Arkansas’ Cybersecurity Leadership Spotlight

Arkansas has built a cybersecurity leadership bench that reaches across healthcare, higher education, state government, insurance, data services, and enterprise technology. The leaders in this feature reflect that range. Some are securing major academic and medical institutions, some are shaping statewide cyber strategy, and others are leading mature programs inside nationally recognized private-sector organizations. Together, they show how much depth Arkansas now has in cybersecurity leadership. 

Stephen Tycer — Chief Information Security Officer, University of Arkansas

Stephen Tycer serves as Chief Information Security Officer at the University of Arkansas. His inclusion in this spotlight reflects the growing importance of cyber leadership inside the state’s major higher education institutions, where security leaders are helping protect research, academic systems, institutional data, and increasingly complex digital environments. 

Dennis DeLong — Chief Information Security Officer, Arkansas Children’s

Dennis DeLong is Chief Information Security Officer at Arkansas Children’s, where he previously served as Director of Information Security before stepping into the top security role. Before Arkansas Children’s, he held security roles at USAble Life and Dillard’s, giving him a background that spans healthcare, insurance, retail, and enterprise architecture. That mix gives him a broad operational foundation for leading security in one of Arkansas’s most important healthcare organizations. 

Gary Vance — Chief Information Security Officer, Arkansas Department of Information Systems

Gary Vance is Chief Information Security Officer at the Arkansas Department of Information Systems and also brings decades of security and infrastructure experience from Acxiom. His background includes leadership in global cyber security operations, governance, risk, compliance, internal audit, threat detection, vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, and enterprise network architecture. That combination of public-sector responsibility and long private-sector experience makes him one of the state’s most established cyber leaders. 

Devin Shirley — CISO, VP Infrastructure & Security, Topgolf

Devin Shirley now serves as CISO and VP of Infrastructure & Security at Topgolf, but his Arkansas track record is what makes him especially relevant here. He spent nearly a decade at Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, including more than eight years as Chief Information Security Officer, where he led enterprise security strategy, strengthened incident response and monitoring capabilities, and advanced identity, compliance, and security awareness efforts. Earlier roles at Windstream and other Arkansas-based organizations add even more depth to his long leadership history in the state. 

Solomon Horn — Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Solomon Horn is Deputy Chief Information Security Officer at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and brings a career centered on healthcare IT and cybersecurity. Before joining UAMS, he served as CIO and CISO at Arkana Laboratories and earlier held IT leadership roles in Little Rock healthcare environments. His background reflects a sustained focus on applying cybersecurity inside patient-care and clinical settings, where technology resilience has direct operational importance. 

Richie Brewer — Director of Cybersecurity / Chief Information Security Officer, CARTI

Richie Brewer is Director of Cybersecurity and Chief Information Security Officer at CARTI, where he is leading the evolution of the enterprise security program and pushing modernization efforts around governance, compliance, Zero Trust, and patch management. Earlier in his career, he held cybersecurity compliance leadership roles at Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield and led IT and information security at Mitchell Williams, where he worked across legal-sector security, business continuity, disaster recovery, and multiple regulatory frameworks. His background gives him strong experience across both healthcare and other highly regulated environments.

Frank Caserta — Chief Information Security Officer, LiveRamp

Frank Caserta is Chief Information Security Officer at LiveRamp and previously served as Chief Security Officer at Acxiom for more than fifteen years. His experience includes building and managing enterprise security governance, board-level risk reporting, compliance, policy management, incident response, physical security, vendor oversight, and security support for mergers and acquisitions. With earlier executive technology leadership at Acxiom as well, he represents one of Arkansas’s most seasoned security executives. 

Where Arkansas Cyber Leadership Is Showing Up

What makes Arkansas interesting is not just the number of leaders, but where they are operating. This is a state where cybersecurity leadership is visible in children’s healthcare, public-sector technology, higher education, health systems, insurance, and major data-driven enterprises. That kind of spread gives Arkansas a much stronger cybersecurity profile than many people might assume at first glance.

Explore more profiles of the leaders shaping cybersecurity across numerous industries in our CISOs to Watch collection.