Hey channel insiders, welcome back to channel insider partner POV. I'm your host Katie Bavoso and today I'm speaking with Craig Woolly, CIO of Louisiana State University and Rob Jansen, CEO of Techstream. When Craig wanted to build a security operations center on the LSU campus for students to monitor, other MSPs bulked at the idea until Craig met Rob, who jumped at the opportunity to form a partnership that would not only help students get real world cyber security experience, but combat a talent shortage that grows every year.
Welcome, gentlemen. It's great to have you. >> Thanks, Katie. Glad to be here. >> Yeah, thank you for having me. >> So happy to have you both. Now, I know both of you have some LSU swag somewhere in your vicinity, and I don't today. So, I'm hoping that my yellow sort of helps me out here and doesn't let me get pinched or whatever the whatever the trope might be, but it's good to have two LSU uh supporters on the line. I'm excited to get into it. As I mentioned, Louisiana State University.
So, Craig, this is where you come in. I really want to give a little bit of a summary and a background to why we're here today. So to give a very high level overview to our audience of what you two have accomplished together, Louisiana State University, LSU and Techstream have joined forces to create a studentrun security operations center on campus called Tiger. This allows LSU students to get real world experience to enter the job market with while also providing budget-friendly cyber security protection the university was looking for.
So Craig, I want to start with you today because I'd love for you to start us off by going back to the beginning when this idea was originally conceived. Why did you want to create a studentrun sock on campus? And what was the experience like that ultimately led you to Techstream? I've been at LSU for five years as CIO and uh when I got here and I met with my chief information security officer, I asked him what LSU might need to do next to increase our cyber security posture.
And uh he was the one who told me we really need a SIM, which is a product like Splunk. And really he said we need to monitor that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So we really need a sock. And the problem was those are very expensive to do, especially if you outsource them. I coupled that with my my new president, President Tate, who wanted LSU to become one of the best cyber security education schools in the country. And so I tried to put those two together and say, how can I help on the academic mission and helping our students while also keeping us safe?
And that's where we came up with the idea, which is not that part is not a novel idea. the fact that we wanted to do a studentrun sock that a lot of schools do. What I wanted was I didn't want to create the wheel, recreate the wheel, um, and start from scratch. So, we intended to bring in a third-party vendor to help us get off the ground, help me train my students, help me come up with what the processes are and set up our sock. And then we were going to part ways with that vendor and just do it with our students.
And the first um partner that was brought to us wanted nothing to do with touching our students and training our students and doing all that. They said, "Why don't you just pay us and we'll do it all for you?" Which defeats the purpose of us trying to give our students real world experience and help them get great jobs when when they leave uh school. So the next partner they brought us was Techstream. And as we described our idea that we wanted you to come in, train our students, work with us for maybe a year, then we, you know, part ways and we will just do this ourselves.
Textream was excited and was like, "Wow, what a great idea. This is really cool." And then as I worked with Techstream more, got to know them, got to meet Rob, I decided, I don't want to do this model. I want a new model. And we came up with something that is a public private partnership to where Techstream works with us at all times and we only have to have our students work during the day Monday through Friday 8 to 5:00 and then Techstream takes over from there and and monitors overnight and on weekends and holidays and during the day our students are actually working side by side with Techstream.
So it's a true public private partnership we created that allows us to cut costs and give our students fantastic real world experience where they are mentored and actually work as if they're Textream employees. So we feel like we've struck a really good win-win uh in this model. >> So something you said Craig about that original managed service provider that you were going to try to partner with where you originally pitched this idea and they were just like why don't you just pay me why don't you just pay me to do the full thing.
Rob, I'm curious to know because you're the CEO of a business, you're still running a business. Why was that not the first thing that came to your mind? What did you see immediately in the benefit of a public private partnership for this that still benefited Techream as a business? >> Great question and and Craig alluded to it. I think what we see in especially state and local government and higher education is that most of those entities simply do not have the budgetary means to fully outsource their solution.
It's just a very expensive proposition for most organizations and we had seen a a paradigm or a pattern of organizations desiring a lower cost solution while still getting the full benefits of a 247 365 operation. So when Craig our team with this concept of this shared model where students would be taking on a portion of the work and then over time that portion would increase but techream would always be there from an escalation standpoint from an expertise standpoint from a thought leadership standpoint as well as what we call the ugly hours meaning think midnight till 8:00 a.m. and weekends.
We just thought it was a great partnership model from that perspective to create a win-win. Additionally, we are a very fast and growing business. So when we think about the next generation of cyber security talent and our desire to keep the talent here in the United States and have it domestic run stock versus outsourcing it to say other parts of the world we also saw it as a mechanism to create and train student talent get them real world experience and then hopefully hire and in fact we've we've since done that hire that those students as full-time employees of Techstream andor find them uh careers in other state and local government entities or other private sector entities as they graduate.
So when you kind of combine those two paradigms, we thought it was just a a really good win-win situation, not only providing a high value solution for LSU, but as importantly giving these students great job opportunities in the future to grow. And I want to hi I want to highlight that if I can on what what Rob said because this is important when we when we talk I like to talk about how this model might be different than what people typical people are are realized with a studentr run sock and that's a big one what he said not only yes they're training and they're working as if they're Techstream employees but the the idea that Techstream will help them as they're getting ready to graduate with resume building with interview skills and finding them potential jobs, whether it's Techstream, which is, I think, a a great benefit that Techstream already knows these students.
They've been working with them for a while, so they know what they're getting, but also with other Techstream customers that they might, you know, be able to vouch for that student and uh tell them a lot about what they've done for them. That that is a great final piece that we're not sending our students out without anything. Techstream uh developed with us a report card that we give students as they graduate that shows exactly what they've been doing in the system because Splunk tracks everything that they do.
So, it's it's a real testament. It's a one-page thing that shows everything that they've done and they've done it for a real company or protecting our our our schools in the state. They're actually doing this work uh which is a huge benefit for them. And I just want to point out for those who don't know, when we talk about that cyber security skills shortage and the amount of positions out there that are open because they just either can't find or retain the talent, we're talking millions of open opportunities for these students to be able to go into.
And having that real world experience that they get while in school is so valuable. So, I also want to take a step back, Craig, because I'm thinking about you needing a sock in the first place as a university, as a school. And I'm wondering if you can paint a picture for me of just how much how great the risk, how great the threat is that LSU faces as a United States-based university. I mean, is this really something where you're you're getting threats or you're getting possible attacks on a regular basis? >> Oh, yeah.
It's constant. And again, closer to home here in Louisiana, we've had many schools over the last few years uh before we brought up this sock that were targets of attacks and were actually brought down to where they went weeks without being able to offer classes. They literally had to shut the school down. So it's a real risk and it's something you have to combat every day and not just from 8 to 5 which is I think the key here is we've now given ourselves that protection at all times which to me is critical but it is yeah we we are fading facing this challenge constantly.
It's a game of cat and mouse with us protecting and those attacking and us trying to trying to change course based upon what they're doing. And again, having someone like Techstream that is leading that effort for us is a huge uh benefit to a higher ed who might not have that expertise in house. >> I love the idea of you mentioned this was not something that you could or realistically could afford to build from scratch and that Rob you already had a basis for that.
Rob, you also mentioned there's been some success stories already like some grads that have gone in. Uh I believe this program has been going on for about three years. Please correct me if I'm wrong. >> Yes. Three and a half, two and a half years. >> That's a graduating class. Yeah, there's a graduating class that comes through from that somewhere in that math if I'm doing it correctly. It's been a while since my university days as you can see and math was not my strong suit.
But for you, Rob, how many how many students have already come out of of that program and come over to Techstream? >> Well, we hired uh the very first graduating class, we hired uh three students. They they were the first three that have come through. Uh >> it was 100%. So we only had graduating all three techstream hired and that was in uh in last um the end of the fall semester last year. So I was in January time frame, December, January. >> Exactly. >> That's how recent this is.
So it's pretty new. >> Yeah, >> that is amazing. And we've since hired uh a few more and and to Craig's earlier point, we've also created this concept of cyber security career counseling or what we refer to as C3 that are helping students that want that help get additional jobs. So it it's been a really great model. Um the ones that we've already hired are doing a tremendous job and the ones as we continue to grow this next batch of students that we are continually turnurning out will just have more and more opportunities not only here at Techstream but in in other entities that they they they desire to work.
I mentioned that talent skills gap earlier, Rob, and I was just wondering if perhaps from uh the business standpoint of somebody who runs a company that is always looking for cyber security talent. What has it been like for you out there in the world trying to recruit really good talent and then uh having something like this pipeline come in to be able to give you talent where you know exactly what you're getting? What has that been like? >> We think it's a strategic advantage for us.
Um uh really on two fronts. First, you you mentioned that there's simply a lack of talent out there in the marketplace. And honestly, the talent that exists is very expensive because there is that lack. It's a simple supply demand model. And that not only makes it expensive for companies less like us to hire that talent, but it also makes it expensive for organizations like Craig to also hire that talent, right? So, it's it's bringing up the cost for for everyone.
Additionally, we we find that the this the people that we hire that come in with experience, you know, some of them they have skills of course, but many of them have learned things that we want them to unlearn, let's just say. >> So, with with this model, we are able to partner with LSU and uh train and mentor these students in the exact way that we want to have in running our sock in the future. So, it's really an incredible win-win where we're teaching them the exact set of skills that not only going to make them successful at Techstream, but also make them highly successful in any endeavor that they wish to to go in.
So, I think it's just having that pipeline of students uh being able to mentor and train them in the way that we know they're going to be successful and then obviously having the opportunity to to onboard them to our company. It's good for the private sector, but it's uh in our mind, it's as important for the mission of solving the cyber security talent gap and providing these students with a great job opportunity. Uh you know, I don't know if you've been reading what's going on in the in the news, but I think this was the first time in the past 12 months that you student graduate uh uptick in or you know, higher rates is has really been a problem.
Uh, some of that's been NI AI driven, some of that's been economy driven, but these students that we're talking about are graduating with unbelievable resumes as Craig mentioned with extreme talent and experience and they are they are getting jobs and that's a huge part of the mission here and a big part of our partnership with LSU. >> And one other thing I want to mention as you mentioned Tiger Sock which is our second socks. So the first sock we opened up was what we call the LSU and Lonnie sock that which is serving all we're about 32 higher ed institutions that that sock is covering across the state and that's solely higher ed focus but Tiger sock was created to serve higher ed maybe outside the state or private businesses that text might you know get a client and then like he mentioned they can kind of outsource to us and Tiger sock to help keep cost down and give more students uh that experience.
But the other thing that we're we're we're hoping to do over time is for those private companies that might be engaging with Techstream and using Tigers on in the back end, those students will now be very familiar with that company's infrastructure. They will be monitoring and doing all that for that private company. So our hope is to say, hey, if you join in this program, company X or state entity X, we will give you the ability to maybe talk to and have have access to maybe do career days with our students and and make sure they understand that you have maybe some job openings and that it's a good pairing because much like Rob said, he's got, you know, the students that they're bringing in training are trained for Techstream and so it makes it really easy for them to move into that their career with Techstream.
We can do the same thing with any industry and create graduates who understand more about that industry and that company because they've been serving them for a year, two years, three years. >> I'm very curious to know if there's perhaps a success story that you could share with me, Craig, in which you you actively saw your students shut down a thread that was incoming. >> Yeah. I can't I won't I won't mention any names of course. >> Um but it was interesting because you know one of the benefits of working with Techstream is we do what's called a a QMA which is a quarterly assessment where they come down to Baton Rouge meet with our team and we kind of compare how is it going and look at some metrics and all of that.
And I remember there there was a number of people huddled in the corner uh during one of our meetings and it turned out that one of our students in the sock upstairs right upstairs from us had detected a potential ransomware that's about to happen at one of our state schools and they raised the red flag the student did up through Techstream and that set off alarms like we have programmed to where it wound up people that were here from Techstream were the ones that it would escalate to and they were all huddled around saying, "Okay, we've got an active and we were able to stop it and make it not do anything to that school." And I got to witness that firsthand, but it was a it was a catastrophe waiting to happen that we act and and like I said, we all got to watch it in motion real time.
They are making a difference. Both the students and this tech model is making a difference here in the state. How did you feel personally when you found out that happened? I was it was it's a and the fact that it was one of our students that originally detected it because it happened during on a weekday when the students were working made me feel better and and it was something that Techstream and LSU have believed in all along which is if you hire the right students and I'll talk some about how we find these students and and and and some of the some of the things we do that we believe collectively we can train them to be excellent security analysts and this was a good example of that.
You mentioned earlier around this the hiring the shortage of of of cyber people. So, one thing that I love about this program is that it's open to students of all backgrounds. So, you do not have to have or be a computer science major or a technology major or anything like that. In fact, you don't have to know anything about it to be considered for this position. You have to be able to critically think. And so there's a critical thinking test that every student applicant is given.
That critical thinking test was developed by Techstream. And a student has to score 75% or above to be considered for the position. It isn't until after that gatekeeping that we then find out what their IT skill set is. But that's not to determine if they get the job or not. That's just to determine their training plan. But we want people who can critically think and we believe we can teach them the rest. So this opens it up to people who might not be considering a cyber degree or a cyber job. uh but it gives us a much larger playing field and I believe understanding cyber security no matter what your field is even if you don't go into straight cyber security it's it's important and probably valuable to a potential employer that you know this stuff and you've done this and you know the field that they want.
I think that's a a huge benefit. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. And and Craig, I think with with this in mind that you're looking for students that don't necessarily come in with a matching, so to speak, uh major or even minor, how do they find out that they can get it get to be a part of this? Is this something that is it is it extracurricular? Is it curriculum based? Is it something that they see a flyer? How does that happen? How do they come to you? >> So, we have yet to have to advertise at all.
Um, and when we first opened up, we use a product called Handshake, which is a popular thing um, at higher ed to where we post all student jobs through that Handshake app and then students can go in and see what's available. That's all we've ever done. When we first opened this up, we got like a hundred students that applied within a few days. So, we haven't had to advertise yet to say, "Hey, we need more applicants." But my hope is as now Tiger gets more and more outfitted that we are going to be employing a lot more students at a time, graduating a lot more students and then we might have to start advertising and say, "Hey, we need more of you to apply." But that has not been an issue yet. >> Rob, has it not been an issue?
The students that have been involved are are enough and they're doing a good job right now. >> They're absolutely doing an incredible job. And you part of what we've done as a as part of the onboarding process is that there is a a tiering system where they're only getting incidents of certain complexity until they prove that they can get to the next complexity level. So the students are never put in a situation where they're addressing something that they can't be successful at.
Nor are we collectively giving them uh issues that they can't be successful at because at the end of the day we are securing not only LSU and the other schools but also other companies. So this complexity ranking and ensuring that there's a a a maturation level before they can uh go to that next next tier is uh hugely important a for the you know students confidence but also obviously just for the core security of the service that we're delivering. >> I'd like to talk more about the onboarding that you mentioned because you've you've also brought up Craig and Rob some other schools some other socks.
Is this a blueprint that you've created to be able to expand outside of LSU? Tell me about that. >> Yeah, so we um from the get-go, we built this with the idea would we wanted to be able to scale. And part of it here in Louisiana, we didn't just want LSU to be the one giving students this great experience. We wanted to open it up to any school in the state. And by doing that, we were able to secure some state funding to allow us to pay for this program in the state.
But um we did set it up and designed it like uh it's a franchise model to where we have the blueprint set on how to set up the space, what the training program would be, obviously doing the critical thinking tests and and all of that. And if a school in the state wants their students to get that real world experience, they open up a they open up a local sock on their campus and those students are onboarded trained the same way and they all also roll up under Techstream.
Um, and we've got two other schools, LE and LSU Shrefport have their own local socks that have their students working in the same fashion, trained in the same way. And like I said, the model has worked. so well it has scaled so well again part of that is by design that we've now opened up to anyone in the country and so we do have New Jersey Institute of Technology now also is opening up their own and their students just started a couple of weeks ago in their sock same process same training they also are umbrella under techstream and we're in talks with quite a few universities across the country hoping to join because I think The more that we can get to join, the more we can create economies of scale and standardization of some things that will allow us to keep the cost down to make it affordable to all higher ed and hopefully other other entities. >> Incredible.
And I I have to say I'm excited to hear about New Jersey being from there originally myself. So there's a point of pride for me to say I'm glad they're getting on board. That's exciting to know. I I also want to point out, Craig, you know, we're talking about a position that I think when students go to college, I don't know if they're immediately thinking about a job in cyber security. How do you position the opportunity to your students that may be on the fence about coming over and getting more involved in this kind of curriculum and ultimately this kind of industry?
How do you talk to them about why this is somewhere that they want to take their career? So when I say we have an advertise, we we we have done a little bit to where like my chief information security officer or some other folks have visited classes. Well, again, the faculty member usually invites us and they've talked about the sock and what it means. Uh it's also by far the highest paying job on campus for a student. So I think that helps them get interested in in hay. and and we've had I think once they're here, even if they're just starting, we've had um entities tour the sock.
So, we offer some tours of the sock and some of those entities would come in and and see the students working. And I remember them asking, "Which ones of you are getting ready to graduate at the end of this semester?" And a few of the students raised their hand and they all said to them, "Would you like a job? Would you like a job? would you like a job? And so all these students are seeing how much in demand they are because of the experience they're getting and we do tours all the time.
I think our students know this is this is a unique opportunity they have here that they really don't have other than if you go to NGIT or if you go to L tech. It's a great opportunity. I think they do realize that maybe not right away but once they're here and working they definitely do. I also know that you mentioned that you wanted Splunk to be the SIM in this case. So Rob, is is that talk to me about that opportunity that you had working with Splunk and are are they aware that this is going on directly and how do they feel about it based on what you know? >> Uh for sure Splunk is uh been a huge you know uh partner as part of this solution um as does some of the infrastructure that this runs on which is uh on top of a Amazon Web Services AWS. uh they've been a critical partner in this not only in a model that can scale financially for uh many organizations uh but also in how they've supported the training uh and other aspects of the program.
So they they've definitely been a critical partner. They've been uh as Craig mentioned in fact conversations with Splunk before he was in conversation with with Techstream. So they have definitely been a critical partner in this and have been a big supporter of not only what we've done at LSU and Lonnie with the other entities within the state of Louisiana, but also a huge supporter of how do we take this model and expand it to other universities and state entities for that matter and get uh more economies of scale, more people as part of what we call the neighborhood because as we're seeing issues and I I I didn't want to interrupt you earlier, Craig, But one of the things that you touched on is that the more schools or entities that are in this model, Techstream as kind of the mothership over all of this, we're constantly seeing issues happening at other uh customers.
And what typically happens in the cyber security world and there was just one last week with a a Microsoft issue for example when whenever there's an issue or like a zero day kind of issue, many organizations are susceptible to it. So if we find it in one organization and solve it there, we have a technological capability to push out that solution or that uh patch so to speak to every single entity on the platform. So the more and more people that are on the platform, the better off everyone is uh together.
So there really is a an idea of collaboration and economies of scale that this model brings. So uh Splunk has been a very large support of that as has uh AWS >> and we call that our neighborhood watch right and which is yeah the more the more people we have looking out for each other we're sharing that thread intel and then through Splunk soore which we rely heavily on Techstream has it all programmed to where everybody can have their firewalls automatically blocked from from a zero day issue that one school detects everybody else benefits from that detection.
So that's why yeah the more we have we can make ourselves stronger together. >> Craig, if another school came to you, if you met with another CIO from a different university and said, "How do we get involved?" What is the first thing that you would tell them to get started? >> I probably have calls weekly with schools uh across the country and I show them how we got to where we are. Uh, but my overall advice is get with Techstream and look at joining this program because we've already got a lot of the stuff figured out for you.
No need to recreate the wheel. And when I mentioned, you know, is more like a franchise model. I think the difference here, and I've used this analogy before, if somebody wants to open up a McDonald's, right, they can, and they get all the menus and they get the recipes and they get all that, but when they open up that restaurant, the sign on the door is going to say McDonald's. In this case, the sock that opened in New Jersey at New NJT is the NJIT sock.
It's their sock. They get to advertise it. They get to attract students because of it. It is not the Techstream sock or the LSU sock or anything like that. So, every school gets to brand it their own. And I think that's what differentiates it. So, why recreate that wheel? Use what we've got, get into the program that Techream has and then you still can call it your own and you can still take the credit for it and all that and and use it as a uh marketing tool to attract students.
That's my advice to them. Don't don't do it yourself. No need to. Yeah. >> And Rob, going back over to you, I did want to make sure that I ask a little bit about Techstream independently of this particular project. Who are your typical customers when we're really looking to get to know you as as the MSP that you are? I know you specialize in MDR. So, who are those typical customers that you tell these students you you cover? Obviously, not names, but what verticals are they typically in? >> A great great question.
And you know one of the positive things about cyber security if there is one is that it's not discerning to any specific industry company size etc. You know early on many uh bad actors were going after large companies you know that had maybe large credit card transaction companies you know that have data but those companies have gotten really smart and they've been able to spend millions of dollars to secure their borders so to speak. Now the bad actors are really focusing I would say down market to the smaller companies.
So maybe sub 500 million state and local government and higher education is absolutely target as Craig mentioned earlier because they've traditionally not had the budgetary means to spend like private sector. So we really honestly have customers in every single industry in every single size. We have customers that are a billion dollars and above in revenue. We have customers that are uh half a million dollars that are in the private sector and then we have a number of uh state and local government entities and higher education customers.
So it it's it's a great opportunity for those students to be able to join an organization that's serving such a wide variety of of industries and as I mentioned you know cyber security issues are not uh discerning to an industry and all of us in this neighborhood watch concept can benefit from each other. It doesn't matter that uh it's a higher education entity or a billion-doll company. a zero day issue that gets picked up at LSU is going to benefit the billion-dollar company and vice versa.
So, there's really value for everybody being part of the model. And frankly, I think that's why a lot of companies have have joined because they see the value of being part of a larger solution rather than just uh being in their own microcosm and their own um kind of one-off paradigm. Well, as we wrap up here, I'd love for our viewers to know where they can reach out to you for all their varied needs, whether it be learning more about Techstream services individually per business or learning more about the sock at LSU and how they can take that and scale it to wherever these schools are.
So, Rob, first I'll start with you. Tell me where we can get in touch with Techstream and learn more if we're watching and want to learn more about your solutions. techstream.com is uh by far the best area. Uh there's two really good parts to go to. We have a security tab that outlines a lot of what we've talked about here. And we also have a public sector tab that specifically goes into a lot of the depth here around what we've done with LSU and some of the other peer schools.
So that's uh there's a higher education and K12 tab and there's uh this concept that we haven't really branded as part of this conversation but what we call workforce development uh which is kind of our overall um moniker around how we build and train students and you bring them uh to to market so to speak. So there's a workforce development page under our public sector drop down as well. >> Fabulous. And Craig, what if we want to learn more about this sock and the plans to make that a blueprint and bring that wherever those universities want to bring it?
How can we learn more? >> So, you could always reach out to me directly. Um, one, you could get to me through textream also. So, you know, if you want to set something up, but um I'm at sewylsu.edu. And notice the spelling of my name underneath me because I have an extra L. Uh, but you can definitely get in touch with me. I'm always happy. It is the most um exciting thing I've done in my 37year career. So, I'm always excited to talk about it. We're just thrilled with how it's working and how the partnership has has flourished. >> Gentlemen, I am so excited I got the chance to talk to you today.
Thank you so much for your time and I'm really excited to continue to watch this partnership between LSU and Techstream. Go Tiger Sock. >> Thank you, Katie. We've enjoyed it as well. Thanks so much to Craig and Rob for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening. You can check out every episode of Channel Insider Partner POV on channelinsider.com or watch us on YouTube at youtube.com/ channelinsider_news and trends. You can also listen to us as a podcast wherever you get your podcast from.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow wherever possible to never miss an episode. Once again, I'm Katie Bavoso and I'll see you next time.
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