Col. Keith Tresh is back in one of the top cybersecurity roles in California state government.
Tresh has been appointed commander of the California Cybersecurity Integration Center (Cal-CSIC) in the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, the Brown administration announced Thursday. Tresh is the first person to serve as commander since Cal-CSIC became operational in April.
Tresh was the state's chief information security officer (CISO) at the then-California Technology Agency from 2011 to 2013, though he has served in many other executive-level positions before and since.
Most recently Tresh was CIO of the High-Speed Rail Authority, a job he took in January. He had been CIO of the California National Guard since 2006. In 2014 Tresh was named the CISO of Orange County and held several communications-based jobs from 1993 to 2005 while in the National Guard. Tresh is a former brigade communications officer who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq.
Tresh earned a master's degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College and a master's degree in computer information systems from the University of Phoenix, according to information provided by the administration.
In the face of a growing threat of cyberattacks against governments statewide and across the nation, Gov. Jerry Brown issued last year an executive order directing the state to establish Cal-CSIC.
The center's mission is to focus on cyberthreat analysis, assessments, information sharing, and incident response and coordination — detecting malicious events and turning those into actionable intelligence.
Core partners of Cal-CSIC include CalOES, the Department of Technology, CHP and the Military Department. Other strategic partners include the federal Department of Homeland Security, the California Municipal Utilities Association and the state's universities.
Cal-CSIC is now located alongside the state's main fusion center at the Office of Emergency Services.
Tresh discusses the state's cybersecurity readiness and coordination activities in the fall 2016 issue of Techwire magazine.
