Tony is originally from Baltimore, Maryland.  He received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland via an Air Force ROTC scholarship. In 2007, he retired from the Air Force after 22 years of service and has over 25 years of experience in the information technology and cyber security arenas.  

After retiring from the USAF, Tony became a full-time information security professional fulfilling various roles as an information system security officer, information system security manager, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) certifying authority, security controls assessor, chief information security officer (CISO), and a cyber security consultant.  He has approximately 15 years of hands-on experience with NIST in many of these roles, including working as a key member of a team at the Pentagon to convert the United States Air Force from a Department of Defense (DoD) static compliance-based framework to the risk-based NIST Risk Management Framework (RMF).  Tony is currently with Redspin, an Authorized CMMC 3^rd Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO) as a CMMC Provisional Assessor.

Tony is an experienced instructor within the cybersecurity profession fulfilling roles such as full-time military faculty teaching master degree level information security courses at the National Defense University, adjunct instructor and co-developer of the master degree level cyber security program at Auburn University-Montgomery, and lead faculty chair for cyber security and networking at the University of Phoenix.

Tony is an accomplished public speaker and publisher on various information technology and cybersecurity topics, to include areas such as threat intelligence and analysis, digital convergence, the effects of ransomware, and social engineering, to name a few.

He has multiple certifications in information security, security management, and enterprise information technology to include the Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Certified in Governance of Enterprise Information Technology (CGEIT).

For fun, Tony enjoys outdoor activities and is a part-time audio engineer and music producer, along with videography services provider in the off times.