It's been quiet here since late July. That wasn't for lack of material. It was because the material was happening faster than I could write it down. Here's the short version: I've changed jobs, earned a new credential, and spent the last two months learning what CMMC looks like when it's no longer a study guide. The New Role On July 27, I joined Sentar as a Cybersecurity Analyst and CMMC Assessor. Sentar is a Certified Third-Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO) out of Huntsville, Alabama. For anyone outside the Defense Industrial Base, that means we're one of the organizations authorized to formally assess whether defense contractors are protecting Controlled Unclassified Information the way the Department of Defense requires. For me,...

I've had a dedicated job-search email address since the day I hung up my Navy uniform — never my personal inbox, never a work account. Every resume, recruiter reply, and offer letter has lived in one searchable place for years, which turned it into more than a job-search tool; it's a running career archive. But for my most recent search, I retired that address and opened a brand new one. Years of stale job-board alerts, outdated subscriptions, and recruiter outreach chasing a version of my career I'd outgrown had turned it into noise. A fresh address meant a clean slate, tuned to who I am now, not who I was a decade ago. There's a security reason to do this too. A job-search address is about as public as an email gets — it's on your...

This week marked my first week as a CMMC Assessor at Sentar. It's a title I've been working toward for a while, and now that it's here, I wanted to write down where it came from and how it feels. Last year, I earned my CMMC CCA (Certified CMMC Assessor) credential. A decision that came at an unexpected time, when I found myself affected by the DOGE driven changes moving through the federal contracting world. It wasn't the plan I'd originally mapped out, but it turned out to be the right pivot. I sat for the CCP and CCA on my own terms, paid for the mandatory classes and added it to a credential stack I'd already been building for years: CISSP, CISM, CISA, CEH, PMP, PSM, and ITIL Before this latest move, I was an IT Systems Auditor with...

For several years, I relied on landscapers to cut my grass, much like many of my neighbors. Even in spring 2025, I maintained the service, believing that the hour plus every week saved was better spent on my job hunt and due to DOGE. That fall, I had already found employment, but as the seasons changed in Florida, I realized that my yard would only need cutting every two weeks vice weekly. After some consideration, I decided to take on the task myself for the fall and winter months. It was cooler, and I had gasoline in my garage that needed using up from the last hurricane. This spring, I continued cutting the grass myself and redirected the savings into various AI tools, resources, and subscriptions, such as Claude and Gemini Pro. This...