HERMITAGE, Pa. – Cyber thieves continue to evolve, and so must the people and technology needed to stop them.
LindenPointe, the Pennsylvania Cybersecurity Center in Hermitage, is training the newest recruits – high school students and adults – for this in-demand career.
The Pennsylvania Cybersecurity Center is also using a $1 million grant from the Appalachian Commission to build a lab, in conjunction with the program.
Completion of the high school program leads to CompTIA Network+ and Security+ certifications, some of the top base-level cybersecurity certifications. Students attend three classes per week during the school day.
Those certifications give students an edge when graduating, attending college, entering the armed forces or joining the job market.
Bradley Calleja, executive director of the LindenPointe Development Corp., says modern warfare is based on cybertechnology and artificial intelligence and the Army is giving $20,000 signing bonuses for those with cybersecurity backgrounds interested in joining the military.
Rick Love, the program director at the PCC says the U.S. Army has three levels of cyber professionals serving at six bases and those with the certifications being offered through PCC can completely skip the first level.
“Cyberattacks aren’t going away any time in our lifetime,” Love says. “They’re here to stay and there’s going to be more of them as everything in the world is done on computers, tablets and laptops.”
The program has connections with both the U.S. Army, and the Air Reserve Base in Vienna.
“We want to be able to provide them with not only a chance to go into business and industry, but a chance to go into the military,” Love says.
The PCC also has connections with Penn State Shenango, Westminster College, Thiel College and Mercyhurst University.
Recent adult graduates of PCC programs have secured jobs at companies like Oracle and SAP, but Calleja says a benefit of cybersecurity training is the ability to work remotely, making good money working for companies elsewhere, while still living in western Pennsylvania.
“Our goal is to try to simultaneously build up some form of local technology mindset, local technology economy, but also be able to supply them with opportunities and remote work,” Calleja says. “So that’s our big push and why cybersecurity is a great career – students can live in either Hermitage or Youngstown or wherever and they can work from home, work from a co-working space and have a great, really high paying, stable career.”
Love is seeking job shadowing opportunities with businesses for high school students between their junior and senior years as well as internships.
“Right now, we’re looking to partner with businesses on a couple fronts,” says Love, adding that in addition to transitional training opportunities, he hopes to partner with companies to provide scholarships.
Love is recruiting high school juniors for the 2025-26 school year, which will give them two years to complete the program.
A Career in Demand
Across the country about half a million cybersecurity jobs remain open, including large numbers in Pennsylvania, according to Calleja. At the same time, he says the Pennsylvania state treasury department recently reported 200 million attempts by cybercriminals on their firewall in the past year.
The amount of money stolen by cyberthieves annually is equal to the third-largest economy in the world.
While AI is replacing humans in fields like software engineering, development and coding, cybersecurity requires critical thinking and a quick human response, Calleja adds.
The cyber lab being built from the $1 million grant will help students see real-world cybersecurity scenarios, as well as coding and AI. For example, teams of students will build infrastructure for a large corporation, attempt to find weaknesses while hacking into the systems another team builds and react to stop them.
“It makes a huge difference in terms of their enjoyment of the education experience,” Calleja says, “and it also gets them to realize I can do this for a career.”
Additionally, there will be an eSports component at the facility, which also is a way to get students engaged and interested in technical careers.
What Employers Want
Robert Merva, owner and CEO of Avrem Technologies LLC, a managed services provider specializing in business IT and cybersecurity in Youngstown, said he looks to hire people who continue past the Comp TIA training and gain independent certifications, like the ones through Microsoft.
David Daichendt, vice president of operations at infinIT, also lists Comp TIA certification as a sought-after skill. He also named Microsoft 356, as well as Cisco certifications, SonicWall certifications, VMware cloud computing training and Information Technology Infrastructure Library training among skills he would like to see in applicants.
Merva says certifications give his company a good baseline to know what curriculum people have had in the past.
Daichendt says he suggests schools also try adding a help desk, which allows students to troubleshoot technology and develop their interpersonal skills.
“That’s extremely valuable to us,” Daichendt explains.
Any training students receive will be short-lived, says Tom Reeveley, founder and CEO of Team Office, because technology is always changing.
“Next week, there’s something different,” Reeveley says. “So, it’s more of an aptitude thing. It’s more the type of person that thrives in that environment of change, constant change – can move around, adapt, dig in for themselves, use multiple resources to get to the root of something, manage and organize materials and information in a logical way and keep track of it.”
Additionally, Reeveley says he is looking for employees who love computers.
The PCC held its 2025 Cybersecurity Summit on March 19 in conjunction with Penn State Shenango, the center’s primary academic partner.
The summit took place in the Penn State Shenango campus auditorium in downtown Sharon, Pa. It included representatives from the FBI, Army, Air Force, insurance companies and other industries.
The event also offered information about career opportunities in cybersecurity, what is happening in the industry, the risks for businesses and what can be done to protect them.
Pictured at top: Bradley Calleja is the executive director at the LindenPointe Development Corp. in Hermitage, Pa.