Our Mission

The West Michigan Cyber Security Consortium is a multi-jurisdictional and public/private partnership whose purpose is to enhance the prevention, protection, response, and recovery to cyber security threats, disruptions, and degradation to critical information technology functions.

Our Background

The WMCSC was formed in 2010 to improve cyber security information sharing among businesses, emergency management professionals, law enforcement, and the broader communities inside the Department of Homeland Security’s Region 5 and Michigan’s Region 6.

The Consortium began with approximately 25 individuals from
Information Technologies Management Association (ITMA), which represented large and small businesses in West Michigan. As of December 2018, membership included 700 individuals that reach across the 13 Michigan’s Region 6, as well as representation from Allegan, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Detroit, Traverse City, and other areas across the state and region.

The Consortium is led by a steering committee that meets quarterly to plan member meetings and activities, review projects, and make budgetary decisions.

Consortium Steering Committee:

Abraham Jones – Chair
Stacy Madden – Co-Chair

Anthony Tuttle Co-Chair, Community Training & Outreach
Rebecca Brooks  Co-Chair, Community Training & Outreach

Ashley DeGroff  Co-Chair, Cyber Community Engagement
Rebecca Harvey Co-Chair, Cyber Community Engagement

John DeRyke Co-Chair, General Community Engagement & Outreach

Nikolai Gevorkyan  Co-Chair, Marketing & Media Engagement
Katy Leedy – Co-Chair, Marketing & Media Engagement

Jim Kuiphof Co-Chair, Executive Advisory
Sara Schmidt Co-Chair, Executive Advisory

Tim Becker
Ed Bobola
Faith Heikkila
Barb Hiemstra

Rose Johnson-King
Brian Kowalczk

Organization Charter

The West Michigan Cyber Security Consortium was founded to provide the following services to the greater IT and cyber communities of Region 6:

Determine key cyber security issues encountered by local, state and national entities

Provide educational opportunities related to the key cyber security issues

Develop cyber security guidelines or templates that can be utilized by any entity

Promote networking between IT representatives

Help members assess their existing cyber security preparedness, identify mitigation plans, and connect with resources

Determine a secure information-sharing system for cyber-related issues

Develop benchmarks for achieving key goals and objectives

Key Goals & Objectives

Drawing heavily from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) voluntary cybersecurity Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure, the key goals and objectives of the WMCSC are to provide support for the following cyber security tasks:

Identify
Develop an organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk to systems, people, assets, data, and capabilities.
Protect
Develop and implement appropriate safeguards to ensure delivery of critical services.
Detect
Develop and implement appropriate activities to identify the occurrence of a cybersecurity event.
Respond
Develop and implement appropriate activities to take action regarding a detected cybersecurity incident.
Recover
Develop and implement appropriate activities to maintain plans for resilience and to restore any capabilities or services that were impaired due to a cybersecurity incident.

NIST Cyber Security Framework