National Labs and Industry Partner to Train Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Specialists

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Bechtel BNI are joining forces to a new class of cyberdefense professionals to protect the nation’s critical digital infrastructure. The Bechtel-Lawrence Livermore-Los Alamos Cyber Career Development Program is designed to allow the national labs to recruit and rapidly develop cybersecurity specialists who can guide research at their respective institutions and create solutions that meet the cyberdefense needs of private industry, which owns about 80 percent of the nation’s critical digital infrastructure and assets.

The program will provide recruits with experience in the labs’ national defense research and development culture and hands-on experience in Bechtel’s global cyber operations. The cyberdefense recruits will be rotated among the three institutions as part of their training to give them a broader view of cyberdefense and quickly leverage the strengths of each program partner. The rotational program will train recruits at an accelerated pace through exposure to various corporate environments.

Recruits will be evenly distributed across the three institutions. After one year, participants will rotate to the other institutions before returning to the hiring organization as a permanent employee. Bechtel will fund the first two years of the program.