership skills, prepare 
them to build strong teams and work across organizational boundaries. 
We also work with agencies on issues such as attracting top talent, 
engaging and supporting their workforce, and fostering innovation. For 
example, our cross-sector Cybersecurity Talent Initiative \2\ is a 
partnership with MasterCard, Microsoft, and Workday that provides 
students in cybersecurity-related fields with public and private-sector 
work experience. This program guarantees students a 2-year placement at 
a Federal agency with cybersecurity needs and provides agencies with 
capable talent to address current and emerging challenges. Through 
these initiatives, we help Federal leaders and agencies achieve better 
outcomes for the people they serve.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Cybersecurity Talent Initiative. Retrieved from https://
cybertalentinitiative.org/.
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    For the past decade, the Partnership's research has highlighted 
strategies and opportunities for Government to build a more capable 
cyber workforce. For instance, our 2009 ``Cyber In-Security'' report 
outlines factors hampering Government's ability to build an efficient 
and effective cybersecurity workforce.\3\ Our 2015 supplementary 
report, ``Cyber In-Security II,'' outlines key findings and strategies 
to help Government build a capable cyber workforce and close the 
Federal talent gap.\4\
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    \3\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Cyber In-Security,'' July 
2009. Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/publications/cyber-
in-security-strengthening-the-Federal-cybersecurity-workforce/.
    \4\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Cyber In-Security II,'' April 
2015. Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/publications/cyber-
in-security-ii-closing-the-Federal-talent-gap/.
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             challenges facing the federal cyber work force
    Unpacking the data on the Federal cybersecurity work force reveals 
different stories across the Government. There are areas of growth, 
including in Government-wide totals--the number of full-time Federal 
cyber employees increased by 7.85 percent between September 2016 and 
September 2020. Over the same period, the Federal work force overall 
increased by 3.66 percent.
    However, there are concerning trends in other areas of the cyber 
workforce. For example, some agencies saw declines in full-time 
employees--the Department of Agriculture's cyber workforce decreased 
from 3,300 employees in September 2016 to 2,700 in September 2020, 
while at the Department of Labor it decreased from 750 to 660 employees 
in the same time frame.\5\
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    \5\ Statistics on Federal employees are drawn from Office of 
Personnel Management FedScope data on the Federal workforce unless 
indicated otherwise.
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    Government also faces challenges in recruiting, hiring, and 
retaining a cyber workforce that looks like the American public. For 
example, 50.8 percent of the U.S. population identifies as female;\6\ 
however, in September 2020, just 25.4 percent of the full-time Federal 
cyber workforce identified as female, compared to 43.2 percent 
Government-wide.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/
quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219.
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    The Federal cybersecurity workforce is also older than the U.S. 
labor force. The percent of full-time cyber employees under the age of 
30 steadily increased from 4.1 percent to 5.7 percent between September 
2014 and September 2020; however, this still lags behind the almost 20 
percent of the employed U.S. labor force in 2020 that is under age 30.
    To revitalize the cyber workforce, the administration and Congress 
must address both immediate and long-standing problems. Key data points 
from the overall Federal workforce signal the urgent need for attention 
to this vital National asset. These trends are not new but will be 
harder to fix the longer we wait:
   In the Federal IT workforce, there are 16 times more 
        employees over the age of 50 than under age 30.
   Roughly one-third of full-time employees on board at the 
        beginning of fiscal 2019 will be eligible to retire by the end 
        of fiscal 2023.
   Use of the Federal Pathways intern program, which should be 
        a main pipeline into Federal service, has plummeted. According 
        to the fiscal 2020 budget request, the number of new hires of 
        student interns fell from 35,000 in 2010 to 4,000 in 2018.\7\
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    \7\ ``Analytical Perspectives, Budget of the U.S. Government, 
Fiscal Year 2020,'' March 18, 2019, p. 77. Retrieved from https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2020-PER/pdf/BUDGET-2020-PER.pdf.
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   Of the full-time employees under 30 who voluntarily quit 
        Federal service in fiscal 2019, over 73 percent did so with 
        less than 2 years of Federal tenure, suggesting that many young 
        people do not have a positive work experience in the Federal 
        Government or lack sufficient incentives to stay in Federal 
        service.
   Data also shows major diversity challenges in the Federal 
        workforce, which grow even greater at the higher echelons of 
        service. For example, only 35.5 percent of the career Senior 
        Executive Service are female, and only 22.7 percent of the 
        career SES are people of color.
   The 2020 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government \8\ 
        employee engagement score was 69 out of 100, lagging behind the 
        private sector by more than 8 points and suggesting that more 
        can be done to cultivate a highly engaged, high-performing 
        Federal workforce.
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    \8\ Partnership for Public Service, Best Places to Work in the 
Federal Government. Retrieved from https://bestplacestowork.org/.
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   It takes the Government an average of 98 days to bring new 
        talent on board--more than double the time in the private 
        sector.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Office of Personnel Management, ``OPM Issues Updated Time-to-
Hire Guidance,'' February 2020. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/
news/releases/2020/02/opm-issues-updated-time-to-hire-guidance/.
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   About 83 percent of major Federal departments and agencies 
        struggle with staffing shortages and 63 percent report gaps in 
        the knowledge and skills of their employees.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ Office of Personnel Management, ``2018 Federal Workforce 
Priorities Report,'' February 2018. Retrieved from https://www.opm.gov/
policy-data-oversight/human-capital-management/Federal-workforce-
priorities-report/2018-Federal-workforce-priorities-report.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   According to the Survey on the Future of Government 
        Service,\11\ just 32 percent of respondents say their agency 
        has a strategic recruitment plan that is aligned to its 
        workforce needs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ ``Survey on the Future of Government Service,'' October 13, 
2020. The survey is a collaborative effort by the Partnership for 
Public Service, the Princeton School of Public and International 
Affairs at Princeton University, the Center for the Study of Democratic 
Institutions at Vanderbilt University and Georgetown University. 
Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/publications/survey-on-the-
future-of-government-service/.
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      the importance of strengthening government's cyber workforce
    Federal jobs offer mission-driven work with opportunities to help 
solve the biggest challenges facing our Nation. Our Government needs 
cyber talent to secure our National security and economic interests, 
and help the country rise to the significant challenges of the day and 
prepare for what lies ahead. In particular, the dearth of young civil 
servants represents a lost opportunity for our Federal Government as 
well as the Nation's young professionals.
    The Federal Government not only needs to work harder to recruit and 
hire great talent, but also create an environment that retains high-
performing employees. Fundamental reforms to the Government's 
antiquated pay and classification system--or more targeted personnel 
systems, such as the DHS cyber personnel system--would better equip the 
Government to compete for cyber talent. Even within the constraints of 
the Federal pay system, though, our Government can pursue multiple 
strategies to make the Federal Government the employer of choice not 
only for entry-level talent but also for mid- and senior-level talent.
    There are many reasons why Government is failing to recruit and 
retain talent, especially young people, and the problems are deep-
seated:
    The Federal Government's brand is damaged.--Government shutdowns, 
hiring freezes, and negative rhetoric have hurt the image of Government 
and the people who serve. An Axios Harris poll in March 2019 examined 
the reputation of America's 99 most high-profile companies and the 
Federal Government, and the Government ranked dead last.\12\ That was 
before a pandemic further eroded public confidence in Government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ The Harris Poll, ``Axios Harris Poll 100,'' 2019. Retrieved 
from https://theharrispoll.com/axios-harrispoll-100-2019/.
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    Opportunities for young people are hidden and scarce.--Many 
students do not know about compelling career opportunities in 
Government or how to apply for them. In addition, Government hiring 
processes have historically shown a disproportionate preference for 
experienced professionals, limiting opportunities for promising young 
talent. For instance, internships are underused across the Federal 
Government and just 4 percent of new hires are drawn from Federal 
programs employing current students and recent graduates. An added 
challenge for the cyber community is that candidates often find it 
difficult to enter the Federal workforce due to poor advertisement of 
available cyber opportunities in Government. This is largely due to the 
antiquated way these jobs are classified and outdated position 
descriptions that do not accurately depict the skills and knowledge 
necessary for the role.
    Barriers to entry abound for job candidates. An unintuitive on-line 
jobs portal in USAJOBS, a 70-year-old compensation system, and a time-
to-hire average of nearly 100 days all make it difficult for Government 
to attract top talent. Government may always struggle to match private-
sector salaries, but it must do better on multiple human resource 
fronts in the competition for mission-critical talent.
    We are failing to adapt to the needs of a more mobile workforce.--
Our Federal personnel system is geared to the model of the lifetime 
Federal employee. We value and need those who want to dedicate their 
whole careers to Federal service. But we also must seize opportunities 
to recruit those who want to serve for shorter durations, especially as 
younger workers increasingly want more mobility in their careers. Just 
35 percent of millennials expect to stay with their current employer 
for 5 or more years, but there were notable correlations between those 
who did plan to stay and those who believe their employers perform well 
on issues related to financial performance, community impact, talent 
development, and diversity and inclusion.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\ Deloitte, ``The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020,'' June 
25, 2020. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/
about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html.
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    Undergirding these challenges is the need for a heightened 
commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.--While the Federal 
Government outperforms many private-sector organizations on this front, 
there is room for improvement in Federal leadership ranks. Among career 
leaders in the Government's Senior Executive Service (SES), just 36 
percent are female and only 23 percent identify as people of color. And 
among SES leaders in STEM, just 26 percent are female and only 18 
percent identify as people of color. Federal agencies need to do more 
to provide and promote opportunities to underrepresented communities 
and ensure that our Government mirrors the people it serves.
    Altering the status quo will not be easy but it will be critical to 
the Nation's future. And this moment in time offers a rare convergence 
of opportunity: A Federal workforce which has dramatically changed the 
way it works over the past year and is primed for adaptation amid the 
staggering health, social, and economic challenges it must take the 
lead in tackling; and the rise of Generation Z, which is 
technologically adept and hungry to make a difference.
    The past year has shown the dedication, resiliency, and 
resourcefulness of the Federal workforce. At many agencies, most 
Federal employees shifted quickly to telework as the pandemic spread, 
while others bravely remained on the front lines in jobs that cannot be 
performed remotely. On all fronts, Federal workers have found 
innovative ways to serve the people during the pandemic. Thus, out of 
crisis comes opportunity. We have a once-in-a-generation moment to 
transform the workforce and the way it works, and to inspire Americans 
to enter public service.
    Both the world and the workplace are rapidly changing. In the post-
pandemic era, we must not go back to the old ways of doing business 
when the new ways make more sense. We should seize this moment to 
modernize the ways in which Government operates, which in many 
instances are predicated on laws and practices that are decades old and 
out of sync with today's fast-paced digital economy and invest in a 
cybersecurity workforce for the future.
solutions for building the cyber talent pipeline: what can congress do?
    Here are ten ways that Congress can accelerate this revitalization 
and transformation of the Federal cyber workforce:
(1) Create high expectations for Federal leaders.
    A transformation of the workforce and how Federal employees do 
their jobs will not be possible without also reimagining leadership in 
the Federal Government. Good leaders motivate and advocate for their 
employees, build trust and create the conditions necessary for 
employees to perform at their best. The civilian side of Government 
should take a lesson from the military side, where people are viewed as 
an asset, not a cost, and where investments in leadership development 
are critical to the strategy for success.
    In 2019, the Partnership developed the Public Service Leadership 
Model,\14\ recognizing the unique nature of leadership in Government, 
centered on stewardship of public trust and commitment to public good. 
We believe this model should be the standard for leaders--both career 
and political--across the Federal Government. The model identifies the 
core values that leaders must prioritize and the critical competencies 
they must master to achieve their agencies' missions and desired 
impact. These include setting a vision, empowering others and being 
accountable for results. We were proud to create this model with a 
nonpartisan group of distinguished leaders from across sectors, and in 
the months to come we hope to work with Congress, the Executive branch 
and others to improve and measure overall leadership effectiveness.
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    \14\ Partnership for Public Service, Public Service Leadership 
Model. Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/our-work/public-
service-leadership-model/.
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    Congress also should hold political and career Federal leaders 
accountable not only for owning policy but also for the organizational 
health of their agencies. In many cases, agencies and bureaus could 
benefit from career executives at the helm--nonpartisan, professional 
leaders who can provide needed stability and deep expertise. An example 
of this is the Department of Energy's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy 
Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), which is currently helmed by 
a career civil servant. Our Government has over 4,000 politically-
appointed positions, with roughly 1,200 of them subject to Senate 
confirmation, and the process for selecting, vetting, and appointing 
them is complex, inefficient, and time-consuming. We encourage Congress 
to consider reducing the number of political appointees and creating 
more opportunities for career experts to lead.
    In addition to taking ownership of the health of the workforce, 
political and career programmatic and policy leaders in Government 
today must also have a familiarity with technology and cybersecurity 
issues in order to focus on key priorities and make informed choices. 
That's why the Partnership created the AI Federal Leadership Program in 
2019. This 6-month, complimentary program is meant to help Federal 
leaders (specifically members of the SES) better understand the needs 
and opportunities around artificial intelligence, and prepare them to 
integrate this technology with policy and program implementation. This 
program is another cross-sector effort with technology leaders, 
including Microsoft, Google, and the Ford Foundation.
    With respect to the workforce, Congress should hold political 
appointees responsible for recruiting and retaining highly-qualified 
talent, developing future leaders, engaging employees, and holding 
subordinate managers accountable for addressing performance. Congress 
should urge agency leaders to use the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Survey and the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings 
to drive better results in their agencies. Employee engagement is not 
just about happy employees. Higher scores in employee engagement equate 
to better performance and higher-quality service, which in turn become 
valuable recruiting tools. For example, in a recent analysis of 
performance data from nearly 150 Department of Veterans Affairs 
hospitals across the country, the Partnership found that higher patient 
satisfaction, better call center performance and lower nurse turnover 
were all associated with a more satisfied and committed workforce.\15\
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    \15\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Employee engagement is more 
than just a survey,'' March 2, 2020. Retrieved from https://
ourpublicservice.org/blog/employee-engagement-is-more-than-just-a-
survey/.
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    Congress and the administration should also embrace the bold goal 
of closing the over 8-point gap between the Government and the private 
sector in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government engagement 
index, and even increasing the Federal score over the private-sector 
score. The Government has a powerful asset in having a mission-driven 
workforce. This purpose-driven work, if combined with excellent 
leadership, will lead to much more engaged employees and better 
outcomes for the American public.
(2) Utilize innovative talent models.
    To attract talent at all levels, Congress and the administration 
should work together to create new and innovative pathways--and expand 
existing ones--for diverse mission-critical talent to join public 
service through fellowships, talent exchanges, and service corps.
    In 2019, the Partnership collaborated with Mastercard, Microsoft, 
Workday, and a dozen Federal agencies to establish the Cybersecurity 
Talent Initiative, which aims to build the next generation of cyber 
leaders for our country. This innovative cross-sector opportunity 
enables recent graduates to spend 2 years working for and receiving 
training in the Federal Government in a cyber-related position. At the 
end of 2 years, they will have an opportunity to apply for a position 
with one of the corporate partners and, if hired, will be eligible to 
receive student loan assistance up to $75,000 from their private-sector 
employer. This model is the first of its kind. The inaugural class of 
eight future cybersecurity leaders brings a variety of academic and 
professional experience to five Federal agencies, and we anticipate 
placing at least 25 participants across nine Federal agencies and 
components for the second cohort.
    One benefit of these efforts is that we are educating young people 
about cyber careers across sectors and helping them learn about 
organizations and missions they may have never heard of before. Other 
Federal programs like the U.S. Digital Service, 18F, and Presidential 
Innovation Fellows allow ``technical tours of duty'' with the Federal 
Government and are unique in helping promote and respond to an 
increasing desire for the next generation to be more mobile in their 
careers. The programs provide a model for filling other ``hard-to-
fill'' positions in Government.
(3) Promote Government's mission.
    Both the world and the workplace are rapidly changing. Our 
Government needs a new generation of young people to serve in a data- 
and technology-driven environment, with expertise in such sectors as 
cybersecurity, technology, engineering, finance, and health care. 
Making the Federal Government an ``employer of choice'' requires 
greater awareness by the Government of what employees want in the 
workplace, coupled with improved public perception of opportunities in 
Federal service. As the Federal Government struggles to attract 
students and recent graduates, it is clear that more must be done to 
improve the Government's ``brand.'' Government shutdowns, hiring 
freezes, and negative rhetoric damage the image of Government and the 
people who serve.
    The Federal Government, because of budget constraints, will always 
have a hard time competing with the private sector on pay, but agencies 
almost always have an advantage in offering employees a sense of 
mission. Our Best Places to Work rankings regularly show that the 
match between employee skills and agency mission is a key driver of 
employee engagement, second only to effective leadership. Too often, 
though, Federal job announcements are dry, confusing, and fail to 
inspire. The Partnership has identified bright spots in marketing, such 
as NASA's custom-built career website, which supplements USAJOBS and 
showcases their mission, including through videos from current 
employees sharing their stories.\16\ NASA understood that, to attract 
professionals in STEM fields, the agency needed to set itself apart 
from other employers by focusing on its unique mission and impact. 
Other agencies, such as the Department of the Interior, leverage social 
media platforms to promote their missions and the work of their agency.
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    \16\ Partnership for Public Service and Salesforce, ``Tech to Hire: 
Transforming Federal H.R. Beginning with Recruiting and Hiring,'' 
October 3, 2018. Available at https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/
uploads/2018/10/TechtoHire.pdf.
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    The Federal Government needs to do more to showcase the incredible 
array of professional opportunities it offers and to recognize the 
accomplishments and innovation of the current workforce. Without 
compelling and shared stories of success in Government, Government will 
struggle to become an employer of choice for the tech-savvy, forward-
looking talent that it needs to attract.
    This subcommittee can also play an important role in encouraging 
Congressional colleagues to recognize the successes of the Federal 
workforce. Federal employees are often blamed for policy failures, and 
rarely acknowledged when things go right. One way to revitalize the 
workforce is simply to change the tone and get away from the demeaning 
rhetoric that frequently characterizes discussion of the Federal 
workforce. Political leaders should celebrate outstanding 
contributions, such as the remarkable achievements of the nominees and 
winners of the annual Service to America Medals \17\ and the 
Presidential Rank Awards.
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    \17\ Service to America Medals. Retrieved from https://
servicetoamericamedals.org/.
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(4) Improve recruiting, hiring, and retention.
    Congress should start the hard process of updating the legal 
framework for the civil service, much of which dates back to laws 
passed in 1949 and 1978. The Federal Government needs cybersecurity 
experts, doctors, economists, and emergency response specialists, but 
we have a personnel system designed for phone operators. The antiquated 
system is an impediment to the Government's ability to meet the needs 
of today's interconnected, technology-driven world and prepare for the 
challenges of the future. A Government-wide initiative could help 
agencies improve the hiring process so they can more easily attract, 
assess, hire, and on-board highly-qualified applicants. This effort 
should include simplifying and demystifying the application processes, 
including the USAJOBS portal.
    As a starting point, Congress should enact the civil service 
recommendations of ``Inspired to Serve,'' the final report of the 
National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.\18\ On a 
bipartisan and consensus basis, and after studying the Federal civil 
service for over 2 years, the Commission issued last year a bold and 
thoughtful set of recommendations for improving talent management, 
including proposals to make Federal hiring more efficient. We urge 
Congress to move forward on a bipartisan basis as quickly as possible 
to enact these proposals. Some key Commission recommendations--and 
ideas the Partnership has long supported--include:
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    \18\ National Commission on Military, National and Public Service, 
``Inspired to Serve,'' March 25, 2020. Retrieved from https://
inspire2serve.gov/reports.
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   Establishing a civilian cybersecurity reserve program, as 
        proposed in the bipartisan Civilian Cyber Security Reserve Act 
        (H.R. 2894).
   Allowing agencies to appoint Federal employees who have 
        successfully completed reskilling programs to positions in 
        their new field without the employee having to move to a lower 
        grade level, as proposed by the bipartisan Facilitating Federal 
        Employee Reskilling Act (S. 1330).\19\
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    \19\ This legislation was included in S. 1260, the U.S. Innovation 
and Competition Act of 2020, which passed the Senate in June.
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   Amending the criteria for direct hire authority to enable 
        agencies to use this authority when they face a shortage of 
        highly-qualified applicants.
   Expanding direct hiring authority for students and recent 
        graduates.
   Modernizing the veterans' preference rules, which are 
        currently confusing for both agencies and veterans alike.
   Improving the Pathways programs, which include the 
        Presidential Management Fellows and intern and recent graduate 
        programs.
    The Government not only needs to work harder to recruit and hire 
great talent, but also to retain it. Even within the constraints of the 
Federal pay system, the Government can pursue multiple strategies to 
make the Government the employer of choice not only for entry-level 
talent but also for mid- and senior-level talent. When people do leave 
Government, agencies should be collecting data on their reasons for 
departing or taking another job. Currently, a Government-wide exit 
survey exists only for the SES. Data on why people leave Government 
will be instrumental in helping agencies better recruit and retain the 
next generation. The surveys would be particularly useful in 
understanding why almost half of people who quit working for the 
Federal Government leave within 2 years.
(5) Get young people in Government.
    Today's college students are interested in making a difference, but 
those considering the Federal Government as a place where they can do 
so face challenges in getting hired. Programs that Congress should 
reinvigorate include the Pathways programs, which provide younger, 
early career talent with exposure to and positive experiences working 
in Government. Needed improvements include ensuring internships are 
paid and easing agencies' ability to convert interns into full-time 
positions. In addition to lifting the caps on the expedited hiring 
authority for students and recent graduates, Congress should also 
consider an ROTC-like program for Federal service and encourage 
agencies to recruit on campuses.
    The need to improve the hiring process is especially urgent for 
cybersecurity jobs, where Government faces stiff competition for talent 
with the private sector. The Federal Government's antiquated hiring 
system is not designed to compete at the speed of private-sector 
companies who can actively recruit and quickly hire young STEM and 
cyber talent. Dr. Elizabeth Kolmstetter, NASA's Director of Talent 
Strategy and Engagement, gave an example of one Texas A&M student who 
met a SpaceX recruiter and was offered a job the same day, finalized 
the offer over the weekend and moved to California the next week to 
begin work.\20\ Kolmstetter also noted that in fiscal year 2018 about 
61 percent of NASA's engineering vacancies, 87 percent of scientist 
vacancies, and 86 percent of mathematics vacancies had fewer than three 
qualified (not most qualified)\21\ applicants. The talent is out there, 
and Government's mission remains more compelling than ever, but 
agencies are losing out because the Federal hiring system isn't nimble 
enough to compete with the private sector.
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    \20\ Testimony before the National Commission on Military, 
National, and Public Service, ``Public Service Hearing: Critical Skills 
and Benefits,'' May 15, 2019. Retrieved from https://inspire2serve.gov/
sites/default/files/2020-09/Kolmstetter%20Testimony_Public%20Service%- 
20Hearing_Critical%20Skills%20and%20Benefits.pdf.
    \21\ Qualification standards are ``a description of the minimum 
requirements necessary to perform work of a particular occupation 
successfully and safely,'' according to OPM.
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(6) Overhaul the pay and classification system.
    The Government's 1949 pay and classification system was designed 
for clerical workers, not for the highly professional, specialized 
skills that are needed in today's civil service. The lack of an 
occupation-specific, market-based compensation system is particularly 
damaging to the ability of the Federal Government to recruit and retain 
scientists, many of whom have far more lucrative opportunities in the 
private sector.
    The OPM Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families contains 407 
separate job series. The sophisticated cyber, IT, data science and STEM 
skills that the Government badly needs were barely envisioned when the 
system was created. We need broader pay-banding that allows agencies 
the flexibilities to set more market-based, occupational-specific 
salaries. Unique pay systems like that created under the authority of 
the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act 
(FIRREA) of 1989 are an acknowledgement that a rigid pay system does 
not work. While the Federal Government will never be able to match 
private-sector salaries for many positions, broader pay bands would 
enable agencies the flexibility to attract the most critically-needed 
talent.
    The Partnership's report, ``Building the Enterprise: A New Civil 
Service Framework,''\22\ laid out a new pay-setting process for the 
Federal workforce. The modernized pay system would establish broad pay 
bands for employees rather than rigid grades, better align salaries and 
benefits on an occupation-by-occupation basis, set salaries based on 
those comparisons and give agencies the flexibility to bring talent in 
at the appropriate salary level. While this is a long-term effort, 
allowing market-based pay for specific mission-critical occupations in 
the near term is a place to start and would help attract and retain 
needed talent. Again, the final report of the National Commission on 
Military, National, and Public Service also endorses a comprehensive 
modernization of the entire Federal talent management system.
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    \22\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Building the Enterprise: A 
New Civil Service Framework,'' April 10, 2014. Retrieved from https://
ourpublicservice.org/publications/building-the-enterprise/.
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    The Partnership's recent studies reinforce the need for investment 
in the Federal human resources workforce. For example, our ``State of 
Renewal'' report lays out recommendations for improving the State 
Department's talent management life cycle over 6 to 12 months, without 
the need for any additional legislation, as well as changes that will 
take longer and require Congressional action. Our report ``Time for 
Talent: Improving Federal Recruiting and Hiring''\23\ lays out 
practical approaches that agencies can take within the existing system 
to attract mission-critical talent. And in ``Rapid Reinforcements: 
Strategies for Federal Surge Hiring,''\24\ we identified strategies 
that can help agencies when faced with circumstances that require a 
rapid growth in the workforce, such as National emergencies, large-
scale attrition, new mission requirements, or the need for emergent 
skills.
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    \23\ Partnership for Public Service, ``A Time for Talent: Improving 
Federal Recruiting and Hiring,'' August 26, 2020. Retrieved from 
https://ourpublicservice.org/publications/a-time-for-talent/.
    \24\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Rapid Replacements: 
Strategies for Federal Surge Hiring,'' October 29, 2020. Retrieved from 
https://ourpublicservice.org/publications/rapid-reinforcements-
strategies-for-Federal-surge-hiring/.
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(7) Invest in the H.R. workforce.
    Agencies cannot move forward on these recommended strategies, 
however, unless their human resource offices have the requisite skills, 
capacity, and tools. There are outstanding and innovative H.R. 
professionals across the Government, but there are also skills gaps in 
their offices. They are often overwhelmed by responsibilities and the 
complexities of Federal human capital law. Often, H.R. specialists are 
not familiar with the authorities they have available to them, and do 
not have the technologies, data, and analytical skills that would 
better enable them to recruit and hire while also engaging in strategic 
workforce planning for the future.
    Congress should jump-start efforts to increase the skills and 
professionalism of the Federal H.R. community by requiring OPM to start 
providing technical training to H.R. specialists again, conducting a 
review of overall training needs and how those needs can be met, and 
funding IT needs of the H.R. community. Congress should also ensure 
that agencies undertake strategic workforce planning and make sure that 
Chief Human Capital Officers have a voice in the strategic and budget 
planning processes so that agency leaders will be informed of the H.R. 
needs necessary to carry out their policies and programs.
(8) Create a workforce culture that embraces technology, innovation, 
        and collaboration.
    Our recent report ``Resilient: Keeping Your Wits--Workforce, 
Innovation, Technology, Security--About You,''\25\ summarizes a survey 
of 300 Federal leaders and a series of roundtable discussions on the 
lessons of the pandemic. A key takeaway is that an agile workforce, 
cutting-edge cybersecurity, modern technologies, and continual 
innovation are all interdependent in creating resiliency in the Federal 
Government. Also, when asked what a resilient Federal Government looks 
like, more respondents linked resiliency to an agile workforce than the 
other issue areas discussed in the report.
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    \25\ Partnership for Public Service, American Council for 
Technology and Industry Advisory Council, and Meritalk, ``Resilient: 
Keeping Your Wits--Workforce, Innovation, Technology, Security--About 
You,'' January 25, 2021. Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/
publications/resilientkeeping-your-wits-about-you/.
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    The success of the Federal workforce depends not only on the 
quality of its talent and its leaders, but also on a culture where 
employees are encouraged to try new ideas and make smart technology 
investments. The new workplace environment must also involve more 
collaboration between Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments and 
the private and non-profit sectors.
    Recognizing that revitalizing the Government requires attention to 
leadership and stewardship, talent, innovation and technology, and 
collaboration, the Partnership's ``Roadmap for Renewing the Federal 
Government,''\26\ launched last fall, describes the challenges the 
Government faces in each of these areas, bright spots showing 
improvements, and needed solutions. The Roadmap provides a list of 
actions that the Biden administration and Congress can take to begin 
laying the groundwork for renewing the Federal Government, and the 
issue pages on the website summarize proposals that we believe should 
have the support of both Congress and the administration.
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    \26\ Partnership for Public Service, ``Roadmap for Renewing the 
Federal Government. Retrieved from https://ourpublicservice.org/
roadmap-for-renewal/.
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(9) Make diversity, equity, and inclusion a central part of workforce 
        strategy.
    A commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion must be a 
cornerstone in the transformation of how the Government recruits, 
hires, develops, and retains talent.\27\ The Partnership hears 
consistently from current and former agency leaders that it is critical 
to address this issue in the scientific and technical community. This 
commitment ultimately leads to higher organizational performance by 
ensuring the door is open for top talent and by enabling new and 
creative ways of thinking that empower better decision making. Also, a 
Government that better reflects its people also will increase public 
trust in our democratic institutions.
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    \27\ For example, see Jennifer Miller, ``For young job seekers, 
diversity and inclusion in the workforce aren't a preference. They're a 
requirement,'' Washington Post, February 18, 2021. Retrieved from 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/18/millennial-genz-
workplace-diversity-equity-inclusion/.
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    President Biden has issued a memorandum prioritizing diversity, 
equity, and inclusion as a National security imperative, in order to 
ensure that critical perspectives and talents are represented in the 
entire National security workforce.\28\ Congress should support these 
efforts, and should help ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion 
are in the DNA of every department and agency in the Federal 
Government.
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    \28\ President Joseph R. Biden Jr., ``Memorandum on Revitalizing 
America's Foreign Policy and National Security Workforce, Institutions, 
and Partnerships,'' February 4, 2021. Retrieved from https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/02/04/
memorandum-revitalizing-americas-foreign-policy-and-national-security-
workforce-institutions-and-partnerships/.
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(10) Continue oversight and get to know Federal employees.
    The subcommittee today is helping to identify challenges and 
opportunities facing the Federal cyber workforce. We encourage you to 
make this hearing an annual occurrence. The subcommittee could follow 
up by holding a hearing on agencies and subcomponents that are doing 
well with cyber recruiting, hiring, and employee engagement to help 
celebrate success and encourage replication.
    Members of Congress should also get out to visit agencies and their 
employees and hear from those on the front lines. Visiting Federal 
employees where they work, whether at headquarters or in the field, is 
one of the best ways to understand both the deep challenges facing the 
Federal workforce and the incredible work that the Federal Government 
does on behalf of the American people every day. Better yet, the vast 
majority of Federal employees are located outside of Washington, in 
every State and Congressional district, so they are also your 
constituents.
    Finally, policy makers should remember that they are stewards of 
Government's brand. How Members of Congress discuss public servants 
matters, especially when communicating with the next generation. When 
speaking to students--in formal settings like commencement speeches or 
simply in conversations with constituents--take the opportunity to 
share Government's unique, mission-focused work and the vital role of 
Federal employees.
                               conclusion
    Congress has an opportunity right now to further drive bold 
cybersecurity reforms to keep pace with the evolution of technology and 
meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
    For this reason, we want to commend the bipartisan effort made by 
this subcommittee to pass legislation that will strengthen the Nation's 
cybersecurity.\29\ The State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act 
(H.R. 3138)\30\ introduced by Chairwoman Clarke and Ranking Member 
Garbarino will provide funding to ensure State, local, Tribal, and 
territorial governments are securing their cyber environments. The 
Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act (H.R. 2980)\31\ introduced 
by Rep. Jackson Lee will allow the Department of Homeland Security to 
continue mitigating cybersecurity weaknesses that exist due to 
insufficient software or hardware. And the CISA Cyber Exercise Act 
(H.R. 3223)\32\ introduced by Rep. Slotkin will strengthen the agency's 
ability to fulfill its intended mandate by establishing a program to 
assess and review CISA's preparedness and resilience to cyber attacks. 
These measures will build upon work from the previous Congress to 
improve Government's cyber capabilities and ensure the effectiveness of 
CISA and other cyber components.
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    \29\ House Committee on Homeland Security, ``House Passes Thirteen 
Bipartisan Homeland Security Bills, Including Cybersecurity Grant 
Program,'' July 1, 2021. Retrieved from https://homeland.house.gov/
news/legislation/house-passes-thirteen-bipartisan-homeland-security-
bills-including-cybersecurity-grant-program.
    \30\ H.R. 3138, ``State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act.'' 
Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/
3138/text.
    \31\ H.R. 2980, ``Cybersecurity Vulnerability Remediation Act.'' 
Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/
2980/text.
    \32\ H.R. 3223, ``CISA Cyber Exercise Act.'' Retrieved from https:/
/www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3223.
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    We also applaud the introduction of the Federal Rotational Cyber 
Workforce Program Act by Senators Peters, Rosen and Hoeven in the 
Senate (S. 1097)\33\ and Representatives Khanna and Mace in the House 
(H.R. 3599).\34\ These bills would help the Federal Government better 
train and retain cybersecurity professionals and provide Federal 
employees with professional development opportunities that ensure the 
Nation's future cyber needs are met.
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    \33\ S. 1097, ``Federal Rotational Cyber Workforce Program Act of 
2021.'' Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/
senate-bill/1097.
    \34\ H.R. 3599--117th Congress (2021-2022): ``Federal Rotational 
Cyber Workforce Program Act of 2021.'' July 2021. Retrieved from 
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3599.
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    Thank you again for holding this hearing. Building a robust cyber 
talent pipeline is a complex but necessary endeavor, and this testimony 
only scratches the surface of the efforts that are needed across the 
Executive and Legislative branches. We look forward to working with you 
and your staff as you move forward with your legislative and oversight 
agenda for the Federal cyber workforce in the 117th Congress.

    Chairwoman Clarke. I thank all of our witnesses for their 
testimony here today and I will remind the subcommittee that we 
will each have 5 minutes to question the panel.
    I now recognize myself for questions.
    For Mr. Ley, the cyber attacks against the Oldsmar water 
treatment facility and the Colonial Pipeline earlier this year, 
coupled with on-going reports that our adversaries are using 
cyber tools to target critical infrastructure have renewed 
conversations about how to better defend our OT networks.
    As employers gain a greater understanding of the gaps in 
their OT cybersecurity work force, it is clear that employees 
will need to be re-skilled or upskilled for these positions or 
receive additional trainings through continuing education 
programs.
    What steps are necessary to facilitate access to the 
trainings and certifications required for these positions?
    Mr. Ley. It is a great question, Chairman Clarke.
    The issues lies deeper than the access. There is a lot of 
access to a lot of academic information training courses and so 
forth. Again, what seems to be--surprised most folks--and we 
have gone to many different organizations, energy companies, 
water treatment facilities, to your point, businesses, 
manufacturing companies, even municipalities, and when we talk 
to them they really don't even really know where to start with 
identifying the education that they need, what topics. I know 
that sounds very strange, but we have developed methodology, we 
have task analysis surveys, we use the NICE framework to ask 
questions on what their folks do and where they touch cyber, 
IT, and OT. Obviously they need to know that to know where to 
send their folks and how to educate their work force and their 
organizations. Consistently--consistently, they don't have an 
idea.
    So we developed a process and a tool set, not just ours but 
in conjunction with other businesses that already have some of 
these solutions out there, that can--entities, organizations 
can utilize, even Government agencies, to sit down first and 
start with identifying what are the educational needs of their 
individuals. You can't fix a vulnerability, you can't fix or 
mitigate a threat if your folks aren't even aware what they 
should know and how to know that there is a threat even 
targeted at----
    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Ley. Let me move on. We 
have a short period of time, but we--to be continued.
    Mr. Nolten, with support from additional discretionary 
funding from CISA, cyber.org recently launched a K-12 feeder 
program with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and 
Minority-Serving Institutions to encourage more minority 
students to seek cybersecurity degrees.
    Please elaborate on how this program will work and the 
goals you have for it. With additional Federal support how 
would you be able to expand your efforts to reach more students 
of color?
    Mr. Nolten. Great question, Chairwoman Clarke.
    Cyber.org's HBCU feeder program and Minority-Serving 
Institution feeder program is key to diversifying the 
cybersecurity work force. Our work is ensuring that high 
schools who are feeding into HBCU programs have the 
availability of curriculum, professional development, 
technology, and resources to stand up a cyber lab or a cyber 
classroom in order to introduce students to cybersecurity 
careers.
    K-12 education, as I mentioned in my testimony, is the 
formative years for ensuring that students have awareness of 
what they want to be when they grow up. If we ensure that our 
work is placed in Title 1 schools, in rural communities, we 
will begin diversifying the cyber work force by partnering with 
MSIs and HCBUs across the country.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Mr. Stier, a major challenge for Federal 
agencies has been retaining skilled cybersecurity 
professionals, yet agencies do not necessarily track the 
reasons behind the poor retention.
    What should agencies like DHS and CISA do to better 
understand why cybersecurity employees choose to leave and what 
steps can agencies take to improve retention?
    Mr. Stier. Great. Thank you so much for the question. I 
will give you at least three.
    The first is, I mentioned in my testimony that exit 
interviews would be very helpful in understanding, so long as 
there was real-time turnaround of that information and it went 
to leadership. If it is collected and it doesn't got to 
leadership, it is not going to make a difference.
    No. 2, we already have the Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Survey, which is how we create our places to work rankings. We 
have data on an annual basis that tells us what is really going 
on in every organization in government. Leaders should be held 
accountable for those numbers, and that would make a very big 
difference.
    The third and most important issue is that, again, leaders 
have to see that this is their job and responsibility and the 
most senior leadership in Government has to hold the people who 
work for them accountable to ensure that these numbers are 
good. If they prioritize it themselves, you will see change.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Mr. Stier, I think your screen froze. 
But I am out of time. We will circle back.
    Let me now recognize the Ranking Member of cybersecurity, 
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Garbarino, for his questions.
    Mr. Garbarino. Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you to all the 
witnesses again for being here today.
    I want to start with Mr. Stier.
    I really do appreciate some of the things you said in your 
testimony about concrete items that we need to change. You 
pretty much took my first question away from me, which is good, 
but I want to build on something because you talked--you 
specifically mentioned how we should hire--we should get 
interns and interns should be able to come right in after 
they--college interns and they can come right in after they 
have completed their internship. That is what a lot of--that is 
what law firms do with kids in law school, that is what 
bankers--I mean it works for the private sector, so I think it 
would be great at getting young people involved. Right now I 
think it takes almost possibly--getting a job at CISA a new 
hire can wait for a year. A college student coming out of 
college can't wait a year if they have got debt.
    So, you know, what exactly--I mean is there a process there 
that you are thinking of? You know, what exactly should we do? 
How do we cut down on the year wait list?
    Mr. Stier. Yes. So you are 100 percent right. I mean and 
the most obvious example of what needs to happen is our Federal 
Government needs to approach talent management as the best 
private-sector organizations do. The most obvious thing in any 
professional organization, it starts with its strategy. As we 
do at the Partnership for Public Service, we think our student 
internship program is our primary mechanism for identifying 
talent for entry jobs. That is not happening in the Federal 
Government right now. There are some rule changes that Congress 
could institute. They could make it easier to converge interns 
into full-time employees. Right now, if you are unpaid or if 
you are hired by a third party, even one that gets diverse 
talent, that is much more difficult to actually convert in. So 
those are real rule changes that would make a difference.
    But fundamentally, I think the issue is really having 
leaders inside Government, the agency Secretaries, the 
different component heads, as well as the career leaders, 
understanding it is their responsibility and having clear 
metrics about what the expectation is. It is not working right 
now. It has gone the wrong direction. So we have seen fewer and 
fewer young people in Government today. It is not because of 
lack of interest. It is not because of lack of interest. That 
is relevant, but that is not the primary issue.
    So it would be, No. 1, hold leaders accountable. No. 2, 
make a few rule changes that would make it easier to convert 
interns into full-time employees. No. 3, make sure that there 
is real budget for this. That includes making sure that the 
interns are actually paid. Then the other issue, clearly in 
cyber in many instances, is security clearances. One of the 
things that can be done is ensuring that the security clearance 
process is completed while interns are students. There are 
different agencies that do this better. So we should be 
drafting on the approaches that the agencies that are best in 
class are using for all of Government.
    Mr. Garbarino. I appreciate that. That is a great answer. 
Does anybody--any of the other witnesses want to jump on 
anything additionally we need to do?
    Mr. Coulson. I would just like to interject. Internship is 
one process, but I think there is a huge opportunity here for 
apprenticeship. To have people earn while they learn, but also 
increases velocity because students are able to gain experience 
while they are in their job, while they are receiving their 
education. It also tightens the partnership with educational 
institutions to build the work force you need as opposed to 
well, here is somebody we graduate, I hope it worked out. It is 
a much more integrative approach.
    So I would suggest that that would be something that be 
explored and I would be glad to talk to you further about this 
as we are about to in the CAE community pilot a major 
apprenticeship program in cyber directed at Government.
    Mr. Garbarino. Now, your apprenticeship, would you--the 
apprenticeships would be with the Government or with private 
companies and the people could transfer into the--I mean how 
would--what is your--how are you doing this? What is the pilot 
program?
    Mr. Coulson. Well, it is both. Because of the interest of 
time, it is complex to describe, but let me just say that I 
think that the apprenticeship model has been incredibly 
underused and there is a lot of energy coming out of other 
parts of the Government, and I would like to see that in the 
area of National security, because it allows us to mentor and 
produce and validate talent while they are in school and while 
they are working.
    Mr. Garbarino. I appreciate it, Mr. Coulson.
    I hope we get a second round of questioning because I had a 
couple more, but I yield back.
    Thank you, Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Mr. Ranking Member, should time permit I 
definitely support that.
    Let me now recognize that--other Members for questions they 
may wish to ask our witnesses.
    In accordance with the guidelines laid out by the Chairman 
and Ranking Member in their February 3 colloquy, I will 
recognize Members in order of seniority, alternating between 
the Majority and the Minority. Members are also reminded to 
unmute themselves when recognized for questioning.
    Having said that, the Chair recognizes for 5 minutes the 
gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin, for his questions at 
this time.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank our 
witnesses for their testimony today. Very insightful.
    I will also mention, with respect to the Ranking Members' 
line of questioning on internships and apprenticeships, I 
applaud those efforts. That is why I am also a big fan of the 
cyber core program, whereby students can apply at that program 
and if they are accepted tuition is covered for the junior and 
senior year. They will be able to--they get paid a stipend, 
about $32,000, and then they go into a cyber job at local, 
State, and Federal Government for 2 years after that.
    Let me get to another--my line of questioning.
    Mr. Ley, I am very interested in proving cybersecurity 
training among our operational technology work force. The 
Chair, Madam Chairman, had brought up this during her line of 
questioning. So that is where we are simultaneously further 
behind the curve and where most damage can be done.
    So our National cyber director, Chris Inglis, often talks 
about cybersecurity education having three tiers, the many, the 
some, and the few. So the many are the people who use 
technology in their every day lives, which is to say almost 
everyone. Mr. Nolten has done an admirable job describing 
expanding K-12 education for everyone. The few are the 
cybersecurity professionals who have cyber as part of their job 
titles. The kind of folks Dr. Coulson's programs churn out. But 
I want to focus on the ``some'', the people who in the IT world 
are the software developers or network architects.
    So these are the people who need a much more nuanced view 
of cybersecurity than most, but for whom it remains secondary 
to their main job function. In the OT space, these are the 
maintainers, the installers, the operators of industrial 
control systems.
    So I continue to be concerned that while training for these 
occupations includes an incredible emphasis on a safety 
culture, cyber risks have barely penetrated.
    So, Mr. Ley, in your view how can we better incorporate 
cybersecurity into the training for OT professionals who do not 
focus on cyber?
    Mr. Ley. Thank you, sir. Great question.
    We have a lot of the information. Obviously our training 
courses cover a lot. Unfortunately, expanding that information 
out to other platforms to offer that, businesses out there, the 
organizations, the local municipalities, can't necessarily 
afford some of the training that they actually need. Some of 
the training that we offer, working with CISA right now, 
looking at opportunities to take the curriculum we have, offer 
it to universities, colleges, other institutes, take the 
information we have, take the curriculum and let them offer the 
same curriculum and provide them support so that those 
businesses out there, the some, the nations out there, don't 
have to come here, they can go locally. Universities and 
colleges can start developing these offerings themselves. They 
know the businesses, they know the organizations, they know the 
specialties they need. A lot of academic institutes come to us 
and say we need this specialty. We can develop it and we push 
it out. That is the area we recommend really needs to be 
developed.
    We started to explore that, but that would be where I would 
ask.
    Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
    Let me get to another question for Mr. Stier. In your 
testimony you referenced the need to update pay and 
classification for the Federal work force. This is something 
that the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, on which I serve, has 
looked at closely. Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent that 
the Solarium Commission's white paper entitled ``Growing a 
Stronger Federal Cyber Work Force'' be inserted in the record.*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    * The document has been retained in committee files and is 
available at https://www.solarium.gov/public-communications/workforce-
white-paper.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mr. Stier, would you take it from the administration and 
Congress to get the--what would it take from the administration 
and Congress to get the civilian work force competitive with 
the private sector? Should the National cyber director chair 
this effort, which will necessarily involve several elements of 
the inter agency?
    Mr. Stier. So, look, I think that it does make sense to 
have a coordinated response. I will note that one of the things 
that as legislators you need to pay great attention to is you 
actually put legislation in in 2014 to give authority to DHS on 
cyber pay. It is just getting rolled out right now in 
September. That is too long. You can't wait 7 years for this 
kind of action.
    So one risk of creating the sort-of National or Federal-
wide effort is that there will be a lot of talk and not a lot 
of action. So I would be looking to actually be setting up, you 
know, time tables about when things actually need to get done 
and clear metrics about what success looks like. But it begins 
with having an enterprise-wide, a Government-wide plan about 
what we need in the way of human capital and then what do we 
need to do to get it. A lot of it may be upskilling existing 
talent, it could be new talent. I see the clock has run, but I 
would be thinking about it in a strategic way to approach the 
problem.
    Mr. Langevin. Very good.
    My time has expired. I thank you for the insights you have 
offered.
    Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Clarke. The Chair now recognizes for 5 minutes 
the gentlewoman from Tennessee, Ms. Harshberger, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Harshberger. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you 
witnesses for being here. This is to me a really exciting topic 
because we are so deficient in cybersecurity work force. From 
different meetings I have been in, you know, it would take a 
million people to fill some of the slots that we need, but to 
me that is unbelievably--that is ridiculous. We need people.
    You know, when I go around my district, I make sure to tell 
every entity I can, every school system, anybody who will 
listen, encourage these young people to look at this field.
    I guess one of my first questions is for Mr. Stier. You 
know, I am sure you are aware that DHS has yet to finish its 
development and roll out of the CTMS program. The main goal of 
this initiative is to cut the time it takes to hire these 
cybersecurity professionals. Really to redefine how the 
Government evaluates their skill set and their pay rates. You 
know, I was talking to someone at one of the think tanks and 
they are like, they can really ask whatever they want and we 
take them because there is such a need.
    You know, the committee is concerned about how long it 
takes DHS to implement this program, which was authorized back 
in 2014. What is your perspective on how effective a tool this 
will be for the Department?
    I guess my other question is what recommendations do you 
have for DHS so we can meet those goals? I am doing all I can 
to tell people about a field that I think would be very 
interesting for even middle schoolers going on up to high 
school, before they ever get into that arena.
    Mr. Stier. So, Congresswoman, I think you are--it is so 
important you are doing what you are doing because your voice 
really matters to encourage people too. I just see this as a 
field for themselves or something that, bluntly, should be part 
of whatever else they are doing. I think the direct answer to 
your question is that we really need more consistent long-term 
leadership on these issues.
    You are 100 percent right, this has been crazy-slow in an 
area where slow is incredibly dangerous. The risk moves so fast 
that by the time you get to where you think you need to be, you 
are already behind the curve. I have heard, you know, folks in 
Government say we work real hard to catch up to the past. That 
is not where we need to be.
    I think fundamentally the most important structural change 
that you could make is ensuring that we had consistent 
leadership on these management technology issues across 
administrations. So think of this way, the FBI director has a 
10-year term, the comptroller general at GAO has a 15-year 
term. The reality is GAO is one of the best-run organizations 
in Government because you have a leader who knows that the work 
that they do around talent will actually pay off for himself.
    I would suggest that you think about trying to ensure that 
there is cyber leadership that is consistent over the years. 
Again, I mentioned this earlier, that Secretary Granholm wants 
to see the CESER leadership actually be career. I would be 
thinking about that CISA as well. You have a really strong 
person there right now, but if the average tenure is 2 years, 
there is no way you are going to actually see significant 
progress. People inside are all going to be running toward the 
new leadership and very careful about not getting too far over 
their skis knowing that someone new is coming in and that 
becomes a real problem.
    So that to me would be my No. 1 suggestion. There are other 
things I think you can do, but I will be quiet for now.
    Ms. Harshberger. Well, you know, it is almost like when you 
hear these experts talking and they are saying people can even 
use Google and look at traffic patterns in certain countries. I 
am like, that is unbelievable. Does it take a 4-year degree? 
How are you going to get these people interested to go into 
this field because the need is so critical?
    To me, we would designate this need as critical 
infrastructure if I could, but we can't do that. If anybody 
wants to answer, do they need a 4-year degree? What kind of 
degree do they need to even enter this field?
    Mr. Coulson. I would interject, we work a lot with 
community colleges, but I think there is a mantra here.
    Career technical education especially--people have looked 
at it, well, that is vocational, that is, you know, welding and 
things. No, cyber fits there too. Often times in my work we 
have to let kids find out how smart they really are. That is 
usually education becomes a gateway drug, if you will. So if we 
can identify them and we have a program where we are looking at 
aptitude for cyber, not aptitude in terms of you can and you 
can't, but where do you fit? Then to identify them and come up 
with programs that nurture that talent all the way through. We 
could have kids coming out of high school that could work at 
the technician level. We have community colleges that are now 
even doing not only associate's degrees and certificates, but 
are also including bachelor's degrees.
    I think academia has a reputation of being glacial, but I 
would suggest that that is not necessarily a fact in the cyber 
space.
    Ms. Harshberger. Well, Mr. Coulson, you are speaking my 
language.
    My time is out and I thank you.
    I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Chairwoman Clarke. The Chair now recognizes for 5 minutes 
the gentleman from New York, Mr. Torres.
    Mr. Torres. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Three years ago I came across a New York Times article with 
the following headline: ``The Mad Dash to Find a Cybersecurity 
Workforce''. The article was citing cybersecurity ventures, 
claims that by 2021 the cybersecurity work force would have 3.5 
million vacancies. We are in 2021.
    So I am curious to know has that projection come true? What 
is the extent of the shortages in the cybersecurity work force 
as of 2021? Anyone who has an answer to that question can feel 
free to answer.
    Mr. Coulson. OK. Everybody has a prediction on that. That 
might be a global number, but within the United States right 
now, you know, best that I could find this morning was actually 
just over 500,000. That is in the compressed hiring that we are 
in right now. But the Solarium Commission report that 
Representative Langevin worked on, says something I think is 
overall answer to that question, and it is we have had reports, 
we have had predictions, we have had things for 20 years. What 
we need is action on it, because the problem has not been 
getting better, it has been getting worse.
    Mr. Torres. In order to--and I am in favor of action, I 
just want to understand the precise nature of the problem. So 
are these vacancies--to what extent are these vacancies coming 
from the public sector and the private sector? Do we know the 
breakdown? Do we know the number of vacancies that require a 
college education?
    Mr. Stier. So I can speak--this is Max Stier at the 
Partnership--I can speak to the Federal Government. The answer 
is we really don't know what the real need is. This is my point 
about the importance of really doing a more thorough human 
capital plan for the Government in cyber and beyond. I think we 
need it in more than that.
    I can't resist also saying that the gap is not simply in 
the actual technical talent, the gap in some ways is more 
profound in the fluency around these issues, in the leadership 
more broadly. You know, people who are not actually in jobs 
that are designated as technical positions fundamentally 
actually need to understand these issues in order to do their 
work appropriately.
    I think if you are thinking about what the actual gap is, 
you ought to be examining that one as much as the actual work 
force.
    Mr. Torres. Is that a number--we need more cybersecurity 
generalists? Is that?
    Mr. Stier. It is less that--I would say, for example, that 
if you are coming in as the Secretary of an agency in the 
Federal Government, if you are running a component, if you are 
a career senior executive running a large program, you have to 
be thinking about cyber issues and understanding what the 
implications are for your programmatic choices. That includes, 
you know, the talent needs. You will need to be able to address 
those problems. That is an information gap. You don't need a 
cyber professional in those positions, but you need people who 
are fluent and aware.
    Mr. Torres. I have a question for each member of the panel. 
What is the most successful cyber work force development 
initiative that you know of and that should be scaled up?
    Mr. Nolten. I will jump in, Congressman, and mention that 
CETAP is proven to be a successful program in that we are 
introducing students to cybersecurity careers and degree 
opportunities at an early age, elementary and secondary.
    When a student asks me what do you want to--or when I ask 
my students, what do you want to be when you grow up, at that 
very moment I am providing them a gateway into the 
opportunities that exist for them post-high school as well as 
post-graduate. Not every student is going to go to college and 
so what we want to ensure is that upon graduating high school 
we have students with industry-based certifications, that they 
are skilled to go walk into an organization and be employable 
immediately. Employability is the key and we want to see that 
CETAP be grown so that high school students who are going into 
any of the 17--16-17 critical infrastructures within DHS's 
structure, that those students have the ability and the 
knowledge to----
    Mr. Torres. Can I interject? What is your placement rate?
    Mr. Nolten. I am sorry, sir?
    Mr. Torres. Your placement rate.
    Mr. Nolten. So right now we see that high school students 
who are participating in CETAP's program, four times as many 
students are going into a cyber-based degree field within a 2-
year and/or 4-year program.
    Mr. Torres. How many students have gone through your 
program?
    Mr. Nolten. Over 3 million students have benefited from our 
program in all 50 States.
    Mr. Torres. Does the rest of the panel have any thoughts on 
what is the most successful existing cybersecurity work force 
initiative?
    Mr. Ley. I would--I am sorry.
    Mr. Coulson. Please go ahead.
    Mr. Ley. I would like to suggest there is a program that is 
not even funded and even an initiative right now, and it is to 
match. What we find in our research is that the students coming 
out of degree programs, even out of high school, and the hiring 
at these organizations, businesses, Government entities, there 
is not a defined mechanism to really place the most talented 
individuals in the jobs where they can be the most successful. 
There is nothing based on the old hiring process of resumes and 
interviews is what is taking place. We continue to hear from 
businesses, Government entities, well, we hired the most--we 
thought was the best person and it takes us 18 months to 2 
years to get them trained up to be useful. Why is that? Because 
there is not a mechanism. You identified the mechanism, but 
there is no funded program to actually implement that to say 
nice KSATs, hiring job applications has the same KSATs, we can 
see what the students have, what skills they have and match 
them to the job and the people can hire the right people the 
first time instead of the second and third time.
    That is an issue that should be out there.
    Mr. Torres. My time expired, so I am going to----
    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Torres.
    The Chair now recognizes for 5 minutes the gentleman from 
Georgia, Mr. Clyde.
    Mr. Clyde. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate 
this very important hearing.
    One of my concerns is the dependence that we have on the H-
1B visa program, or the student visa program. Oftentimes we see 
our universities and businesses invest in people that we bring 
in from overseas and we teach them cyber and they take up the 
opportunities that we have in this country and they learn all 
sorts of great things and then they take their talents and they 
go back home to their home countries.
    So I see that as not being a great return on investment and 
we are losing out on the opportunity to develop Americans who 
can fill those jobs.
    So I guess my question--and I would like to start with Dr. 
Coulson--so how can we best encourage the home-grown talent so 
we don't have to depend on the H-1B talent that at some point 
is going to go back to their home country and we are going to 
lose that opportunity and what has been invested in those 
people.
    Now, I understand that those people might actually, you 
know, bring something to us as well, but still, you know, they 
are not American citizens. You know, they are not going to stay 
here. They are going to go home and take that talent and 
everything they learned with them.
    So how do we do that? How do we best encourage home-grown 
talent?
    Mr. Coulson. So two-thirds of Ph.D.s in this country are 
non-domestic. That is a crisis in itself. There is a number of 
programs that I could inform you of after, but in the interest 
of time.
    The research program that we just started is really looking 
at, all right, how do we home grow talent. It doesn't have to 
be all from our one university. Again, I will go to my mantra, 
kids sometimes don't know how smart they are.
    Mr. Clyde. Right.
    Mr. Coulson. So the program we created now with 38 
universities, working with technical directors on actual 
problems is meant to reach into the undergraduate level and 
start teaching them the science of research so that we can 
pipeline these and grow our domestic talent and also develop an 
affinity for the real challenges that Government is doing.
    In the Centers of Academic Excellence Community I think 
that is a great example of something we are doing to tackle 
that one issue, which is very significant for the future of 
technical leadership in the United States.
    Mr. Clyde. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
    You know, as part of the Department of Homeland Security 
subcommittee, you know, one of the greatest threats we have is 
ransomware from the outside. So I think one of the greatest 
defenses we have is home-grown talent that can defend against 
that.
    So does any other of the witnesses, would you like to add 
anything, Mr. Nolten or Mr. Ley or Mr. Stier, to that?
    Mr. Ley. I would also bring back attention to what Tony 
brought up earlier about apprenticeship programs.
    Mr. Clyde. Right.
    Mr. Ley. It is a way to bring the--start the folks out in a 
company and let them learn and their actual reason--to 
understand why they are learning, because they are working for 
that business. Apprenticeship programs are huge and a key. We 
really need to focus on that. Right now there really is not--in 
the Department of Labor or Department of Commence there is 
really not a defined apprenticeship for cyber-related skills. 
There is a reason plumbers and electricians have apprenticeship 
programs, because you can't get all the hands-on training just 
sitting in a classroom. Apprenticeships bring that and they are 
huge.
    Mr. Nolten. Congressman, if I may add----
    Mr. Clyde. Thank you very much. That is an excellent 
insight. Go ahead, please, Mr. Nolten.
    Mr. Nolten. Congressman, if I may add one statement here. 
Research has shown that a child begins to form what they want 
to be when they grow up around the middle school level. That is 
sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. If we look at other countries 
around the world and see where their dollars are being 
invested, it is in K-12 education.
    So in order to begin solving this pipeline issue that we 
have, we have to focus on ensuring that we have students who 
are skilled and knowledgeable about the opportunities that 
exist in cybersecurity.
    Mr. Clyde. All right. I think that. Thank you.
    I appreciate that and unless anyone else has a comment, 
then, Madam Chair, I yield back. I think that is great 
information though.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Congressman.
    The Chair now recognizes for 5 minutes, the gentlewoman 
from New York, Ms. Rice.
    Ms. Rice. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I would like to continue talking a little bit more about 
community colleges. I think we all agree that they play an 
incredibly important role in connecting students with an 
affordable higher education. In my district, Nassau Community 
College, which is a Minority-Serving Institution, has a 
cybersecurity certificate program designed for students who 
intend to go onto pursue a 4-year cybersecurity degree.
    Dr. Coulson, do existing Federal programs adequately 
support programs like the one I just described at Nassau 
Community College? What if any additional resources may 
community colleges, particularly minority-serving institutions, 
need to assist them in building, growing, and diversifying the 
cybersecurity work force programs?
    Mr. Coulson. Well, the Centers of Academic Excellence 
program has over 150 community colleges. We have set up a 
National articulation database. That was with Moraine Valley 
Community College. That is some great work with the National 
Science Foundation's advanced technology education program with 
Whatcom Community College and Cal State San Bernardino were 
working through the community college network to see what is it 
that employers want, but also how can we diversify talent on so 
many ways? We have something called the Cyber Education 
Diversity Initiative, which focuses on Minority-Serving 
Institutions, but also we have program for the deaf and the 
hard of hearing, Wounded Warriors, neuro-diverse communities, 
and so on. I think the community colleges play a pivotal role. 
A lot of times it is in the area traditionally seen as re-
skilling, but I would say that it is also upskilling.
    So I think that community colleges in general are really an 
economic engine and especially for opportunity for many people. 
The issue that we have in the Centers of Academic Excellence in 
terms of funding is everything is one-time funding, one-time 
grant related through a number of agencies. I would really like 
to see the Department of Homeland Security invest in this 
program with sustained funding so that we aren't doing hand-to 
mouth, but we could attack this problem strategically.
    Ms. Rice. That is actually a really good point and I think 
that we should take that advice about the funding. I think that 
is critical. I agree with you.
    You know, I think there is also a misconception that all 
cybersecurity jobs require an advanced degree. But cyber.org's 
website explains in the--its cyber career profiles that there 
are a number of good-paying cybersecurity careers that don't 
necessarily require a degree at all.
    Mr. Nolten, you know, we are talking about K-12 and I know 
that you have experience working with K-12 educators, what more 
can be done to increase awareness of the full range of 
cybersecurity career options that are available to young 
people? I think it is really important--I think the Federal 
Government needs to support high schools that want to implement 
career and technical education programs around cybersecurity 
that are designed to, you know, send students into the work 
force right after graduation.
    But, Mr. Nolten, if you could just talk a little bit more 
about how can we increase awareness? I think that, you know, if 
kids knew what was out there--you know, I forget who--I think 
you said that--talked about that critical time period of sixth, 
seventh, eighth grade where kids are beginning to make kind-of 
career choices. If they are not hearing about it in school and 
they don't know what the potential is, then they are missing 
that opportunity.
    Mr. Nolten. Congresswoman Rice, I mean that is a great 
question and it is a great awareness that we must take.
    One simple example, Sally has two apples at the house, she 
has five friends coming over, how many apples does Sally need 
to go out and buy. This is a simple subtraction problem that 
many of our educators are using. My encouragement to K-12 
educators is don't use apples, use gigabytes. Sally has a 
computer at the house, it has two gigabytes of memory, she has 
a really cool program she wants to run that requires five, how 
many gigabytes does Sally need to add? By changing the context 
of what we are teaching inside the classroom, we are able to 
introduce these students and place seeds of opportunity in our 
minds of our students. This very work, this very structure, we 
allow students to explore career opportunities that they have 
no idea about, their mom or dad or guardians had no experience 
in. This effort and this movement must be scaled. We must 
ensure that teachers have the confidence, the ability, and the 
resources from a funding standpoint to be able to teach 
cybersecurity and to change those apples to gigabytes.
    Ms. Rice. Well, thank you all so much. I think this has 
been a great discussion.
    Madam Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    The Chair recognizes for 5 minutes the gentleman from 
Kansas, Mr. LaTurner.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Mr. Stier, let me start with you. There is a seemingly 
endless supply of cyber work force related legislative 
proposals. But I am concerned that often times Congress focuses 
on the shiny new bills instead of conducting the necessary 
oversight to ensure the prior bills have been properly enacted.
    Where should the committee be focusing when it comes to 
oversight over enacted lines of effort?
    Mr. Stier. So thank you for such a wonderful question. I 
agree with you that often times we see problems Congress 
legislates and then done, move on to the next thing. The 
reality is, in my view, legislation is the starter's pistol, it 
is actually not the race. Your oversight function is profoundly 
important.
    So one of the recommendations I made in my testimony was 
that you actually make this an annual testimony, or rather an 
annual hearing. I love the example that was given earlier about 
the need for long-term money, because there is no way to plan 
on these programs if you don't have multi-year funding. It is 
the same here, if you let agencies know that this is not about 
giving them an authority and then walking away, but rather that 
you have actually a plan, you intend to be able to have 
oversight on an annual basis with a set of metrics, performance 
metrics, that you build into your thinking. That may change 
over time. I think that will change the incentives for agencies 
and the likelihood that you actually see more progress from the 
investments that you are making.
    So I would think about this, again as you suggest, not as 
a, you know, legislate and walk on, but rather what are our 
goals, you know, what is our current thinking about the tools 
we need right now. How will we know whether or not we have been 
successful. Then come back to it in a regular way with notice 
to agencies that this is about to happen. I think you would see 
in different outcomes. Not easy outcomes, because, bluntly, 
these are tough problems and they are problems that are 
changing.
    Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate that.
    This question is for all of you and it is a really broad 
one. With so much focus in recent years about expanding cyber 
educational opportunities, do we feel like we are at the point 
that we are starting to close the gap, are we making a dent?
    Mr. Ley. I will just say from my perspective, from a lab 
perspective, from testing control systems and looking at and 
providing courses to folks, I think we are making a dent. Some 
of the issues are very systemic and I think are just not known, 
even to panel members. We talk about the tools that connect the 
high school, get them excited there. There's lot of progress. I 
have 23 interns from colleges and universities around my State 
and other universities around the Nation and I ask them, if you 
are in a degree program, a cyber-related degree program, why? 
What are you going to do with it? They don't know. There really 
is not a mechanism--there are mechanisms out there, we are not 
connecting them to what jobs they need to go to.
    So as far as degrees and topics we are teaching, yes, I 
think we are making a dent, I think we are offering the right 
curriculum and I think it will ever be expanding. It is not 
going to change. But we have got to connect the students who 
have moved on and are excited, think they know what to do, they 
get to that next level and they are--where are the tools, where 
are the things I can go to look to what is next for me. They 
are not being exposed to those.
    Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate that.
    Yes, Mr. Coulson, go ahead.
    Mr. Coulson. So 6 years ago when we started the Centers of 
Academic Excellence Community, we were about 15,000 students. 
We now have over 100,000. A lot of that has to do with a long-
term vision reaching into the K-12 space, seeing the dividends 
of programs like cyber.org, the GenCyber camp program, and 
others that are stimulating interest. We are starting to see 
that bubble up. But it is a long-haul game. I think that is a 
real message here.
    As you said earlier, shiny object funding is not going to 
solve this problem.
    Mr. LaTurner. Very good.
    Mr. Stier, I saw you have your hand up.
    Mr. Stier. So, yes. I think just to--there are a lot of 
people working really hard on these issues and we are making, 
in absolute terms, progress. But what I would say is that 
fundamentally this is about dealing with problems that are in 
the real world and against the problem set that we face, my 
view is we are losing ground not gaining it, certainly in the 
arena that I can see.
    Mr. LaTurner. Wow. I want to hear your perspective.
    Go ahead, Mr. Nolten.
    Mr. Nolten. Congressman, two quick stats. CETAP's impact is 
well over 3 million. While that may be an exciting number to 
many, the denominator there is 52 million. Our work has just 
begun.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you so much.
    Madam Chairwoman, my time has expired. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Thank you, Congressman.
    For colleagues who may be interested, I am going to enter 
into a second round of questioning. There are a few questions 
that I have remaining. For anyone else on the subcommittee who 
also may have additional questions, you will have an 
opportunity at this time.
    Dr. Coulson, a major part of addressing our cyber work 
force shortage must include re-skilling workers for 
cybersecurity jobs. I think certainly in the midst of this 
pandemic where we are hearing about the great resignation, 
there may be an opportunity if we open our eyes wide enough or 
open the aperture so that we are looking at some of our 
employees who may not be returning to some of the professions 
that they were once in.
    How are universities and community colleges currently 
working to include nontraditional students already in the work 
force or in their programs? What barriers exist for 
participation and what can we do to expand access?
    Mr. Coulson. Well, that is excellent. This is something I 
am so excited that you asked me, to be quite honest. Re-
skilling is absolutely necessary, it is absolutely important. I 
think the academic community has looked at cyber and said, 
look, we need all hands on deck. How do we get somebody with an 
existing degree or maybe had a different life before, how do we 
see where they fit in cyber, which is such a broad field.
    We ran a pilot program with the National Science Foundation 
that provided scholarships for veterans and re-skilling workers 
through the community college program to get them into the 
cyber work force. We wanted to see what was making them tick.
    But more than that, on a broader spectrum, we are seeing 
programs that are emerging in our Centers of Academic 
Excellence and we are incentivizing them not only in on-line 
learning, but in other ways that fit around schedules so that 
somebody could still actually work in their job but look toward 
a new career and make accommodations for different age groups 
and people who are differently abled.
    There are so many programs there and I would love to have a 
longer discussion on it, but we--I will say this, we are 
working in that area because it is so very important and 
universities and community colleges are expanding capacity as 
much as possible, marketing. Actually, next month we are 
running a National virtual career fair for cybersecurity 
students and trying to link them with employers, but also try 
and stimulate interest in re-skilling.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Got caught out there for a moment.
    This is to the panel. What should the Federal Government's 
role be in facilitating apprenticeship programs in the private 
sector? If you have given any consideration to that.
    Mr. Coulson. I think Mr. Stier said earlier, what are the 
standards for a cybersecurity discipline. So we actually just 
started a project with the American Council on Education to try 
and help set those standards, and we are going to work with the 
Department of Labor to see if we can get at least the first of 
what we consider many different disciplines within cyber, 
because obviously this critical infrastructure and so on.
    One of the areas that I think the Federal Government could 
really help us in, especially in the Department of Labor, is 
velocity. To get the apprenticeship programs moving is such a 
laborious technical process that many of our industry partners 
have said, I don't understand this and they are ready to walk 
away. I would really like to, you know, work or maybe put 
together subcommittee on how we could fix that problem and 
increase velocity. Because apprenticeship is very foreign in 
the United States but it is such a key--has such key potential 
to solving this problem.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Very well.
    I wanted to do a deeper dive with you, Mr. Stier, about how 
agencies can improve retention. We know that, you know, there 
is great demand for the limited talent that exists. We are 
constantly hearing of private sector poaching from the public 
sector. Could you give us a little bit more depth to what we 
can do in the retention space?
    Mr. Stier. Absolutely. It begins to have real-time data on 
what is actually happening and have leaders that are held 
accountable for that data. Otherwise, you know, there are a lot 
of things you can do, but you don't know if you are doing the 
most important things.
    You know, what we see in the work that we do is, No. 1, 
especially young talent, they want to feel like they are being 
invested in. I will note that there is a really--in my view, a 
big difference in the way by and large the uniformed services 
are treated versus the civilian services. In the military by 
and large they see their talent as an asset. Oftentimes the 
talent inside the Federal Government, the civilian talent, is 
treated as if it is a cost. We need to see I think way more 
investment in the people in the knowledge that they are 
getting, in the responsibility that they are getting, and also 
in the management that they are getting. If you did that, I am 
quite confident that you would see a lot higher retention 
numbers.
    If you look at our best places to work rankings, the No. 1 
issue for why people are actually leaving is their perceptions 
of their leadership, from the first line supervisor to the more 
senior people in the organization, and it is not good. It is, 
you know, 10+ points below what you would see in the private 
sector. They're purpose-driven, they want to be there, but if 
you give them bad management they are not going to say.
    So that to me would be the most important thing to do, is 
improve the management, hold them accountable, provide real 
investment in their growth and responsibility. The Government 
has the best value proposition around. You can make a 
difference in the world, which most young talent really care a 
lot about.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Very well. Thank you.
    My time has run out.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the 
gentleman from New York, Mr. Garbarino, for any additional 
questions he may have.
    Mr. Garbarino. Thank you, Chairwoman. I do have at least 
one more question.
    Mr. Stier, we will start with you. The Cyber Corps 
Scholarship for Service program, run by the National Science 
Foundation, has been a great program to encourage students to 
enter public service. I understand that to date nearly 3,500 
students have taken advantage of the program.
    What more can we do to increase participation in this 
program? Or maybe not--and if not, it is not increased 
participation in this program, what is the difference--is this 
program better or could we maybe start some sort of cyber 
university, similar to one of the other--like the Naval Academy 
or the Merchant Marine Academy? You know, the Merchant Marine 
Academy was started in 1943 because of shortage in merchant 
marines. We have a shortage in people that need to go into the 
Government cyber work force.
    Is this something that we should be looking at, or should 
we just stick with training them at outside colleges and hope 
they come to work for us?
    Mr. Stier. Sure. So, Congressman, I think this is a 
fantastic question. I come back to the military model, and you 
used it, which is you can think about the academies versus the 
ROTC. In my view it is much more cost-effective to make further 
investment in an ROTC model rather than the bricks and mortars 
of a new institution. It is not simply that it is more cost-
effective, but it is also in my view more--you will have higher 
leverage. If you leverage off of the, you know, Government-
wide--you know, we have best in class higher education in this 
country and if you create more scholarship opportunities for 
service in Government, you will--it will be, again, a cheaper 
way of getting great talent and it will be integrated against 
the whole of society, because you also want to make sure that 
people who are coming into Government represent the entire--
geographically, racially, gender, all those things.
    So my counsel would be to, you know, further invest in 
programs that are more likely ROTC than it is to try to create 
a new entity focused on a specific area like cyber.
    I think you will find immediate return because you don't--
it takes a long time to create an institution and we don't have 
that time. I think you will have better pay-off.
    I will say that we can undoubtedly do better in the way we 
use that talent. The Chair's questions around retention should 
be applied here with the folks that--because, yes, they may 
have a service requirement, but you really want to have a 
program that keeps them well long after that service 
requirement has ended.
    Then there are programs like what we have, the Cyber Talent 
Initiative, where we are partnering with the private sector, 
with MasterCard and Microsoft and Workday. They are actually 
supporting bringing talent into Government knowing that talent 
might also come to them.
    So there are a lot of novel ways of trying to drive talent 
into the sector and into Government.
    Mr. Garbarino. I appreciate it, Mr. Stier.
    Any of the other witnesses want to add on or have any 
thought on the question?
    Mr. Coulson. Well, actually I am a scholarship for service 
institution. I would say that that was one of the keys that 
built capacity within my institution to create such great cyber 
talent. But there are other programs, like the Department of 
Defense Cybersecurity Scholarship Program that acts like an NFL 
draft, if you will, where the best talent gets submitted and 
they can pick and choose.
    I think Mr. Stier brings up a very important point, and 
that is if we built bricks and mortar, it takes a long time, 
but also it closes the number of dimensions. I think a cyber 
university concentrating on one skill set is great, but that is 
not what cyber is about. Cyber is so much broader and you need 
innovation from all sectors. As I like to say, innovate 
locally, deploy Nationally.
    I think that is where the scholarship for service, and like 
Mr. Stier said, like an ROTC type of approach works probably 
more effectively and gives the taxpayer more bang for the buck.
    Mr. Garbarino. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
    Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Clarke. Well, with that, I thank our witnesses 
for their very valuable testimony here today and my colleagues 
and Members for their questions.
    The Members of the subcommittee may have additional 
questions for the witnesses and we ask that you respond 
expeditiously in writing to those questions.
    Without objection, the committee record shall be open for 
10 days.
    Hearing no further business, the subcommittee stands 
adjourned. Thank you, everyone.
    [Whereupon, at 11:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]



                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              

                    Statement of Bitwise Industries
                             July 29, 2021
    Chairwoman Clarke, Ranking Member Garbarino, and Members of the 
subcommittee: Bitwise Industries is grateful for the opportunity to 
submit this testimony in connection with the subcommittee's exploration 
of the need for and development of cybersecurity professionals.
    Since 2013, Bitwise Industries, a female- and minority-led 
technology company headquartered in Fresno, CA, has been training 
underserved people from undervalued places for jobs in the digital 
economy. Our workforce training programs have prepared over 5,000 
student workers, more than half of whom are women and/or people of 
color, for high-growth, high-wage jobs in the technology industry. Many 
of these individuals have gone from making under $21K/year to well over 
$61K/year. Following the program, 80 percent are employed in tech jobs 
resulting in $295 million of aggregate wages. In addition to outside 
employment, the technology consulting side of our business hires many 
of these students, proving it is possible to build stellar technology 
in unexpected places with diverse, nontraditional talent.
    The key to our success is our apprenticeship model, which unlocks 
potential by coupling paid, experiential technical training with access 
and referral to essential services that address/remove barriers caused 
by poverty and bias. Our apprenticeship program is expanding to include 
a cybersecurity track for which we will seek Registered Apprenticeship 
designation. We employ a holistic and personalized approach to 
recruiting talent from underserved communities and building a nurturing 
community around them so that we can ensure that individuals have what 
they need to learn and thrive, including first and foremost, a sense of 
belonging. Their success then ignites and transforms the regional 
economies of the cities in which Bitwise Industries serves. Since 
launching in Fresno, we have built similar ecosystems in the California 
cities of Merced, Bakersfield, and Oakland, and recently announced our 
expansion into Toledo, OH. The next set of cities at the top of our 
expansion priority list includes Buffalo, NY and Birmingham, AL.
    As you consider measures that Congress can take to facilitate the 
growth of an inclusive and skilled cybersecurity workforce, we urge you 
to examine with a critical eye barriers to the employment of 
marginalized people who have been persistently underrepresented in 
critically important professions such as this. Careers in cybersecurity 
are not only essential to the future prosperity and safety of our 
Nation, but also hold promise as a means of securing economic stability 
for many. These are jobs with salaries that ripple throughout 
overlooked communities if they are available to the full range of 
people who are qualified for and desire them.
  underrepresentation in the cybersecurity and tech fields hurts the 
                 quality and quantity of resulting work
    In 2021, evidence of the systemic underrepresentation and 
inequitable position of marginalized people in tech jobs requiring 
fluency in coding and networking exists anywhere one looks. According 
to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as of 2020, just 9.1 percent of 
Americans employed in computer and mathematical occupations were Black, 
in a National workforce that is more than 12 percent Black. For Latinx 
workers just 8.4 percent are working in STEM fields, compared to 17.6 
of all workers. Moreover, Black and Latinx workers constituted smaller 
percentages of the information security workforce than of all workers, 
and women were particularly absent from the cybersecurity field, 
accounting for just 11.4 percent of its employees, but nearly 47 
percent of the entire workforce.
    The relative inclusion of Black and Latinx workers and members of 
other underrepresented groups has declined since the publication of a 
2017 report for the Center for Cyber Safety and Education, (ISC)\2\, 
and the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity 
Professionals (ICMCP). The report found that while minority 
representation in cybersecurity professions was roughly consistent with 
comparable representation in the National workforce, other indicators 
of inequity abounded. People of color in leadership roles tended to be 
more highly educated than their white non-Hispanic counterparts, for 
example, but employees of color were disproportionately concentrated in 
non-management positions. In addition, both men and women of color 
working in cybersecurity reported lower average salaries than white 
counterparts, and workers of color were less likely to have received 
salary increases during the most recent year than white workers.
    The effectiveness of our increasingly important efforts to secure 
information and operations that rely on connectivity are hindered by 
the disproportionate demographic characteristics of the cybersecurity 
workforce. As a recent paper from the Institute for Critical 
Infrastructure Technology observed, ``Security teams that bring 
diversity of thought and perspective to the decision-making process are 
best equipped to navigate [the] complex ecosystem of players, 
technologies, and cultures'' that must be taken into account in shaping 
cybersecurity solutions.
    Experiential studies have confirmed that characteristics including 
age, income, gender, ethnicity, and cultural affinity affect 
participants' perceptions of information security risks in consistent 
ways; similarly, in other work-oriented contexts, researchers have 
found that teams whose members come from different walks of life excel 
at innovation and problem-solving because they benefit from the 
inclusion of a wide range of viewpoints.
    The Nation's cybersecurity workforce would do its best possible 
work if it reflected our country's unique strength--the vast variety of 
cultures and experiences that shape us as individuals. Workplace 
leadership experts David Rock and Heidi Grant astutely pointed out in 
their Harvard Business Review article that collaboration across 
cultures ``challenge[s] your brain to overcome its stale ways of 
thinking and sharpen its performance.''
    Government also risks squandering an opportunity to advance equity 
in access to programming and resources by failing to take 
transformative action to ensure that talented people from underserved 
communities find their place in the tech industry and in the short-
staffed cybersecurity field in particular. When only a homogenous group 
of people who have historically been able to enter a system are charged 
with shaping it for the future, the weaknesses of the system are 
virtually guaranteed to be replicated consciously or unconsciously. 
Thus, if the Federal Government hires only people with advanced degrees 
or other qualifications that are expensive to obtain to be its 
recruiters, build its presence on-line, and protect IT networks, their 
work will naturally serve the needs and interests of others like them, 
and will fail to democratize entry. It is unsurprising that it has 
proven to be a persistent challenge for an institution whose workforce 
largely consists of individuals who are not underserved to design 
programs to effectively reach, serve, and protect its most marginalized 
constituents, since, for example, people designing websites for the 
Emergency Broadband Benefit or rental payment assistance programs are 
likely not to have had any personal experience using these resources. 
It is imperative that the Federal Government enlist more people, 
companies, and communities, including contractors and consultants, that 
historically have been excluded and that have themselves experienced 
the challenges it seeks to address so it can develop technical 
solutions for all Americans.
        apprenticeships unleash previously untapped tech talent
    Since our inception in 2013, Bitwise Industries has been preparing 
underestimated people for success in tech careers by offering flexible 
short-term pre-apprenticeship programs, paid apprenticeships, and 
holistic support for the people in whom we invest. Our experience with 
the thousands of individuals who have entered our training programs 
over the past 8 years has affirmed our conviction that apprenticeships 
are a critical, and as-yet underutilized, pathway into the tech 
workforce for members of underrepresented communities with the 
requisite talent and commitment to thrive.
    Our apprenticeship model works for people who would not otherwise 
obtain the necessary knowledge and experience to enter this field 
because it eliminates the many practical and psychological barriers 
that reinforce systemic exclusion.
    Perhaps most important is the fact that our trainees don't need to 
take on any debt to advance their careers. Pre-apprentices who need 
financial assistance receive scholarships and are able to work jobs 
around class schedules, and our apprentices earn a living wage with 
benefits while they are learning and building portfolios of work on the 
job. For each one of these people, our staff coordinates complementary 
services--from child care, to transportation, to access to hardware and 
a broadband connection--that ensure that trainees have the time and 
mental energy to devote to developing their skills. We also value 
community and belonging, and we work hard to make sure that students 
and apprentices feel welcomed in our spaces and interact with peers 
with whom they identify when they come to a class or work team.
    Graduates of Bitwise Industries' apprenticeships do not necessarily 
have resumes that resemble those of a typical tech or cybersecurity 
work team, but they are capable and talented, and they bring the kind 
of diverse perspective to their work from which the Federal 
Government's cybersecurity efforts would greatly benefit. A typical 
student or apprentice in one of our programs has obtained a high school 
diploma or GED but has not earned any tertiary degree or professional 
certificate; many of our trainees have come to us from employment in 
restaurants, retail, manufacturing, and farming. These individuals have 
repeatedly and consistently proven that, with the right environment and 
support, they can obtain in-demand skills and thrive in information 
technology jobs. Nearly all of our apprenticeship graduates, and four-
fifths of those who have taken classes with us, remain in tech-oriented 
jobs today, and by their third year on the job, these people have 
secured average salaries of $81,000 per year. Bitwise Industries' tech 
consulting business has hired many of those who've completed 
apprenticeships through our program, so we can attest from personal 
experience to the acumen of our trainees in designing and building 
solutions for a wide variety of clients in industries ranging from 
agriculture to entertainment to finance and banking.
    In addition to possessing requisite technical skill and 
collaborative ability, people who have trained for careers in 
information technology in Bitwise Industries' apprenticeships rather 
than through college-based academic programs are representative of the 
underestimated communities in that we serve, and comprised of people 
groups who have historically faced discrimination in the workplace and 
exclusion from the lucrative information technology field. We 
intentionally install our full ecosystem in cities whose populations 
are diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, educational 
attainment, involvement with the criminal justice system, family 
structure, and other circumstances, and we focus outreach and 
recruitment efforts in the most underserved and economically 
undervalued neighborhoods. As a result, about two-thirds of all of our 
students and apprentices have been people who identified as Black or 
Latinx. Women have easily outnumbered men in our classes and 
apprenticeship cohorts, and more than 40 percent of our people are 
LGBTQIA+ and non-binary. In addition, nearly half of our trainees have 
been undocumented individuals and people who are first-generation 
Americans, and many have belonged to groups recognized as encountering 
particular barriers to employment, such as people with criminal 
convictions.
  hiring standards and practices must evolve to achieve inclusion and 
              fill openings in the cybersecurity workforce
    As the capacity of Bitwise Industries' apprenticeship program 
expands and the success of our model inspires more providers to offer 
apprenticeship-style training for information technology fields, the 
pool of talent available to fill cybersecurity positions will grow and 
better reflect the full spectrum of Americans' characteristics and 
experiences. At the same time pathways into desirable jobs will need to 
adapt to recognize and take advantage of the ability that apprenticed 
workers possess.
    Too often, the prerequisites to access opportunities in Government 
employment are mired in obsolete tradition, and designed to exclude or 
to achieve ends that are at odds with equity.
    We urge Members of this subcommittee to push and mandate Federal 
hiring managers to reconsider credential and application requirements 
for cybersecurity and other tech jobs, and to eliminate or amend them 
wherever possible to open the door to a wider swath of the underserved 
population. For example, though degrees, certifications, and related 
job experience are typical barriers to entry into cybersecurity jobs, 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics has identified as the skills most 
critical to these roles attributes--problem-solving skills, ingenuity, 
attention to detail, and analytical skill in assessing computer systems 
and networks--that people can attain and develop just as well through 
practical training. Moreover, obtaining Federal Government employment 
usually demands not just that candidates have secured the requisite 
skill in the manner least accessible to marginalized individuals, but 
also that applicants possess the patience, networks, and background 
knowledge necessary to reconstruct their resumes and describe their 
experience in an idiosyncratic format. Instead of earning certificates 
and constructing narratives about their ability to do the work, Bitwise 
Industries' students and apprentices build portfolios of projects that 
showcase their work and allow prospective employers to see their 
skills. The Federal Government's human resources systems should allow 
for multiple methods of demonstrating technical ability to ensure that 
people of all backgrounds can, and actually do choose to, compete for 
employment.
    We note that President Biden's recent Executive Order on advancing 
diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the Federal 
Government instructs agencies to build pipelines into Government 
employment by deepening partnerships with colleges and universities 
that serve students of color and women. While these institutions are an 
important source of talent, their capacity is limited, and members of 
underserved communities continue to have less logistical and financial 
ability to pursue degrees than counterparts. To transform the face of 
the Federal workforce, the Government must look beyond its usual 
horizons and open jobs to--and direct recruitment efforts at--people 
like Bitwise Industries' students and apprentices, who have gained 
valuable knowledge and skills through nontraditional paths.
    Thank you for your consideration of this testimony and your 
commitment to leveraging American workers' ambition and creativity to 
strengthen safety on-line and protect against attacks on the electronic 
resources and services on which we rely.

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