Tucson’s security bench grew up alongside its missile defense industry. Hughes Missile Systems and its Raytheon successor trained generations of engineers here, and one leader below carries that lineage directly through nearly two decades on the Navy’s STANDARD Missile program. The others protect the institutions that anchor daily life in the Old Pueblo: the state’s flagship research university, one of the country’s largest community college districts, and the city’s largest nonprofit hospital.
Timothy Schwab – CISO, University of Arizona
Timothy Schwab spent more than two decades running parts of the University of Arizona’s technology organization before taking over its security. He joined as Director of Enterprise Applications in 2003, rose to Executive Director of Technology, and spent six years as Executive Director of UITS Administrative Technology. He was named Chief Information Security Officer in March 2024. The university enrolls tens of thousands of students and maintains a research portfolio spanning defense, space, and medicine, systems Schwab helped build and operate long before he was responsible for defending them.
Lorenso Trevino – CISO, Pima Community College
Lorenso Trevino became Chief Information Security Officer of Pima Community College in July 2024. His remit is broader than most: alongside developing the college’s information security program, he oversees physical security measures including surveillance systems and access control, as well as records management. The district spans multiple campuses across southern Arizona, which means the standards, policies, and vulnerability management practices he establishes now will govern how the region’s largest educator defends itself for years.
Anthony King – Chief Information & Cyber Security Officer, Earth Knowledge
Anthony King worked on the Navy’s STANDARD Missile program at General Dynamics and Hughes Missile Systems for nearly two decades. He later served as vice president and CIO at Ventana Medical Systems as the company scaled toward a $3.4 billion acquisition by Roche, then spent seven years as chief information security officer and director of IT Security, Governance, Risk and Compliance at Raytheon Missile Systems. Since March 2022 he has been Chief Information and Cyber Security Officer at Earth Knowledge, the Tucson firm building a petascale digital twin of the Earth, where he manages cyber risk for the geospatial platform.
Larry Lapp – ISSO, VA Southern Arizona Health Care
Larry Lapp has spent his entire federal career in Tucson. He worked nearly twelve years as an IT specialist before becoming Information System Security Officer at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in May 2018, a role he has now held for more than eight years. He is responsible for the security posture of the VA Southern Arizona Health Care system, which delivers care to veterans across the region under federal compliance requirements that are among the most demanding in government.
Joseph Gosnell – Manager, IS Security, Tucson Medical Center
Joseph Gosnell has led information security at Tucson Medical Center since November 2021. As Manager of IS Security, he directs enterprise-wide cybersecurity initiatives for TMC Health, southern Arizona’s locally governed nonprofit health system and one of the city’s largest employers. The work involves clinical systems that cannot go offline and protected health information distributed across the organization, in a sector that attackers target more aggressively each year.
Built on Defense Ground
Tucson’s security leadership reflects the city that produced it. King’s career runs from Hughes and General Dynamics missile programs through Raytheon to a geospatial startup, carrying defense-grade practices into commercial work. Schwab spent twenty years inside the university’s technology organization before taking its security seat. Gosnell has held the security line at Tucson’s flagship community hospital for five years, and Trevino is building a program across a multi-campus college district from a broad mandate that includes physical security. The defense contractors taught Tucson how to build secure systems. These are the people applying that discipline to the rest of the city.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.