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Hi, I'm Lagee Samuel. I'm the Chief of Standards and Certification at NSA's Cyber Collaboration

Center.

So as I was growing up, I've often changed what I wanted to

so as I was growing up, I've often changed what I wanted to be sometimes it was a teacher sometimes a doctor a

researcher but I often lean towards STEM specific careers I was surrounded with older cousins who were

choosing STEM careers and it was interesting how each of our holiday

conversations or gatherings would be around what's the latest and what's the greatest.

Additionally, as I was growing up, my dad who has an electrical background,

he worked on space and maritime research, So as a side hustle he would like be fixing

radios and like soldering boards were always on his table so just walking around that I felt I was leaning towards STEM careers from a very young

like age. So I have a bachelor's and master's in electrical prior to coming to a University of Maryland

and an additional master masters in telecommunications engineering from College Park.

And the reason I was immigrating and it was it was still like a study was still something that I was pursuing and so I

decided to look at colleges that were good at telecommunications and had some business flavor to it and

UMD telecommunications program did stand out.

So when it comes to my career progression I will say that I've had four

technically diverse jobs. I can say that I'm uncomfortable being comfortable in a certain

position right so if my learning stops I will want to move. My very first job was with corporate. It was in a private company

that deployed telematics and internet solutions over satellites. As a very naive employee I did not even know how to manure the

career path to know the concept of mentors and truly learned a lot from

watching my peers and colleagues and how they progressed. So I knew I had to use the skills

...