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Orange County Comp Squadron Earns CyberPatriot 1st Place Silver Tier Award

Lt McCauley receives award certificate
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The Orange County Comp Squadron's CyberPatriot team coach, 2d Lt Rob McCauley (left), receives the 1st place award certificate from Capt Ron Watkins. PHOTO CREDIT: Capt Lynne T. Albert, CAP (click image to view full size)
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Squadron’s high school and middle school teams perform well in competition

By Capt Lynne T. Albert, CAP
NC Wing Public Affairs Officer

3/18/2017–HILLSBOROUGH, NC–The Orange County Composite Squadron’s high school CyberPatriot team (“Phoenix Rising”) received the 1st Place Silver Tier Award in the recent CyberPatriot IX competition. The high school CyberPatriot competition team consisted of Cadets Z. Steele, Z. Lincoln and J. Lord – with Cadet Steele serving as the team leader.  Eight other cadets helped the team and assisted at practices and learning sessions. 

The team was awarded the certificate in honor of their outstanding technical skill, problem solving, and teamwork demonstrated by placing first in the North Carolina All Service Division Silver Tier State Round of competition. The 1st Place Award certificate was presented to the team at an awards ceremony held on 2 March 2017.
 
The squadron also fielded a middle school CyberPatriot team (“Orange Phoenix”) consisting of cadets J. Debree, R. Khan and J. McCauley. 
 
The two CyberPatriot teams are ably coached by 2d Lt Rob McCauley.  Lt McCauley is an information security expert and software developer at Leidos and is also the squadron’s Information Technologies Officer.  Lt McCauley emphasized that, “our teams were successful because the cadets were highly motivated to learn. We created numerous simulated rounds focusing on why you do certain things, instead of just how to do them.”  
 
The squadron’s first CyberPatriot team was organized in 2015 by Capt Ron Long and had just 2 cadets. Capt Long spent 33 years in IT as an U.S. Army civilian employee. Capt Long hopes that more cadets and senior members will participate in the CyberPatriot program. He stated that, “the future of warfare is in cyberspace and America needs to be prepared.”