Deb Wigley is the Director of Kindness and Generosity for Black Hills Information Security (BHIS). She joined the team in 2019 after celebrating 20 years of working in customer engagement and satisfaction in the Automotive Industry. She brings her passion for helping and serving people to the work she does at BHIS. The part of her role she enjoys the most is interacting with the community through our webcasts and educational content, our Discord servers, and conferences. She loves being a mom to her four kiddos and in her spare time, she enjoys reading, hiking, frequently entertaining a beach day, and being whisked away on rewilding adventures with her husband of 20+ years as much as possible.

Jason Blanchard has been happily adopted into the hacker community at Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) since 2019, even though he “works in marketing.” He’s had every dream job imaginable: teaching filmmaking, owning the world’s most famous comic book store, and fostering the infosec community efforts for SANS. While some at BHIS call him the “Director of Excitement,” he is formally known as the Excitement Co-Creator. In his day-to-day work of “sucking at capitalism,” Jason enjoys helping others, sharing his knowledge, and giving away lots of free stuff. When he’s not working, Jason spends time with his wife and daughter, hosts a semiweekly job-hunting Twitch stream, and enjoys writing short stories and performing stand-up comedy.

Bryan Strand began working for Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) in 2017 as a Manager of Business Capture and a Consultant. Prior to joining the team at BHIS, he worked in a variety of fields including psychology, sales, and aviation. Currently, Bryan is responsible for communicating with clients and guiding them toward a better security posture. Bryan and John have known each other for more than 30 years, and when an opportunity became available at BHIS, he couldn’t pass up working with his family. Bryan loves his team and loves helping to create environments that others would want to work in every day. Away from work, Bryan enjoys reading, being outdoors, and spending time with family and friends.

Patterson Cake joined the Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) pirate ship in June of 2023 as a Security Consultant focusing primarily on detection engineering and digital forensics and incident response. He chose BHIS because, to paraphrase, “doing cool stuff with cool people” and “making the world a better/safer place” is exactly how he wants to spend his professional time and energy. It also helps that he has a bit of history with a couple of awesome folks that have been with BHIS for many moons. Prior to joining the team, Patterson helped build and lead a DFIR practice for an MSSP, worked as a senior security engineer for AWS Managed Services, and spent several years in enterprise cybersecurity, often healthcare related, focusing on intermingling offensive security and incident response in technical and leadership roles. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his family, which often involves motorcycles, outdoor sports, movies, and music.

Ryan Poirier began his time at Black Hills Information Security (BHIS) as the Video Producer and Editor in August 2020. Ryan polishes and perfects every webcast, podcast, and workshop on the BHIS, ACM, and WWHF YouTube Channels. Prior to Ryan’s time at BHIS, he worked for one of the largest public schools in the United States, conducting their video production and live broadcasting. He joined the BHIS team because he felt like it would be a great group of people to work with, and he couldn’t pass up the perfect next step in his career. Outside of his time with BHIS, Ryan does freelance photography, attends Cars & Coffee events, and expands his knowledge of audio and videos.