Kansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (KEC), the statewide association for Kansas electric co-ops, seeks a Cybersecurity Director. This position plays an important role in strengthening KEC’s and its members’ cybersecurity resilience by providing an improved understanding of emerging cyber threats and available threat mitigations.

This position will also oversee the management of KEC information technology architecture including design, network topology, and managed services contractor engagement. This position also advocates for solutions that are in the best interest of KEC as a whole and maintains that perspective as new technology and architecture is integrated into business operations.

Major Duties:

• Work with the Kansas Intelligence Fusion Center (KIFC) to optimize KEC’s utilization of available government resources on both physical security and cybersecurity topics as they apply to Kansas Electric Cooperatives.
• Subscribe to and stay active with the Electric Sector Information and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). 
• Stay abreast of reporting emerging from the E-ISAC and pertinent communities within HSIN.  Read this reporting and pass along pertinent reports to members along with additional analysis when possible.
• Assist KEC and members with utilizing partnership with the KIFC to provide better understanding of architectural gaps in network defenses.
• Perform threat hunting activities on KEC networks using appropriate tools including but not limited to firewall log traffic analysis.
• Assist and advise members on threat hunting skills and tools.
• Assist members by developing network architectural design options to improve cyber defenses.
• Provide KEC and the members’ technical staff with unclassified emerging threat information tailored to their specific assets.
• Interpret and apply threat information, provided by US Government Intelligence Community reporting, to vulnerabilities and consequences of member networks without compromising sensitive government information or the privacy of KEC and its members.
• Assist members with pertinent cyber terms in contracts and associated contract negotiations when requested.
• Act as cyber consultant to member leadership in managing their cyber incidents.  Help leadership understand what resources are available and the best entities to engage for assistance.  Act as member proxy, when requested, to outside resource responding to a cyber issue.
• Interpret and apply threat information, provided by US Government Intelligence Community reporting, to vulnerabilities and consequences of member networks.
• Provide updates to organization leadership pertaining to emerging threats and progress in member cyber resilience.
• Communicate KEC policy positions through direct conversations, presentations, and written statements.
• Oversee KEC’s managed services provider’s administration of KEC’s network and suite of business applications as the primary IT technical Subject Matter Expert (SME).  Provide guidance to the service provider in a manner where the benefit to KEC organization is maximized.
• Provide general assistance to KEC staff and overall programming as needed including, but not limited to, meetings, training, and special events or projects.
• Stay current with issues important to member electric cooperatives and KEC members.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications include:

• College degree.
• Must have at least five (5) years’ experience related to the electric industry technical support operations in either Operations Technology (OT) or Information Technology (IT).
• Demonstrated proficiency in managing ethernet wired and wireless networks including but not limited to routers, switches, access points, and mesh networks.
• Prefer familiarity with manipulating large .csv data sets with spreadsheets or command line utilities via scripting. Some data sets may exceed one million rows.
• Demonstrated proficiency in managing Microsoft networks Forrest/Domain architectures.
• Prefer education or background in intelligence analysis.
• Prefer education or background in Linux administration and command line utilities.
• Prefer understanding of operating processes within government classified facilities.
• Must be eligible or possess current government clearance at the TS-SCI level.

About Kansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc.

KEC is the Kansas statewide service organization for 26 electric distribution cooperatives and three generation and transmission cooperatives. Formed on August 18, 1941, and headquartered in Topeka, KEC represents the interests and provides needed services and programs to the electric co-ops that serve Kansans.

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