CSO Conference & Awards: A Golden Opportunity

On the CSO event team, we had a rooting interest in the Para triathlon this past weekend in Paris.

Competing among the 4,500 athletes in the 17^th Summer Paralympic Games was Melissa Stockwell, a three-time World Champion in the sport, and a keynote speaker at the upcoming CSO Conference & Awards.

The event – in which athletes swim, cycle, and run – is taxing, and Stockwell was up to the challenge. She finished fifth, with teammate Hailey Danz winning the gold.

Stockwell will bring her story of achievement at the Paralympics as well as her larger journey to the CSO Conference & Awards, taking place October 21-23 near Phoenix.

As a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, she deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, where a blast from a roadside bomb struck her Humvee. She lost her left leg above the knee – the first female soldier to lose a limb in active combat – and was awarded both the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart.

Following her long road to recovery, she learned many hard lessons about the support of a team, believing in ourselves, and the power of choice. No person or organization can avoid obstacles in life, whether they come in the form of bombs or cyberattacks. But we can control our response.

Our team is excited to bring Stockwell to our event. We know that many people in the cybersecurity community also come from military backgrounds and can relate to her experience. And the demanding components of a triathlon require sustained excellence across multiple disciplines, not unlike the demands of complex IT and infosec environments.