Gary Coverdale

Gary Coverdale is the acting CISO for the County of Santa Barbara and advisor to other counties and municipalities.

Gary currently serves on the Executive Committee for MS-ISAC (Multi State Information Sharing and Analysis Center). He Co-chairs our Metrics Workgroup and the Mentoring Workgroup. Gary was Co-author of the CIS Cyber Hygiene Kit and has been a key contributor of the Nationwide Cyber Security Review and its 2015 integration to the NIST Cyber Security Framework.

In 2018 Mr. Coverdale was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from MS-ISAC and continues to be a vocal advocate of MS-ISAC’s core charter and function across the Nation. Additionally, he was awarded the State of California Local Cybersecurity Leader of the Year.

He is the Past Chair of the California Counties Information Services Directors Association – Information Security Council. Mr. Coverdale previously was an appointed member of DHS’ SLTT Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Council in both the Cybersecurity, Communications, and Elections sectors.

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 20 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 technology forums including past FutureGov events, Washington DC FOSE Conference, SecureWorld, CIOSynergy, CISO Summit RSA and many other national security and technology events.

He continues in many advisory roles and governing bodies for various non-profit events such as the Calif State Cyber Security Symposium, the Emerging Technologies Symposium, SecureWorld, and the CISO Executive Summit to name a few.

Gary continues to fight for the collaboration of our ‘Local’ communities, small and large, in supporting each other in elevating our cyber security maturity!