Gary Coverdale is the Assistant Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer for the California County of Napa. Mr. Coverdale sits on the Executive Committee for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center/Center for Internet Security (a Department of Homeland Security funded non-profit). He also serves as Past Chair of the California Counties Information Services Directors Association – Information Security Forum, and is the California State Local Agency (Counties and Cities) representative for MS-ISAC. Prior to public employment, Mr. Coverdale founded and operated a national software development firm, BISPAC Corporation, working with IBM and its mid-range systems for 23 years.

Mr. Coverdale holds various degrees with studies in accounting, banking, business management and law, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP). He has been a speaker at various forums including international security events at FutureGov, Washington DC FOSE Conference, SecureWorld, CIOSynergy, and many other national security and technology events. He continues to be a member of advisory boards for The Bay Area SecureWorld, California State Cyber Security and Big Data Forums, and the CISO Executive Summit. He was awarded the 2013 Cyber Security Public Sector Leader of the Year by the State of California.

Gary believes that the success of any organization’s security maturity is directly connected to the collaboration and networking of peers in both the public and private sectors. He continues to participate, at the executive level, in organizations like the Center for Internet Security (CIS), California Counties Information Security Forum, and the Multi State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). His goal is to bring high value to all agencies’ (Local and Municipalities) support to improve local and global security efforts.

Gary is the Co-Author of CIS’ Cyber Security Hygiene Tool Kits, Co-Chair of the MS-ISAC Nationwide Cyber Security Review (presented to the US Congress) and Co-Chair of the MS-ISAC Metrics Committee.