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NICE Community Coordinating Council

Meeting 

March 24, 2021 | 3:30-5:00 p.m. ET

I. Introduction and Ground Rules

NICE Program Manager Susana Barraza welcomed everyone to the meeting and reviewed 

the council’s mission and goal. She encouraged everyone to participate via the Chat space

and noted that the meeting is not intended for commercial or promotional purposes.

II. Opening Remarks

a. Industry Co-Chair Jon Brickey, Senior Vice President at Mastercard, said there is 

optimism in the air as vaccinations continue rolling out. Some business travel has begun

again, and there are signs of more travel on the horizon. He provided three updates:

• He reviewed the recently released NICE Framework Competencies: Assessing 

Learners for Cybersecurity Work, and he introduced it to a New York job council. 

• They are developing a partnership with a community college and discussing a talent 

platform that leverages the competencies. 

• He met with new HR partners at his company, and he might be gaining some 

traction. 

b. Academic Co-Chair Marni Baker-Stein, Chief Academic Officer and Provost at Western 

Governors University, provided three updates:

• There is a lot of exciting work and piloting taking place with the NICE Framework, 

and this month’s NICE webinar, Advancing Skills-Based Education and Hiring 

Through the Open Skills Network, is generating a lot of good discussion.

• The longer-term impacts of Covid19 on education are beginning to be evaluated. 

The good news is that we’re seeing increased state funding and support for higher 

education. Funding from the CARES Act is helping as well. 

• The bad news is that a recent survey by Course Hero found that 28% of college

students have been experiencing job loss. A large percentage say they may have to 

drop out of college to earn money. A recent ECMC survey found a drop over the last 

8 months in the number of students expecting to go to college. Many said they want 

to gain valuable skills and work. The demand for certifications is going to rise, and it 

would be powerful to integrate them into degree programs. 

c. Government 

• NICE Framework Manager Karen Wetzel announced that they released draft NISTIR 

8355, NICE Framework Competencies: Assessing Learners for Cybersecurity Work. 

The document provides more detail about the newest addition to the NICE 

Framework - competencies. It does not yet have the associated TKS statements. 

The comment period is from March 17 to May 3, 2021, and the goal is to get 

feedback to determine what additional information or adjustments might be 

necessary. The end goal is to have these completed, along with updates on the TKS 

statements and work roles, by November this year. 
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• Government Co-chair Rodney Petersen, Director of NICE, pointed out that the 

National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021 reinforces NICE’s responsibilities 

and charges the program with a couple additional tasks, which they will focus on 

over the next 18 months.

- Identification of multiple cybersecurity career pathways: Use a consultative 

process to identify multiple career pathways for cybersecurity work roles that 

can be used in the private and public sectors. 

- Ensure that the multiple cybersecurity career pathways identified indicate the 

knowledge, skills, and abilities, including relevant education, training, 

internships, apprenticeships, certifications, and other experiences, that— (A) 

align with employers’ cybersecurity skill needs, including proficiency level 

requirements, for its workforce; and (B) prepare an individual to be successful in 

entering or advancing in a cybersecurity career.

It is helpful to be working with the term “proficiency level.” NICE welcomes input

from the community and examples of how the term is being used in practice. 

The new NICE Strategic Plan includes the goal to Promote the Discovery of 

Cybersecurity Careers and Multiple Pathways. The goal is grounded in the definition 

of “career pathway” in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014: A 

“combination of rigorous and high-quality education, training, and other services 

that: (A) aligns with the skill needs of industries in the economy of the State or 

regional economy involved; (B) prepares an individual to be successful in any of a 

full range of secondary or postsecondary education options.”

III. Standing Items

a. Strategy Stories - New Developments that Align to NICE Strategic Plan

Howard Community College STEM Challenge Grant: A Response to Cybersecurity 

Workforce Demand in Central Maryland

Presented by Dr. Patrick Valdivia, Manager of Computing and Cyber Lab Services, 

Howard Community College, and Minah Woo, Associate Vice President, Continuing 

Education/Workforce Development, Howard Community College

URL: https://www.eda.gov/oie/stem/2020/

• HCC was awarded one of the inaugural EDA STEM Talent Challenge grants for 

increasing placements in central Maryland in four NICE Framework Roles: Service 

Technical Support; Network Operations Specialist; Cyber Defense Analyst; Software 

Developer

They have apprenticeship occupations in each of the four roles, and additional 

placements will be made for Business Intelligence Analysts (a non-cyber position).

As part of the grant, HCC is developing new programs in Cloud Operations and 

Security Data Analytics. 

• Modernizing Talent Management Through Apprenticeship: Since February 2020, 

HCC partnered with a national company that has sponsored 49 IT apprentices and 5 

software development apprentices.
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- 39% of the apprentices are between the ages of 18 and 24; 29% between the 

ages of 25 and 30; 17% between the ages of 31 and 35; 11% between the ages 

of 36 and 40; 4% are 41 and above.

- 70% are male; 30% female

- 39% White; 33% Black; 20% Asian; 6% Hispanic; 2% Pacific Islander

- Apprentices come from multiple pathways, including IT, military, nursing, HR, 

accounting and finance. 

b. Report Roundup - Learning from Good Ideas

Remote Work in the Capital Region

Presented by JB Holsten, CEO, Greater Washington Partnership

URL: https://greaterwashingtonpartnership.com/publications/remote-work-in-thecapital-region/

About 30 of the largest employers in the greater Washington region support the work of 

the Greater Washington Partnership. From Richmond to Baltimore, the region is techheavy and higher education-heavy. It has a highly innovative and resourceful economy 

but is not necessarily known for that. 

• Current Initiatives:

- Skills and Talent: Drive the ability to remain competitive and develop a 

sustainable pipeline 

- Regional Mobility: Expands the options for employment and housing; enables 

the connection of people, ideas and innovation 

- Inclusive Growth: The moral and economic imperative of our time

• Main Findings from the Report:

- Work is going to be more hybrid following the pandemic: Twenty percent of the 

employees in region will work from home three days or more a week, but very 

few employers say they will be working entirely remotely.

- The large increase in remote work has infrastructure implications. For example, 

in the transportation systems, more fractal commuting patterns will bring 

increased costs for the systems and may decrease revenue. 

- The issue of hybrid working is not uniform – it varies depending on the part of 

the region you’re in. This creates risk for the urban cores, and the communities 

in these areas are at the greatest risk, including small business owners and nonessential front line workers whose jobs depended on the commuting workforce. 

There will be pretty severe implications with regard to the impact on 

commercial real estate. What does the inclusive recovery path need to look 

like? 

c. Framework Feature - Applications and Uses of Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity

President's Cup Cybersecurity Competition

Presented by Michael Harpin, CISA, project lead for President’s Cup 

URL: https://presidentscup.cisa.gov/

• Background: Executive Order 13870 called for the establishment of the competition 

to identify and reward the best cybersecurity practitioners in the US Government 
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executive workforce, strengthen our nation’s cybersecurity talent, spread 

awareness of the cybersecurity profession and incentivize career in cyber defense.

The NICE Framework is integrated in the initial stages of planning and development 

for the competition to ensure that is a well-rounded event and that challenges 

relate to real-world scenarios. There was a shift in team dynamics between 2019 

and 2020 to better match the NICE Framework. The NICE Framework will be used as 

the focal point for future challenge development. 

• Presidents Cup 2019:

- Two tracks – teams and individuals

- Challenges were mapped to categories from EO 13870 and the NICE 

Framework.

- Leveraging the NICE Framework categories led to a successful competition, but 

using lower levels could target specialized skill sets. 

• Presidents Cup 2020:

- NICE Framework work-role based. They separated the individuals competitions 

into two separate tracks.

- Work roles for competitions were determined based on experience and insights 

from President’s Cup Team.

- Work Roles and Tasks were identified in the gameboard.

• Future Considerations:

- Continue using and promoting NICE Framework.

- Explore employment trends in work roles, tasks, and competencies. Identify 

additional areas of NICE Framework to incorporate to address all aspects of 

cybersecurity. 

- Examine ways to leverage NICE Framework to target competitions towards 

personnel interested in or starting a cyber career. 

d. Research Review - Highlighting Research Results or Topics for Further Study

Securing a Nation: Improving Federal Cybersecurity Hiring in the United States

Presented by Will Markow, Managing Director, Human Capital Management and 

Emerging Technologies, Burning Glass Technologies

URL: https://www.burning-glass.com/research-project/cybersecurity-securing-nation

• The federal government is largest U.S. employer of cybersecurity workers, but 

federal hiring is fragmented. Public data on the overall federal cybersecurity 

workforce is limited, hindering attempts to enhance workforce development efforts.

• Securing a Nation aims to quantify the federal cybersecurity workforce and make 

data-driven recommendations for enhancing federal cybersecurity hiring. 

• To quantify the workforce, they identified jobs across 165 unique federal hiring 

entities, mapped federal jobs to Burning Glass data and the NICE Framework, and 

analyzed jobs with cyber skills, credentials, or titles.

• Key Findings:
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- Workers join the federal government but don’t stay. Nearly one in five cyber 

workers leave the federal government each year. 

- A pay gap problems persist. Private sector employers pay cyber workers 23%

more than the federal government, but entry-level salaries are comparable.

- Federal workers aren’t future ready. The private sector is 87% more likely to 

request emerging skills.

- There is a dearth of federal workers securing IT infrastructure. Private sector 

employers are more than twice as likely to request jobs in the Securely Provision

NICE Workforce Category.

- Education requirement needs right-sizing. Federal cyber jobs are nearly four 

times as likely to request a graduate degree than jobs in the private sector, but 

also dramatically less likely to request a bachelor’s degree. On one hand they 

are constraining their talent pool, but on the other hand they are expanding 

their talent pool. 

• Recommendations:

- Expand recruiting to skill-adjacent and more diverse talent pools.

- Modernize capabilities with re-architected role descriptions and targeted 

training of future-ready skills.

- Increase compensation of all kinds where possible.

- Re-evaluate credential and experience requirements.

- Build new opportunities for upward mobility.

- Standardize cybersecurity role descriptions and nomenclature.

- Support the broader ecosystem of cybersecurity workforce development.

IV. Working Group Updates

a. Promote Career Discovery

James “Jimmy” Baker, Cybersecurity Evangelist and Author or, Roland Varriale II, 

Cybersecurity Analyst, Argonne National Laboratory

Exciting work is taking place on the first objectives of the group’s goal, which 

corresponds to Goal 1 of the NICE Strategic Plan. If anyone wants to contribute to the 

group’s environmental scan, contact the co-chairs or liaison. They are looking for 

feedback on cyber events to add to the scan. Next month, they will begin working on 

their second and third objectives. For more information or to contribute, email Jimmy: 

james@jamesjbaker.com

b. Transform Learning Process

Dr. Aurelia T. Williams, Interim Vice Provost for Academic Administration, Norfolk State 

University; or Richard Spires, Instructor, Learning Tree

The group is meeting twice a month to work through its six objectives. After each 

meeting, they establish a subgroup that takes the raw data from the meeting and 

creates a more polished statement that can be used in developing strategies and 

objectives. So far, they have discussed two objectives. It’s not too late to join the group. 

c. Modernize Talent Management

Karen Jensen, Saaby Consulting; or Kevin Perry, Chief Cyber Training, DoD Cyber Crime 

Center/Cyber Training Academy; or Melissa Woo, Executive Vice President for 

Administration, Michigan State University
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The co-chairs met almost every week this month to discuss the group’s objectives. There 

was a lot of feedback and discussion at the last meeting about entry-level opportunities. 

For example, how does entry-level in cybersecurity compare to entry-level in other 

industries? 

V. Community of Interest Updates

a. Apprenticeships in Cybersecurity

Tony Bryan, Executive Director, CyberUp; or, Jennifer Oddo Executive Director, Strategic 

Workforce Education and Innovation, Youngstown State University

The group is engaged in two main projects:

- Building the ROI for cybersecurity Apprenticeships

- Comparative Learning Models

Some funding for apprenticeships has been made available, and they are expecting 

significant additional funding to come out in the months ahead. 

b. Cybersecurity Skills Competitions

Amelia Phillips, Highline College; or Brad Wolfenden, EmberSec

The group met last week and discussed the challenges of moving competitions to 

remote formats, especially those that involve audience participation. They also 

discussed some upcoming events:

- Social Engineering Educator Workshop, June 7, 2021

- Social Engineering Pen Test Competition for full-time high school, 

undergraduate, and graduate students. Applications are due by April 15, 2021

NSF grants are available for these events. 

c. K12 Cybersecurity Education

Terrance Campbell, CCTE Cybersecurity Teacher - Shelby County Schools; or Laurin 

Buchanan, Secure Decisions

At the last meeting, they saw a demonstration of an activity to use with students to 

teach them about the complexity of passwords. The group is working with an overview 

of environmental scan of efforts in K12 cybersecurity education and will be using it in a

roadmap they are developing. 

d. NICE Framework Users

Karen Wetzel, Manager of the NICE Framework

There are about 130 participants so far in the NICE Framework Users Group, which is 

online-only.

VI. Project Progress Reports

a. NICE Conference and Expo

Presenter: Randy Pestana, Florida International University

URL: https://niceconference.org/

- Save the Date: June 6-8, 2022, Atlanta, Georgia

- Theme: Demystifying Cybersecurity: Integrative Approaches to Developing 

Career Pathways
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- Sept. 14, 2021: One-day virtual conference on curriculum linked to the NICE 

Framework in in Latin America and the Caribbean

- November 2021: Hybrid event with California State University, San Bernardino

b. NICE K12 Cybersecurity Education Conference

Presenter: Felicia Rateliff, Director of Operations & Programs, iKeepSafe

URL: https://www.k12cybersecurityconference.org/

- Save the Date: December 6-7, 2021, Virtual Conference

- March 25, 2021: First planning committee meeting

- April 13 to June 18, 2021: Call for Proposals 

- Mid-August: Early-bird registration opens; agenda goes live

- Late October: Early-bird registration closes

- December 4-5: Pre-conference workshops

- More updates to come next month: Keynotes, Cyber Signing Day

- Accepting exhibitors and sponsors. $750 for-profit companies/$500 non-profit 

organizations. If you’re interested, email Felicia: conference@ikeepsafe.org

c. Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cybersecurity Community

Presenter: Amy Hysell, Cybersecurity Center, California State University, San Bernardino

URL: https://www.caecommunity.org/

- Sept. 17, 2021: National Cybersecurity Virtual Career Fair – If you are interested 

in hosting a booth, contact Amy.

- Oct 12-15, 2021: PI Planning Meeting, hybrid event

- November 16-18, 2021: PI Meeting, hybrid event

- June 9-10, 2022: Symposium

VII. Featured Topic

2021 Cybersecurity Role & Career Path Clarity Study: Using the NICE Workforce Framework for 

Cybersecurity to recruit talent and upskill teams

Presented by Megan Sawle, Vice President, Marketing, INFOSEC Institute

URL: https://infosecinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-Cybersecurity-RoleCareer-Path-Clarity-Study.pdf

• Surveyed the community on how many people have adopted the Framework, how far 

along they are, and how they are in using it. 

• Survey Methodology: Surveyed 370 IT and cybersecurity managers at organizations 

with at least 1000 employees. Work frameworks work.

• Main Finding: 81% of organizations surveyed are at least considering aligning job 

descriptions to the NICE Framework. Of the 81%, 39% are considering aligning, 26% are 

in the process of aligning, and 16% have job descriptions already mapped to the 

Framework.

• Interest in the NICE Framework spans all organization sizes: 33% of organizations with 

1,000-5,000 employees use it for creating or modifying cybersecurity job descriptions, 

compared with 38% of organizations with 5,000-10,000 employees, 41% with 10,000-

20,000 employees, 36% with 20,000-50,000 employees, and 40% with 50,000 

employees or more.
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• Satisfaction with recruiting was greater for organizations with job descriptions already 

mapped to NICE compared to organizations with no intent to map to NICE. 84% of 

those with job descriptions already mapped to NICE were satisfied or extremely satisfied 

compared to 36% of those with no intent to map to NICE. This is likely due to improved 

role clarity in recruiting. 

• Organizations of all sizes want help scaling NICE mapping efforts. 

• InfoSec is looking at this research to develop extremely specific role-based employee 

development plans. 

• They are always looking for collaborators to work with on their research. Contact Megan 

for more information: Megan.sawle@infosecinstitute.com 

• Q&A

Q: Did you discover big differences between public and private sector organizations?

A: Yes, in team sizes and training budgets. 

Q: Are there plans to look at adoption of the Framework by smaller organizations?

A: The study looked at enterprises. They built the study when they thought adoption 

wouldn’t be where it is today. Role clarity seems to be more a function of team size than 

organization size. If anyone wants to look more deeply into that, contact Megan.

Q: Are the FTEs internal or outsourced?

A: They did not look into how much is internal versus external.

VIII. Closing Remarks and Next Meeting Reminder

• NICE will host the 2021 Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Summit, April 27, 2021, in 

partnership with OPM, for federal employees only. Register here.

• The next NICE Community Meeting will be April 28, 2021, at 3:30 p.m. ET