Katy Craig, National University

Trac Bannon: 

When I met Katy Craig in 2017, it was in her role as a cyber security pro. She was working for Deloitte focusing on DoD and more specifically, the Navy. 

Given her cool and matter of fact countenance, she struck me as a natural for identifying and mitigating risk. More importantly was her handling of issues that struck. She is level headed and her delivery is often as even and level as her opinion and common sense. 

So it was no stretch to find out over dinner one evening in San Diego that she also taught college courses on cyber security and ethical hacking. I found myself thinking, wow, this is a badass. 

According to a research study of 30 million cyber security analysts profiled by Zipplia, nearly 79% of cybersecurity professionals are male. That’s the current state of the industry. Imagine what it was like in 1989 when Katy first got started in security.

Katy Craig: 

Depending on how you describe cyber or define cyber, I’ve been in cybersecurity since 1989 because even the RF pipes that carry the signals that, you know, the data’s riding on, that’s all part of it. So I think being an electronics technician in the United States Navy, working with classified systems and information… there’s an access control model, right? It is a natural extension to go from electronics technician to cybersecurity. And like you said, because it’s the military, our mission is based on security. So security’s just baked in

Trac Bannon: 

You are listening to Real Technologists. I’m your host, Trac Bannon, coming to you from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Each week we choose a unique guest behind leading Edge Tech innovation to explore their genuine stories, their true journeys. Technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s being driven by diverse perspectives and experiences of real humans.

You’re in the right spot to hear about the Real Technologists reshaping our world. Stay tuned for stories that will give you something to noodle on.

Katy’s passion and understanding grew from her experience in the Navy. That progression seems to make sense though there’s an interesting twist of Katy enlisting in the Navy. You see, Katy’s an Army Brat. She was born at Fort Ord, California, a former United States Army Post on Monterey Bay. In 1994, Ford Ord was abandoned by the military during one of the rounds of Base Realignment and closure often called the BRAC action. Many of the old military buildings were abandoned and some structures have been torn down, replaced with college buildings for a California state university.

Then like many Army brats, she moved a bit when she was young. She remembers living in Germany, then Okinawa, Japan, where her younger brother was born. 

Katy Craig: 

I was born and raised on the Monterey Peninsula, which is on the central coast of California, about a hundred miles south of San Francisco. And when I was born, there was a large army base there that’s not there anymore.

But then in the mid seventies we landed back in Fort Ord. That was after my dad did a couple tours in Vietnam. So like many other children from my era, we ended up back in Fort Ord and that’s where my mom bought her current house, our family home, and she still lives there. So I grew up there.

Trac Bannon: 

College had always been a part of her plan… a belief instilled in her by her South Korean mom. 

Katy Craig: 

Surprisingly, my mom from South Korea, simple country farm girl. High school education came to a, you know, strange country… didn’t the language or anything. She started telling me when I was real young… “You were born here, you’re an American. You can be anything you want to be. You can be the president of the United States and you can be Miss America, but you don’t need to be a wife or a mother to have a good life. You need an education. You need to go to school.” And she said that to me over and over again at different points throughout my life so that by the time I was 17, I believed it. Like, I don’t need to get married and I don’t need to be a mother to have a good life.

Trac Bannon: 

Katy has always taken her own path and taken full responsibility. During her high school years, she made a series of decisions that would change her pathway forever. She ran away from home, not once, but twice, and the destination was Nashville. She did return home… 

Katy Craig:

I took the road less traveled. I mean, you’re probably not gonna be surprised to hear this… But, or maybe you will be. I ran away from home as a teenager to Nashville, Tennessee, twice. So I did not have a regular high school career as most students do. I was actually the anti pattern for what teenagers are supposed to do. By taking such a long break from my high school career, when I finally returned home at the age of 17. I had to go to continuation school. I went through all the bad, bad girl high school stuff. But ended up graduating, you know, with my class only three months behind from Pacific Grove Adult High School.

Trac Bannon:

Katy was able to double-down and graduate only three months behind her Pacific Grove Adult High School class. But she had screwed up her high school career. No colleges or universities were interested. Competition for college admissions, especially at this time included qualities like community volunteering and citizenship. Every activity you were a part of was meticulously cataloged. For Katy, there would be no scholarships. 

Katy Craig:

You got to remember, I was born to a Korean immigrant. So college, university degrees, that was all part of my plan, from my mom’s perspective. And I had just screwed it all up. So when I joined the military, I needed someone to educate me, teach me a skill, clothed me, feed me, housed me. That’s what I was looking for, because I had screwed up my high school career.

Trac Bannon: 

In a bold move that most 18 year old girls would never have dreamed of, in 1985 Katy enlisted in the military. She was all too familiar with the Army. She knew the Army first hand and had no desire to join the Army. She set her sights and aim high: US Air Force. 

Katy Craig: 

And as soon as I got that diploma in my hand, I walked down to Lighthouse Avenue where all four branches have recruiters. And walked into the Air Force recruiting office and as soon as they had their initial conversation with me, they said, go see the Navy recruiter. I guess I wasn’t refined enough.

Trac Bannon: 

The Navy was not her first choice. The Navy ended up being Katy’s default choice. She was, however, a candidate that the Navy recruiter could use to check quite a few diversity boxes: Katy is female and Asian. She was so damn smart, blowing the aptitude test scores out of the water. (No Navy pun intended). 

There was still the need to tell her. She confided in her mom first. Imagine being 18 years old and your mother collapsing to the floor, weeping, begging, and pleading for you to not go.

Her mother acted as though Katy had been given a death sentence by being a woman going into the Navy. 

Katy waited three months, until finishing bootcamp, to talk with her father. 

Katy Craig: 

It took me a long time to work up the nerve and he confirmed and validated why I was fearful of telling him. 

My father had the very same sentiment, but he was much more pithy. “Only dykes and whores joined the military. Katy what are you?” 

Trac Bannon: 

Even with her mother’s response to enlisting, Katy’s mother had instilled a strong sense in Katy that she could be anything. That, however, would be hard to achieve given her gender. In the early 1980s, women made up a whopping 8.5% of all enlisted personnel. Her Navy career choices were slim. 

Katy Craig: 

If I had been born the other gender, uh, other sex, I would’ve had every job available in the Navy at the time open to me. But because I wasn’t born a male, I only had certain jobs open to me and nuclear power was off the table. I qualified for nuclear power, I qualified for fire control technician, I qualified for all these advanced programs but was not eligible because of the laws at the time preventing women in combat. 

Trac Bannon: 

Katy weighted the options and of them there were few she was interested in. She decided to go to school for the longest time possible: get a technical education. She chose advanced electronics. The challenges didn’t stop though. Remember, she enlisted in 1985 when women were not allowed on combat vessels. It was not until March of 1994 that the first woman to serve aboard a combat ship received a naval assignment. 

Katy Craig: 

The time that I was in women were not allowed on combatant missions. So you couldn’t go to combatant ships. You couldn’t go to submarines, you couldn’t be Special Forces. There were so many jobs close to women, so going to sea was limited to going to a tender or some type of auxiliary, non-combatant ship… what are in the military sea lift command. Now, I’m not downing those ships because they’re auxiliaries, they refuel, they, you know, they’re important part of the Navy mission.

But when you’re a sailor, you want to be on a combatant ship, you know you want to be serving the mission directly, not indirectly. 

Trac Bannon: 

Katy did not wanna be on a support vessel. She opted to take land rotations. After two years in Norfolk, she went abroad for a total of three overseas tours. Then she saw a chance to join a new special sea program. 

She had to heavily negotiate getting orders to pre-commissioning a new vessel. That means she would be fitting out the hall of a new ship with advanced Electronics. It was the mid 90s and the Navy had just opened up to having women on combatant ships. The Navy was refitting hulls and changing out birthings. Katy remembers being stationed on the USS Bonhomme Richard realizing how much of an afterthought women were on the ships. Even though the Navy was reconfiguring the ships, Katy and other women had urinals, so they made due.

Katy Craig: 

We would use the urinals to shave our legs.

Because they were perfect. I mean, if nobody ever used them as urinals, they were perfect leg shaving station. 

Trac Bannon: 

Katy would go on to serve for five years on the Bonhomme Richard from 1997 to 2002 and earned the informal title of “plank owner”. 

Katy Craig: it’s also very special to build a ship, to be part of the pre-com crew, to be a quote unquote “plank owner” is a very special privilege. And so I am a plank owner of Bonhomme Richard. We went through a lot on that ship. I was there on 9-11 when the planes hit the towers. We deployed early to go hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

We participated in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom. I mean, don’t talk about it much, but I guess I’m a veteran of foreign wars… which is really bizarre to me because when I grew up, I remember being a little five year old, barely able to see… on the bar, being in the VFW with all these Vietnam vets and my dad playing the accordion… you know, so being a VFW eligible to join the local VFW feels kinda weird. 

 

Trac Bannon: 

Being a plank owner of the Bonhomme Richard has had a lasting and deep impact on Katy especially when, in July of 2020, the USS Bonhomme Richard burned for nearly five days in the San Diego Bay… her boat, her plank burning near her home. 

Katy Craig:

It gutted me when she burned in July of 2020… building that ship, you know, there this phenomena called trauma bonding. And the military has too many opportunities through trauma bonding, and we experienced quite a few traumas on Bonhomme Richard. And that what that does is it just really brings the crew close together. 

Trac Bannon:

Those relationships, those shared experiences, and the trauma bonding strengthened and molded her.

Anyone familiar with Navy Bootcamp will understand the breaking down and building up that happens.  Katy is quick to call out that in bootcamp, there was no mentoring. However, her 20 years of Naval service exposed her to many mentors. The adage that you can learn as much from a good example as from a bad example was part of Katy’s mentoring too. 

Katy Craig: 

Along my 20 year career, I had the benefit of many mentors. People, you know, I kind of feel like I’m indebted to, you know, I owe them.

I feel in lots of ways, and a lot of those lessons that people provided, they’re not all positive ones, right? But I’m still thankful for the negative lessons, the things that I learned not to do. Like that guy made me feel like shit, I know not to do that to others… or that guy made me feel like shit I immediately changed my behavior. In times of crisis or emergency, that might be a useful tool to get somebody off their ass. 

You know, to do something because you know, in the military, it’s not a job. It’s not a job. Most jobs don’t make you raise your right hand and swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution. You know, there’s only like doctors that swear oath, law… some law enforcement swear oath and the military take oath. So it’s not a job. We give up our civil rights. You know, you give up a lot of personal freedoms. It’s something that you have to remember that if you’re a civilian and you’re not aware of what it feels like to actually be in the military, you got to trust us.

There’s a method to the madness, and there’s a reason why it seems so harsh and rough sometimes. We’re in the business of war. 

But the positive examples, you know, there’s… there’s Don, there’s Mike, there’s John, there’s no women.

They’re all men. And all the mentoring and leadership guidance I received was, you know, no discredit to them, but it was the best that they knew and it was successful for the environment we were in. Um, yeah, I can’t thank them enough. 

Trac Bannon: 

Katy made the rank of Navy Chief and had laid out a clear path to becoming Senior Chief, then Master chief before retiring. She was crossing the 20 year mark and was investing in new uniforms, buying new gear to go back to sea. She was ready. In her plan, once she had made Senior Chief, she would come back to shore duty thinking, how hard is it to be a senior chief on shore? She was penciled in to go pre-commissioning and fit out a new ship, the USS Green Bay. From there, her plan appeared to have calm waters. 

Katy Craig: 

An old shipmate of mine, my old CSO, who was working at Nav Wars Bay War at the time said, “Hey, I know you’ve got 20 years in. Why don’t you retire and come out and consult and help me? I need your help over here.You need to drop papers and come out here and help me at Nav War.” 

It was called Spawar at the time, and he was the chief engineer of the command and control program office, and we had served together on the Bonhomme Richard and just that quick. You know, I did the calculations real fast in my head.

And so I thought about it… like even if I do 30 years, I’m still gonna have to get out and get another job. So do I wait and get out 10 years older or do I pop smoke and depart the pattern now while I’m still young and marketable and start the second career early? And since we’re both here talking, I think you know which way I decided. 

Trac Bannon: 

And it’s true. Katy left the military in 2005. Her first stop was with Ocean Systems Engineering Corporation. Hindsight is always 20/20. Just as Katy ramped up for her first civilian role, hurricane Katrina, hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, including Avondale Shipyards. Billions of dollars in damage to the shipyard, to the local economy, and yes to the USS Green Bay. Everyone assigned to that ship had their careers put on hold for nearly two years. Katy, however, was facing a new reality as a contractor, one that she did not expect: pay inequality.

Katy Craig: 

You know, I did prefer everybody’s pay was a matter of public record, same rank, same uniform, same pay. That was really nice in the Navy because when I came into the consulting arena, it wasn’t transparent like that.

And I learned pretty quickly that… my pay wasn’t the same as some of the other folks that I was working with. 

Trac Bannon: 

Her next steps began to emerge: take a lateral move to another company when the opportunity presented itself. 18 months after retiring from the Navy, Katy went over to Syntec Global. With Katy’s strong sense of loyalty, she decided to stay in a new role for at least 12 months, a far but fair cry from her 21 years with the Navy. This is now her pattern: stay put in a role for about two years. Knowing she grew up as a Navy brat, and then spent two decades in the Navy, the pattern of new assignment, new role, and new adventure every two years or so has become part of her DNA. Katy loved what she was doing.

Katy Craig: 

I was coordinating, uh, Navy command and control systems being installed on Navy ships. And it’s a very complicated process. It’s years planning and you know, the ships aren’t… stationary. And so the timing of when they’re going to be tied to a pier, when they’re going to there for an extended period long enough for us to do major and minor upgrades.

That’s what I was doing as an installation manager.

Trac Bannon: 

Though she entered the civilian workforce as a female manager in 2005, she never encountered challenges that she attributed to her gender. Quite the opposite. She ran into bias issues when she was in the Navy on active duty, especially when she was stationed overseas, living in different cultures.

Katy has a natural presence that seems to shout “let’s get moving, folks”. Well, she’s often viewed as a leader because of her no nonsense approach with a personality that carries the credibility of a leader… and people naturally saw her as that. 

Katy Craig: 

If you have a vision and you’re able to articulate it, more often than not, people are ready to follow because nine times out of 10 they have no idea what to do… or they don’t want to be accountable or be the leader. So I would often find myself walking into a conference room and everybody would look at me and I’d be like, “if you guys are waiting on me, we’re in big trouble.”

I’m an action oriented person and I can only sit on my hands for so long. I hate meetings for the sake of meetings. And if we were sitting around and it was seven minutes that, that was like the university professor rule, we should bail because… there’s nothing happening here.

Trac Bannon: 

Voting with her feet and just walking out and taking action is her MO. Remember Katie’s two year itch? Reading her resume, you will be hit by the nearly six year stay with Syntec but looking a little closer, she reinvented herself and took new roles continuously while with Syntec: From coordinating the implementation of command and control systems on Navy vessels, to leading accelerated delivery of this critical cyber security capabilities and went on to modernize in-service assault ships. She thrives in complex situations. Changing so frequently would make most people a bit fearful. 

Katy Craig: 

I don’t act on fear, fear doesn’t motivate me. And if anything, I intentionally battle my fear when I’m ready to make a transition. And I intentionally tell myself, fear is not going to be a consideration here. You’re not gonna decide because you’re afraid. Um, because that’s what bravery is, be afraid and do it anyway.

Trac Bannon: 

At the same time, Katy realized how much she appreciated the flexibility and being able to be an entrepreneur in a small firm. Syntec Global was quickly approaching a graduation point from being considered small. In government contracting, once you exceed the small size thresholds, you can’t compete or recompete on small contracts that you already have.

In 2012, Syntec decided to spin off a small subsidiary called Highberry Defense Group. Katy took the plunge. Syntec and Highberry, however, had plenty of growing pains and internal friction. Katy’s series of puddle hops found her then with MBO Partners and Taranet.

Eventually, she started to fatigue with startups and small organizations and of wearing dual and triple hats. She made a dramatic pivot and joined a global giant: Deloitte. 

Trac Bannon: 

Each role adding to her portfolio of cybersecurity experience. Her client always though, has been the US Navy.

The Navy has certainly left its mark on Katy and she on it

Katy Craig: 

I’m still getting up at 3:30, 4:00 every morning. That’s why you see me at New York Time on Slack. Um, I love keeping almost like farmer’s hours, you know, because get up with the chickens and, you know…uh, old, old Navy Habits…and I air betting every Saturday.

There’s just certain things that you just, I don’t know. I don’t know. It started before my Navy training because I was raised by a soldier, so I was an army brat. By the time I got to Navy Bootcamp, I already knew how to make my rack.

I think the reason that I find myself transitioning every two to three years is because I’m a military person. I was raised in the army and we moved every three to four years, and then I joined the Navy and I moved every three to five years. I have been in San Diego since 1997, and this is the longest I have ever been any place my entire life, but every two to three years I need a port visit.

Trac Bannon: 

Another side of Katy is her passion for mentoring, teaching, and community building. 

Katy Craig: 

I don’t think some of the younger generation recognize or realize just how far we’ve come in one generation. But there’s still a lot further to go, I believe.

I mean, we’re not there yet and I have some really strong opinions about why we’re not there yet. And it’s really upsetting. I feel like we’re our own worst enemy – women. We, as a group that we could have done it in the seventies with ERA, for example, but we didn’t. You know, there’s things like that that just drive me up the wall.

Trac Bannon: 

Katy is not one to stand back and wait for change to happen, she continues to reinvent herself again and again. She left Deloitte for Aquia and is currently reinventing herself, yet again, and adding more arrows to her cybersecurity quiver. With all of her passion for change, Katy Craig sometimes pauses and is a bit well melancholy for her time in the Navy. 

Katy Craig: 

The melancholy of the camaraderie. There’s nothing like being underway… in the middle of the deep, dark black ocean. And there’s no light pollution. Um, the stars come all the way down to the water and the ships cutting through the night and you see the bioluminescence coming off the wake.

It’s just magical. There’s things like experiences like that that I still dream about, like I will dream at night about being on the ship underway.

Trac Bannon: 

What will the future hold for Katy? Well, we’ll have to see where this digital nomad lands. One thing is for sure. It’ll be new.

She will reinvent herself and she will continue to amplify her expertise in cybersecurity. Something to noodle on.

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Real Technologists. I want to thank my guest, Katy Craig, for sharing her story. Your insights and experiences are truly inspiring. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share them with the audience. This podcast is a Sourced Network Production and updates are available weekly on your favorite audio streaming platform.

Just search for real technologists and consider subscribing. Special thanks to our Executive Producer, Mark Miller, for making this show possible. Our editor and sound engineer, Pokie Huang has done an amazing job bringing Katy story to life. Thank you both. The music for today’s episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, and we use Descript for spoken text editing and Audacity for the soundscaping. The show distribution platform is provided by CaptivateFM making it easy for our listeners to find and enjoy the show. That’s all for today, folks. This is Trac Bannon. Don’t forget to tune in next week for another intriguing episode of Real Technologists and something new to noodle on.