When one leader is responsible for keeping systems running and for keeping them secure, decisions about patching, maintenance, availability, and recovery land on the same desk. The five cyber leaders below hold that combined responsibility at a utility, a travel center company, a health system, a residential property operator, and a nonprofit. Some came to security after years of running power plants, servers, and data centers. Others built security careers first and later took on infrastructure.
Alexis Alexander – VP, CIO & CSO, Avista
Alexis Alexander learned reliability on the power side of Avista. He joined the utility in 2007 as a demand side management student engineer, entered its engineering rotational program as a power plant controls and automation engineer, and moved through plant operations and construction and maintenance management. As director of generation production and substation support, he led teams responsible for reliable power generation and delivery across Avista’s service territory. In 2023 he moved into technology as director of IT infrastructure, then became director of applications supporting energy delivery, energy resources, customer solutions, and business enablement. In 2025 he succeeded Wayne Manuel as vice president, CIO, and chief security officer, leading Avista’s information systems and cybersecurity strategy. Announcing the appointment, CEO Heather Rosentrater credited his “exceptional skill in managing high-impact projects.” He holds a BS in electrical engineering and an MBA from Eastern Washington University, where he serves on the board of trustees.
Greg Hydro – VP & CISO, Pilot Company
Greg Hydro spent more than a decade running Pilot’s servers before he took charge of securing them. He joined Pilot Flying J’s server team as an analyst in 2007, became server team manager in 2014, and was named senior manager of systems in 2018. Later that year he became the company’s CISO, and since July 2023 he has served as vice president and CISO of Pilot Company in Knoxville, leading cybersecurity strategy and risk management for the travel center and convenience store operator. His path from systems engineering into security leadership was featured in a documentary from Semperis.
Jesse Fasolo – AVP, Information Technology & CISO, St. Joseph’s Health
Jesse Fasolo has looked after generators and fire suppression systems as well as firewalls. As a senior network engineer at Sterling National Bank, he handled infrastructure from networks and servers to the bank’s UPS, fire suppression, HVAC, and generators, and built disaster recovery plans for its data center, including hot sites for critical applications. He joined St. Joseph’s Health in 2014 to manage infrastructure services, covering data centers, cloud environments, disaster recovery, and virtual desktops, then spent nearly a decade as director of technology infrastructure and cybersecurity and information security officer, overseeing divisions that included infrastructure, security, telecommunications, digital strategy, and clinical engineering. In March 2026 he became assistant vice president of IT and CISO, leading enterprise technology and cybersecurity across the health system. He holds a PhD in organizational leadership, founded the coaching and mentoring venture Talk About Leadership, and serves on the board of CHIME’s Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Technology.
Robert Pace – SVP, CISO, Infrastructure & Support Services, Invitation Homes
Robert Pace has spent more than two decades leading security, and in February 2026 he added infrastructure and support services to his remit at Invitation Homes, the residential property operator. It is not his first combined role: at Williamson-Dickie, he was director of IT security and support services. As CISO at Invitation Homes since 2020, he has been responsible for security strategy, governance, operations, service delivery, business integration, and end-user awareness training, and has spoken about connecting the protection of residents’ information with the company’s digital experience and operational efficiency. His security career includes six years leading IT security and risk management at Bell Helicopter, consulting at Dell Services and PwC, and leading information security and compliance at First American Payment Systems. He was named a finalist for the 2026 Dallas CISO ORBIE Awards.
Rhett Saunders – Executive Director of Cybersecurity & Infrastructure, Focus on the Family
Rhett Saunders came to infrastructure from the risk side. After six years as a US Army intelligence analyst, he worked as a systems administrator on Department of Labor unemployment insurance systems and the Federal Reserve’s Treasury Web Application Infrastructure, then built a long career in security program management, enterprise risk, and compliance at EDS, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and Compassion International. He joined Focus on the Family in 2019 to lead cybersecurity and compliance, and in 2022 took on infrastructure as well. Since then, he says, his team has moved the organization to a cloud-first strategy, shifted its security operations to a managed detection and response service, and deployed multilingual chatbots so international offices can access policy manuals. He also lectures on system administration and security at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
Both Sides of the Desk
Alexander, Hydro, and Fasolo came to security after years of keeping power plants, servers, and data centers running. Pace and Saunders built careers in security and risk, then took on infrastructure. All five now answer for both questions at once: whether systems stay up, and whether they stay secure.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.