June’s round table session will focus on the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliance requirement coming from the US department of Defense (DoD).
The CMMC program is a mandatory cybersecurity certification program aligned with the DoD’s information security requirements. The program is designed to enforce a base line of cybersecurity practices with the goal of protecting the Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and the Federal Contract Information (FCI) that is shared by the DoD.
James (Jim) Goepel
Co-founder of the CMMC Information Institute, General Counsel and the Director of Education and Content at FutureFeed.co
Jim is the Co-founder of the CMMC Information Institute, a non-profit (501(c)(3)) educational organization that helps government contractors understand CUI, cybersecurity, compliance, and more. He is also a Founding Director and former Board Treasurer of the CMMC Accreditation Body (now called the CyberAB), a CMMC Provisional Instructor, CMMC Provisional Assessor, Certified CMMC Professional, and has passed the Certified CMMC Assessor exam. Jim also authored and taught the CyberAB’ s initial Registered Practitioner program. Jim earned a BSECE from Drexel University and JD and LLM degrees from George Mason University.
Jim’s “day job” is as the General Counsel and the Director of Education and Content at FutureFeed.co, where he brings a broad range of legal, technical, and business expertise to the team. Jim spent most of his professional career working in the IT and cybersecurity fields, including as a software developer, systems administrator, security practitioner, lawyer, and board member. He has worked for and counseled a variety of organizations, from various portions of the United States government, including the U.S. House of Representatives and United States Coastguard; to government contractors, including Unisys Corporation and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; to start-up technology and consulting companies.
Jim regularly speaks at domestic and international cybersecurity conferences and has been called upon as an expert witness on cybersecurity, IT, and government contracts issues. Jim is the author of a forthcoming book about the government’s Controlled Unclassified Information (“CUI”) program. He is also the co-author of a Certified CMMC Professional (“CCP”) curriculum taught by several training providers nationally. Jim’s research into the application of Enterprise Risk Management techniques to the field of cyber and privacy governance has been published by the Supreme Court of Singapore in their National Law Journal and in two different books published by LexisNexis.
Benoit Tremblay
Business Advisor, BDC
In 2001 Benoit Tremblay received his IT Management diploma and began working for different municipalities in Quebec, Canada for a few years before leaving the country to pursue his academic education in France. In 2004 he obtained his second diploma in Crisis Management & Strategic Command which earned him a position in an important European para-military organization which deployed him to Turkey and Iraq on cybersecurity missions in cyber warfare mode for the next seven years.
In 2011 he returned to Canada in the Health Care sector as an IT Coordinator. In 2014 he launched his own cybersecurity consultation firm, servicing small, midsized and large organizations throughout the country. Since 2018 Benoit has been a regular public speaker, giving conferences and workshops on cybersecurity and technology while providing private consultations to renowned corporations.
Matt Hoeper
Senior Cybersecurity Consultant, Edwards Performance Solutions
Matt Hoeper joined Edwards in early 2022 as a Senior Cybersecurity Consultant. Matt Hoeper is an experienced cybersecurity professional with 25+ years of IT experience. Matt holds a master’s degree in management information systems as well as a CCP, CCA, PMP and CISSP certifications. Prior to joining Edwards, he worked for Fortune 500 companies and small businesses in areas of engineering, financial, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing, and health care. Over his career, Matt has conducted security assessments against multiple standards.