Employee Spotlight: Joshua Hunter

Joshua Hunter is NetCentrics’ Security Analyst, but if you’re following this series on our amazing teammates, you’ll recognize him as the mysterious stranger with a knack for recognizing tech talent. 

Mitigating, and Taking, Risks 

Josh plays a critical role here. He ensures that the software we use at HQ and at customer sites is securely built, and remains secure, among other responsibilities. He honed these skills in the military first. He served in the Army in Germany. There he learned about telephony, switches, and more. Then, after deployment to Kuwait, in a moment of “trial by fire” – thankfully, not actual fire — Josh was assigned to manage Microsoft Active Directory. Successfully implementing that, and learning quite a bit, he finished his service in the Army. During both of his tours he was assigned a variety of IT roles assisting on the ground and at Camp Buehring (formerly Camp Udairi).  

Turns out, those scripting skills he learned were in high demand when Josh returned stateside. He relocated to the DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia) region and immediately secured work with the United States Coast Guard (USCG). His role at USCG was all about securing data transmitted during maritime activity. Specifically, he scanned for vulnerabilities in the networks aboard USCG cutters. This involved tediously pinging each cutter to see if a cutter is in port so the cutter could take advantage of high-speed fiber connection. You wanted to catch ‘em then, versus trying to scan when cutters had access to satellite only, which was more expensive and had latency delays, too. Josh quickly realized he could use scripting skills to build a custom solution to produce a stronger security stance. He got to work, and the results were outstanding: greater security in a shorter period of time.  

“Building this on my own was a risk,” recalls Josh. “It was, ‘either they’re gonna love this, or I’m gonna get fired’”. Luckily for him, his superiors saw the value of his work. This eventually brought him to NetCentrics in 2011. (NetCentrics still works with the USCG. Recently two NetCentrics employees got kudos for their work there.)      
  

Rocking Out 

Although Josh is fluent in the latest and greatest tech, another passion of his concerns the oldest things on earth: rocks.   

Growing up in Michigan, Josh was always outdoors. He began rock collecting early and continues to this day. He uses apps like Rockd to study his finds, and iNaturalist to help crowdsource scientific data on the changing planet. Luckily, there are still wild places not too far from the DMV to explore, such as Great Falls National Park. 

“I even got my wife Sam into it,” he says, “She wasn’t interested at first, but now she’s into it.” They enjoy hiking and looking for especially rare rocks and fossils. “It’s neat to look up the geological age of different areas, and compare that to Arch GIS, Google Maps, especially in built-up areas around D.C.” The day we spoke he showed me part of his collection, some of which he’d painstakingly polished to better capture the small creatures fossilized within. (Pictured below is an extinct fossil from Joshua’s collection, known as “Halysites Coral“)

Josh’s eye for details makes him especially suited for rock collection, but also for his work in security. It makes perfect sense now why he’d have the eagle eyes to spot tech talent, too. NetCentrics is fortunate to have him on our team, with his eyes on the horizon

If you, too, have a passion for technology (and/or rocks, or something else) – join our team of enthusiastic explorers.