New Mexico’s cybersecurity leadership stretches across state government, healthcare, federal missions, and private-sector technology. The people in this feature are working in environments where security has to support continuity, compliance, and operational resilience at the same time. From public health and human services to defense, critical infrastructure, and enterprise security operations, their backgrounds reflect the range of institutions shaping cybersecurity in New Mexico today.
Rod Chavez — Chief Information Security Officer, New Mexico Environment Department
Rod Chavez is Chief Information Security Officer at the New Mexico Environment Department, where he moved into the role after serving within the department as a systems administrator. His background includes infrastructure, systems, and network administration, along with earlier work at Presbyterian Medical Services. Across those roles, he has built experience in secure IT infrastructure, compliance-minded administration, and operational support, giving him a practical foundation for leading cybersecurity inside a state agency environment.
Rajat Adhikari — Chief Information Security Officer, Space Systems Command
Rajat Adhikari serves as Chief Information Security Officer at Space Systems Command at Kirtland Air Force Base. Before stepping into the role, he worked as a senior system engineer supporting the United States Space Force as cybersecurity lead for Space and Missile Center programs, and earlier held security engineering and ISSO roles with SAIC, ManTech, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. His background combines military service, defense-sector cybersecurity, systems engineering, and security operations in space and defense environments.
Andrew Buschbom — Cybersecurity State Coordinator for New Mexico, CISA
Before joining CISA, Andrew Buschbom served as acting CISO for the New Mexico Human Services Department, where he worked on security monitoring, Splunk buildout, vulnerability and patch management, cloud migration support, and compliance activity involving multiple federal and state agencies. Earlier in his career, he spent more than a decade at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in intelligence and information security roles, producing cyber threat reporting, conducting threat hunts, and supporting incident response and forensic work. He now serves as Cybersecurity State Coordinator for New Mexico at CISA, bringing that mix of public-sector security operations, intelligence, and compliance experience into a statewide coordination role.
Bill York — Chief Security Officer, New Mexico Department of Health
Bill York is Chief Security Officer at the New Mexico Department of Health, where he previously served as deputy chief security officer and led security efforts across frameworks and compliance areas including HIPAA, PCI-DSS, CJIS, and FERPA. His background spans storage systems, network architecture, software engineering, and public-sector infrastructure, with earlier roles at the State of New Mexico, RESPEC, and Northern Trust. That range shows up in a career that bridges deep technical operations with security leadership inside a major public health environment.
David Thomas — Director, Information Security Operations, Presbyterian Healthcare Services
David Thomas is Director of Information Security Operations at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, where he leads cybersecurity operations teams, the security operations center, and associated security systems. His career spans more than three decades in information technology, infrastructure, communications, and cybersecurity, including leadership roles at PNM Resources, Sandoval County Government, Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court, and First Community Bank. His background reflects long experience in regulated and critical-service environments, including healthcare, utilities, government, and banking.
Del Ameko — Chief Information Security Officer, ThetaPoint Inc.
Del Ameko is Chief Information Security Officer at ThetaPoint and also managing partner at Elite Information Services. His experience includes leadership roles with the City of Albuquerque, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, IDEX Corporation, and Jaynes Corporation, with work spanning technology transformation, global infrastructure management, compliance, budgeting, data center design, and operational efficiency. He has also been active in New Mexico’s broader technology community, including chairing the cybersecurity peer group for the New Mexico Technology Council.
David Thomas — Director, Information Security Operations, Presbyterian Healthcare Services
David Thomas brings a long operational background to his role at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, where he oversees cybersecurity analysts, engineers, vendors, and the SOC. Earlier positions in utilities, county government, court systems, and banking gave him direct experience with critical infrastructure, regulatory environments, and large-scale infrastructure and communications programs. His current role also includes leading the operationalization of agentic AI and machine learning technologies for cybersecurity use cases such as threat detection, automation, and vulnerability management.
New Mexico’s Cyber Leadership Across Mission-Critical Sectors
New Mexico’s cybersecurity leaders are working in agencies, health systems, defense organizations, and companies where resilience and trust are central to the mission. Their backgrounds show how security leadership in the state is shaped not by a single industry, but by a mix of public service, operational technology, healthcare delivery, and high-stakes federal work. Together, they reflect the breadth of cyber leadership active across New Mexico today.
Explore more profiles of the leaders shaping cybersecurity across numerous industries in our CISOs to Watch collection.