On November 11, the United States marks Veterans Day. The six CISOs below took different paths through military service: an armor officer turned West Point educator, a Navy electronic warfare veteran, a Black Hawk crew chief, an Army radio repairer turned warrant officer, a reserve lieutenant colonel, and an arctic infantryman who later led National Guard squads. Today, they protect universities, software, broadcasting, Congress, and state government, bringing experience in leading people, maintaining critical systems, and carrying out missions under pressure.
David Raymond – AVP & CISO, Virginia Tech
Thirteen months of combat operations in Iraq came midway through David Raymond’s 26 years as an Army officer. As executive officer of an armor battalion, he deployed 600 soldiers from Germany to Baqubah and back, and his military awards include the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Legion of Merit. He then turned to teaching at West Point, where he led the cybersecurity curriculum, coached the cadet team that won the NSA’s Cyber Defense Exercise among the service academies, and, as a founding member of the Army Cyber Institute, helped select the Army’s first 36 direct-commissioned cyber officers. He also co-authored On Cyber: Towards an Operational Art for Cyber Conflict. At Virginia Tech, he was founding director of the Virginia Cyber Range and the U.S. Cyber Range, cybersecurity education platforms for high schools and colleges, and served as interim CIO and interim head of research computing. In July 2026 the university formalized his role as associate vice president and CISO, responsible for university-wide cybersecurity and identity and access management.
David B. Cross – CISO, Atlassian
In 1995, David Cross’s squadron flew missions over Bosnia-Herzegovina from Aviano Air Base in Italy, part of a campaign for which the squadron received the NATO medal. He spent five years on active duty with VAQ-130, the “Zappers,” a Navy electronic attack squadron based on Whidbey Island that flew the EA-6B Prowler, including operations aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy. That electronic warfare work was his first in security. He went on to spend more than 15 years at Microsoft, leading Windows security program management, where he was a primary inventor on more than 14 patent applications covering areas such as credential management and the core of the BitLocker platform, and later led cloud and enterprise security. After building Google’s cloud security engineering organization and six and a half years as CISO for Oracle’s SaaS cloud, he became CISO of Atlassian in December 2024. He also serves as a venture partner at Rain Capital.
John McClure – SVP & CISO, Sinclair
A UH-60 Black Hawk was John McClure’s first major responsibility. Over more than eight years of active Army aviation service, he served as a Black Hawk crew chief and platoon sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell and the 5th Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry Regiment in South Korea, responsible for more than $315 million in equipment and training crews in avionics, hydraulics, and power train mechanics. He says that the foundation of mission focus and operational discipline has shaped everything he has built since. After the Army, he gained experience in the intelligence community, designing a high-security data center for the Department of Defense and intelligence community and supporting intrusion response on national security programs. He became Sinclair’s first CISO in 2021 and now leads security alongside enterprise infrastructure, cloud, and IT service delivery for the broadcaster’s 185 stations, including its AI governance and security strategy. He chairs the National Association of Broadcasters’ Cybersecurity Advisory Group and was named 2025 ORBIE Enterprise CISO of the Year.
Densmore Bartly – CISO, US House of Representatives
In 1990, Densmore Bartly was repairing radio receivers and transmitters for the US Army. Over the next two decades he became a communications security repair NCO, controlling cryptographic equipment accounts and keeping repair work in line with Army and NSA communications security policy, and then a senior electronic systems maintenance warrant officer, overseeing the maintenance of radio, radar, avionics, communications, and cryptographic equipment. He also served as an information assurance and systems security officer, and at the Army’s Warrant Officer Career College he trained warrant officer candidates as a TAC officer and taught professional military education courses. He retired as a chief warrant officer after 21 years. Teaching stayed with him: he spent more than a decade as an adjunct professor of networking and information security. After roles with Northrop Grumman, the US Coast Guard, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Commerce, he became CISO of the US House of Representatives in January 2023, leading its Office of Cybersecurity.
Bertrum Carroll – State CISO, State of Nevada
Twenty-seven years of Army service, retiring as a lieutenant colonel, ran alongside Bertrum Carroll’s civilian career. With the 86th Training Division at Fort McCoy, he worked in automation and communications systems, logistics, and project planning, and served as a certified instructor delivering classes and demonstrations to general officers. Over the same years, he led information security and infrastructure at GE, Rockwell Automation, ING, Johnson Controls, and SC Johnson, then spent more than eight years as VP and CISO of EMPLOYERS, where he built an AI governance program using ISO 42001 and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. He joined Nevada’s Governor’s Technology Office as State CISO in March 2026, leading statewide efforts to strengthen cybersecurity, manage enterprise risk, and support resilient public services. Nevada describes him as bringing a disciplined, mission-focused approach to leadership. His credentials include CISSP, CISM, CISA, and CIPP/US, and he holds master’s degrees in electrical engineering and administration.
Jason Bowen – Statewide CISO, State of Illinois
At Guantanamo Bay, Jason Bowen served as operations NCO for a 1,500-person migrant village during a six-month deployment supporting migrant relief operations. He enlisted in the Army in 1993 as an arctic infantryman at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, serving as a radio telephone operator, team leader, and training room NCO, with rotations at the National Training Center and a Cobra Gold exercise in Thailand. He later led reconnaissance and infantry squads in the Army National Guard. His civilian career began at Arthur Andersen and Protiviti, and included leading a vulnerability management engineering team at ABN AMRO covering 270,000 systems worldwide and global infrastructure security at Aon. He returned to Protiviti, rising to managing director of its security and privacy practice, before becoming Illinois’s Statewide CISO in May 2024, leading the state’s unified cybersecurity strategy through federal, state, and local partnerships. He also chairs the industry advisory board of Illinois State University’s Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education.
Different Branches, Different Roads
Five served in the Army, including service in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard, and one served in the Navy. Their responsibilities ranged from infantry operations and aviation maintenance to communications security and cyber education. Today, their work serves students, software customers, broadcast audiences, Congress, and residents across their states. This Veterans Day, their stories show the many paths from military service into cybersecurity leadership.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.