Air Force’s Haugh set to take lead at NSA, Cyber Command

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - ???? When were you there? Which CPT was it? Did we do this dance before about comparing notes?

Ahhh... I just looked over your profile again and read through the civilian experience (I only reviewed the military experience the first time). From the timeframe you have on your profile, we must have overlapped (I was the J-5/7 from early 2016 through late 2018).

Wearing my "7" hat, I oversaw the certifications of all the national teams. I interacted with the team leads and their deputies fairly often, but not so much on the rest of the team members.

We may have done this dance. I retired in 2014 as one of the first AF Cyber Warfare officers, essentially by default when they created the operational designator back around 2008 or 09. Prior to that I began my cyber career at the well-known (especially in the Air Force) 92nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron (AF Red Team) from 97-2000. This unit established my creds in the cyber community and even after I retired and went Civil Service. I started with a COCOM CPT-800 before getting promoted into another squadron, joining the new CNMF NCPT construct. My goal in the beginning with Civil Service was to use the time to relearn my hands-on tech skills, get some certs the Air Force wouldn't pay for during active duty, and move on from there to more leadership roles within the Civil Service AF Cyber Community. Unfortunately, the rotation of command tends to bring some not so good commanders and leadership into the mix.

After 5 years (much longer than I intended at unit level), I decided to get out due to my frustration with the progress and inability to effectively use the right people for the job. CNMF, on the other hand, appreciated my inputs, and even went as far as to ask me to put them into writing for some ideas on the future makeup of the NCPTs. I worked with my leadership, keeping them informed of the ask, and they ultimately had me stand down from discussing these ideas with our Task Force lead (LTC Anderson USMC was our incoming at the time ~2018-ish). We were also in-between NCPT leads at the time, where the outgoing lead fully supported my efforts, and the new one had no idea what was going on. He decided to have all of us cut comms with CNMF (except for him). This led to a whole series of bad decisions on his part and set the NCPT back many months. I was then traded to another NCPT, where that lead immediately made me his civilian lead. While I appreciated his support, I decided already I'm done with unit level and eventually left for the contracting world to help shape bigger DoD cyber initiatives.

Anyway, I started out with NCPT-62 in 2016, helped get them trained up to FOC, and led a few missions for them. I then went on to NCPT-82 for another year before leaving for good. We were based out of NSA-T in San Antonio, so I did not frequent the halls on your end much at all, other than to visit some of the Army's NCPTs and some other NSA/CYBERCOM sites leaving in Oct 2019. There was talk about standing up a CNMF detachment at NSA-T, but it never materialized (no idea if it really ever did). I was hoping to move over to that at the time. In the end, it was a rough ride as a contractor, but ultimately, I landed on my feet working for Mandiant (private sector), who got acquired by Google the day after I joined them (coincidence??? I think not...Ha!). Haven't looked back since, and I found myself working with several folks from my original cyber unit from the late 90s (92nd IWAS). I was one of the very few that stayed in the Air Force, so all these guys are VPs and Director level folks. It was one of my interns from the 92nd who I reached out to for the job.

I would have loved to have worked for CNMF HQ, especially while on active duty. The Air Force kept pulling me out of cyber, not realizing I was one of the few well versed cyber officers at the time. I actually got my assignment to JTF-GNO, right before it was to become CYBERCOM, and then the AF increased all officer's 3-year assignments to 4 (pulling my orders), stranding me in a traditional communications (signals if you will) position for another year. I can't help but think what would have happened if I had been allowed to head to the DC area. I'd like to say I would have made a positive difference out there.

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin - Small world (assuming we didn't do this before - can never tell with my swiss cheese memory).

As is usual with an OPCON relationship, there was the typical push-pull of the "operations vs institutional resourcing" dichotomy between the CNMF and the services. Maj. Gen. Weggeman was usually pretty good about resourcing his teams and we would work with Col. Stratton to iron out the issues and make the slightly out-of-round pegs fit into the round hole.

It's very possible I might have run into you before. I would travel down to San Antonio a couple of times a year to check on the Air Force teams and getting them to FOC was my primary focus (especially after the kerfuffle about two of the teams missing the IOC date).

I remember Merlin well. He was in the J-3 when I was there as the 5/7 and was normally the J-3 rep in the training meetings. He normally worked with my folks to deconflict ops and certifications for the teams. I transitioned out of the CNMF just prior to his taking over the Task Force.

I think you would have liked working in the Puzzle Palace. If there's one place to get real insight into military cyberspace operations, it's there. I really enjoyed my time there despite the ~2 1/2 hours a day I would spend commuting (*groan*).

COL Randall C. Yeah the commute never was good in that area. I'm originally from Fairfax, VA so I always wanted to get back close to my old hometown. Most of all, I loved cyber ops and IO and just wanted my career to stay focused on that. The AF had different plans based on what little they understood about cyber ops and the need for people that understood it.

On the bright side, working I'm the private sector, in the last two years I've been able to respond to alomst all.of the critical infrastructure organizations where we cannot deploy military forces (including cyber). I spent a career working with AF installations, critical military sysyems, and turning leaders into cyber advocates. But I became frustrated with the limited options we had to protect the non DODIN critical infrastructure.

So now it's better pay and no commute remote work. Not a bad transition and there still are opportunities to work with DoD through my company if I choose to. I actually almost got a 3-week trip to NATO HQ in Belgium before they found a local resource.

He will, I worked under both Gens Haugh and Nakasone before I left for the greener pastures.