Who Am I: Michael J. Goetzman (LinkedIn)
Location: Wisconsin
Title: Information Technology, Security, & Privacy Leader
Education: Master of Science in Business Management with international studies in Havana, Cuba
"Who I am?" is a deep question...
My Personal World
When the great intertubes and information superhighway first appeared I was there living as a youngster in Northern Wisconsin. Anonymity was the default web culture and as a small child discovering this world, anonymous names were essential to fully experiencing this new paradigm of digital freedom. That exciting assignment of an anonymous name was the first step into this new world! My story begins by creating a new character in a text-based MUD game with a random name generator assigning my character: “Kamic A’kota” “Kamic” An anglicized form of kamika, meaning desirous, pertaining to desire. "Cupiditas." Since then, I’ve gone by many other names, one in which you may know me by, such as “Minnow”, “Monster”, “Korgo”, or perhaps you know me by another odd name?… “Esse quam videri. Quisque Aliquid Habet quod occultet.
Too far back? Okay...
I have an excessive amount of hobbies. I noticed immediately that travel destinations often contain massive amounts of water, be it the ocean or exotic rivers. Obtaining my PADI certification in 1998 at the age of 16 helped me explore and navigate these mysterious places. I’ve had amazingly colorful and lively dives near the Hawaii islands, off the coast of the Bahamas, throughout Mexico, & at the bay of pigs in Cuba! In addition to scuba diving while on vacations, although I am not a professional photographer by trade, I simply try to incorporate photography into my other hobbies to capture amazing memories later in life.
Another area hard to explore is the sky. Prior to children, I flew experimental aircraft. Nearly every year I attend EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, WI – sometime even volunteering. You used to find me there flying around Wisconsin in a light-sport tail-wheel aircraft called a Zlin Savage cub. I also tried my hand at lighter-than-air in hot air balloons, float plans, and even took a ride on one of only four Zeppelins in the world.
In addition to scuba diving, photography, and flying I enjoy also enjoy exploring local paths and forests, paddling around the Peshtigo river, geocaching with the kids, website building, walking around historic Cedarburg, and curling like the Olympic pros with local clubs! In a former life I was a Lifeguard, built robots with FIRST Robotics, and play on vintage hardware and software from the yesteryears: ICQ, BBSs, and other oddities that most of society has forgotten about.
Still too much? Well, why are you here then?!
Lastly, the most important thing in my life is being married with two children. We adore the avant-garde life (at least from Midwestern standards), we seek out fine art, enjoy live indie theater, attending and participating in film festivals, traveling together and discovering new genres of interesting music. Life gets busy really fast, working to grow our children's mind, body, and life experiences is ultimately top priority. When I can find some extra time in this ever-so-busy life I try to stop and reflect on it all, grab a nice book on philosophy seeking bigger questions than I can process, trying to understand the genetics of how we tick and fantasize about potential worlds and adventures that may someday exist.
carpe diem. vita brevis
Professional Hobbies and Adventures
I believe in freedom of information, equality before the law, the advancement of scientific research, and the individual imperative – organizations & government exist to serve individuals, not the other way around. I’m troubled by dictatorships, attacks on democracy, and sinister abuses of technology. I don’t claim to have solutions. I just wish someone did. Utopian visions are a work in progress and always evolving, I hope to guide them the righteous direction. I do not have individual role models but enjoy aspects from great people such as Andrew Niccol, Isaac Asimov , Increase A. Lapham, Phil Zimmermann, Alan Watts, Tim Berners-Lee, Alex Garland, Nathan Myhrvold, Neil deGrasse Tyson, John Gilmore (activist), Dean Kamen , Burt Rutan , Elon Musk , Jason DeCaires Taylor, and the late Jon Karkow.
I deeply explore other areas. Authoring Sci-fi Novels, Film Production, and erecting massive Interactive Art Structures with an International Collaboration of Artists. I spend a lot of time occupied creating worlds with authoring sci-fi stories tackling philosophy and world mysteries. I enjoy the challenge of perfecting the story for eventual releases by detailing oddly unique characters and placing them into thought-provoking worlds. Beyond sci-fi novels, I enjoy bringing characters to life in productions of live-action film. Film allows the viewer to explore potential future social actions, like a mind simulator. Lastly, I push into the extremes of left-brain thinking meeting right-brain thinking by the wandering and creation of digital art. What worlds will next-level creations be?
Professional Career
I have been a Lifeguard, Network Architect, Systems Engineer, Cloud Navigator, Privacy Advocate, and a Cyber Security Professional... Today? I just do technology leadership stuff 🙂 I constantly study esoteric technological emerging trends such as zero-days, malware, cyber-defense countermeasures, and overly paranoid subjects such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition, bio-hacking, hardware hacking, internet of things, smart cities, along with old school styles of phreaking and physical security. Therefore I volunteer, attend & speak at many technology conferences. Sharing with the community helps advance the industry as a whole.
Community is important to me. For the last ten years, I’ve built and operated a major community project event called CypherCon, Wisconsin’s community hacker conference. From October to April, any extra time my wife and I can find goes towards planning our state’s next conference that hackers and security professionals seek out and wish for an amazing experience. We do not want to let them down. Year seven (2024) is expected to bring in about 2000 attendees, making us the largest tech conference in the state! We also run BSidesMKE (Milwaukee) and SecretCon in Minnesota, another hacker conference. We continue to work with others in our community to push into visionary ideas and help educate the industry of new concepts. We plan to focus more on career growth for attendees, build up relationships with each other, and fire as many senses as possible during these small professional escapes from the professional world.
Certs? /Yawn ... My certification collection spanning over 20+ years of educating myself towards a productive career balancing strategy and technical capabilities in an attempt to accelerate advancement. Imagine all the upkeep fees these entail.. oof... i'll start letting them expire...
Microsoft MVP Award –Azure Enterprise Security: Cloud and Datacenter - Highest Microsoft Issued Honor
C|CISO - Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) from EC-Council (Active)
GIAC GSTRT – Certification for Strategic Planning, Policy, and Leadership for CISOs from SANS. (Active)
CISSP - Certified Information Systems Security Professional from ISC2 (Active since 2011)
CRISC - Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control from ISACA (Active)
CISM - Certified Information Security Manager from ISACA (Active)
CISA - Certified Information Systems Auditor from ISACA (Active)
CEH - Certified Ethical Hacker from EC-Council (Active)
CDPSE - Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (Active)
CRMA - Certification in Risk Management Assurance from the Institute of Internal Auditor (IIA) (Active)
CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate (Active)
ITIL v3 - Certificate on Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Foundation v.3 (Active)
Microsoft Azure Security Engineer Associate - Microsoft Cloud Azure AZ-500 Certification (Active)
AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Professional) - Amazon’s Cloud Computing Services (Active)
Certified Locksmith - Associated Locksmiths of America
And more... I haven't updated this in the last few years.
Thanks for learning more about me... Say hi if you see this 😛 and give me the password "Illusory superiority" – non est antidotum