Rick Dakin, President and Senior Security Strategist
Mr. Dakin provides strategic management IT security program guidance for Coalfire and its clients. As Coalfire's Senior Security Strategist, he is actively involved in helping clients develop balanced approaches for effective IT governance and regulatory compliance programs. Mr. Dakin's experience results from more than 25 years in senior management with leading IT firms. Mr. Dakin combines an in-depth knowledge of IT controls with a comprehensive understanding of organizational needs and the rapidly emerging legislation affecting information technology.
After serving in the U.S. Army following graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Mr. Dakin began his management career at United Technology Corporation. Prior to co-founding Coalfire, he was President of Centera Information Systems, a leading e-commerce and systems integration firm with clients throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Mr. Dakin guided the sale of Centera to a global application service provider, where he assumed the role of President.
Mr. Dakin is recognized nationally as a leader in IT risk management and information security solutions for regulated market sectors. He presents regularly to regional and national audiences on IT security solutions meeting privacy and confidentiality requirements for legislation covering financial services, healthcare, government and public corporations. Mr. Dakin currently serves as President of the FBI's InfraGard program, Denver chapter, and he is a member of a committee hosted by the U.S. Secret Service and organized by the Joint Council on Information Age Crime. Top
Alan Ferguson, Vice President Sales and Marketing
Mr. Ferguson guides Coalfire's sales and marketing team and account management practices. Prior to co-founding Coalfire, he served as Vice President of Centera Information Systems, a leading e-commerce and systems integration firm with clients throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Under his leadership, Centera was repeatedly recognized by Deloitte & Touché as a Fast 50 award winner recognizing companies with superior revenue growth.
Mr. Ferguson began his career with IBM, and he has more than 25 years experience in delivering information technology solutions to enterprise and government clients. Under Mr. Ferguson's sales and marketing management, Coalfire has grown rapidly and has successfully delivered more than 200 IT audit and information security engagements to public and private companies and government clients throughout North America. Top
Kennet Westby, Chief Operating Officer
Mr. Westby is a founding partner with Coalfire and serves as its Vice President of Operations and a Senior Security Strategist. Mr. Westby brings 15 years of IT security and IT controls design and implementation experience to the team. His broad industry experience also includes application development, e-business and business process integration. He has served as Chief Operating Officer for a global managed application hosting company with secure data centers located in Europe, Asia and the US where he provided both technical and operations leadership. Mr. Westby has also served as the COO and CIO for the world's largest pharmacy e-business network and portal.
At Coalfire, Mr. Westby has guided development of Coalfire's project methodologies based on IT audit and IT security best practices from COSO, COBIT, NIST and ISO. Mr. Westby has managed more than 200 risk-based compliance programs and IT audit engagements across multiple industries for government, public and private clients. Mr. Westby is an expert on IT compliance programs meeting information technology requirements under Sarbanes-Oxley, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, HIPAA, and the Visa CISP initiative.
Mr. Westby was selected as one of the nation's top 100 CIO's by CIO magazine. He is considered an industry leader in e-business and IT audit, and he has presented as a keynote speaker at some of the largest industry forums including Internet World and Comdex. Mr. Westby has worked with Microsoft on numerous key projects including the Security Auditing Framework for Microsoft partners.Top
Tom McAndrew, Vice President of Professional Services
Mr. McAndrew is an experienced leader with IT assessment and audit skills in a variety of industries including banking, healthcare, government, and the payment card industry. He leads Coalfire's professional services and provides oversight for practice development and service delivery across regional offices including Seattle, Denver, San Diego and New York.
He is a nationally recognized speaker and has presented on a variety of information security topics for State Agencies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Trade Commission, and other information security and audit organizations. He is the current President of the Seattle chapter of the Information Systems Audit and Controls Association (ISACA), and holds numerous certifications in audit, compliance, and information security.
Mr. McAndrew has extensive experience in the Federal government where he worked in information security and weapons systems for the Space and Naval Warfare Command, Naval Sea Systems Command, and the U.S. Navy. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, holds an MBA from the University of Washington and a Master of Science in Information Technology from the University of Maryland. Top
John Peterson, Chief Technology Officer
John Peterson serves as Chief Technology Officer for Coalfire. In this role, he is responsible for the company's data processing functions, including software development, systems operations and network operations.
Prior to joining Coalfire, Mr. Peterson was CTO for TransFirst, one of the nation's top 10 transaction processing and merchant acquiring companies. As one of the founders of TransFirst, he was instrumental in the design and development of the processing systems used by the business. In his 13 years at TransFirst he was involved in all aspects of the business, from startup, through multiple acquisitions, to its current status of over 160,000 customers and over 750 employees. Prior to joining TransFirst, he served as data processing officer for The Bank of Boulder, in Colorado, where he was responsible for back-office processing software and hardware; credit card processing, including daily operations, software development; and network support. Mr. Peterson has more than 25 years of technology experience.Top
Mark Lucas, Vice President of Managed Services
Mr. Lucas has more than eight years experience in IT risk management and control architecture across numerous industry verticals. As a Senior Security Strategist for Coalfire Systems, Mr. Lucas has led a variety of projects and security initiatives within multiple industry verticals, including financial services, healthcare, government, retail, and managed services. Mr. Lucas has led SOX and PCI assessments within Information Technology environments and has designed full scale information security programs within the retail, financial services, and commercial real estate industries. Within government spaces, Mr. Lucas has led risk and control assessment projects for a number of state governments and is a trusted resource for the security and metrics committee of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC).
At Coalfire, Mr. Lucas has led the architecture and development of online compliance management tools within a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. These tools have led to a number of patent applications, proprietary control frameworks, and a new model of business services within the compliance and audit space.
Mr. Lucas performed his undergraduate work at Illinois State University and his graduate work at Southern Illinois University. His certifications include Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP),Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA),Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for .NET (MCSD,) Microsoft Certified Applications Developer for .NET (MCAD),Qualified Security Assessor (QSA), and Payment Application Qualified Security Assessor (PA-QSA). Top
Jeff Baer, Director of Security Services
As Coalfire's Director of Security Services, Mr. Baer provides expertise on technical assessment practices and risk mitigation controls. He combines an extensive knowledge of cyber security best practices with expertise in IT control technologies, policies and procedures to develop solutions that mitigate risk to critical computing assets and sensitive information.
Prior to joining Coalfire, Mr. Baer served as the lead network and systems engineer for an Internet Service Provider with operations in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. He has also served in senior technical positions with Nupremis where he led the technical design and implementation of data centers located Hungary, Germany, England, the U.S. and the Philippines.
Mr. Baer holds numerous industry certifications for Network, Systems and Security Engineering. He is an authority on the Payment Card Industry security standard, including Visa's Cardholder Information Security Program and MasterCard's Site Data Protection (SDP) initiative. Mr. Baer has designed more than 100 enterprise programs that comply with the privacy and security requirements found in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Top