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Cybersecurity Insights
a NIST blog
Nine Years and Counting: NICE RAMPS Communities Keep Expanding Opportunities in Cybersecurity Work and Learning
A lot has changed in America’s cybersecurity workforce development ecosystem since 2016: employment in cybersecurity occupations has grown by more than 300,000[1]; the number of information security degrees awarded annually has more than tripled to nearly 35,000[2]; and a wide array of new technologies and risks have emerged. Five regional cybersecurity workforce partnerships supported by the 2016 RAMPS program pilot, administered by NIST’s NICE Program Office, have weathered the changes in cybersecurity and continue to anchor cybersecurity talent networks in their communities to this day.
RAMPS stands for ‘Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development.’ True to its name, NIST’s RAMPS community partnerships focus on organizing regional employers alongside education and training providers, government agencies, and community organizations to create onramps into cybersecurity careers that support learners pursuing in-demand cybersecurity work roles.
Starting Small (and Smart) in Cybersecurity Workforce Development
In conversations reflecting on their work, representatives from each of the five pilot partnerships stressed the importance of RAMPS funding in lending credibility to their nascent workforce partnerships and gathering essential stakeholders. Gretchen Bliss, formerly of Pikes Peak State College (PPSC) and now director of cybersecurity programs at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, put it in culinary terms: “RAMPS put the right people in the right place. Sometimes the sourdough starter doesn’t work, but ours just rocketed.”
To kick things off, the lead organizations for each RAMPS partnership articulated specific goals for their work. PPSC focused on supporting high school dual enrollment and credit transfer agreements between community colleges and four-year institutions. Project staff at Old Dominion University (ODU) in Hampton Roads, Virginia, zeroed in on reported skills mismatches between local businesses and new graduates. For the nonprofit-led Arizona Statewide Cyber Workforce Consortium, non-college pathways for career changers were the main objective. All of the 2016 awardees included some work-based learning components, such as internships or apprenticeships, so a key challenge was bringing private sector stakeholders and other employers to the table.
John Costanzo, chief administrative officer of ODU’s Coastal Virginia Center for Cybersecurity Innovation, described surveying local cybersecurity business partners to understand specific skill needs and inform curriculum development. “We found deltas where businesses thought we weren’t doing enough, and the academics thought we were doing too much,” Costanzo said. His team, like other RAMPS awardees, used the NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) to facilitate discussions about skills needs and orient stakeholders around common cybersecurity roles.
With partners on board and speaking the same language, RAMPS awardees were able to start the work of building cybersecurity career pathways. The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce rolled out a cybersecurity labor market intelligence portal; ODU placed 20 students in internships and helped launch Virginia’s first cybersecurity apprenticeship; PPSC nearly quadrupled enrollment in high school cybersecurity programs from 2017 to 2019. And in the years since, the impact of early investments through the RAMPS initiative has grown.
RAMPing up to Build Sophisticated Cybersecurity Pathways
For the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE), which leads the Cin-Day Cyber Corridor, the main goal of their RAMPS community was to bring cybersecurity programs to more postsecondary institutions. “Only a few of our schools offered cybersecurity programs in 2016,” says SOCHE’s executive vice president of development, Patty Buddelmeyer. But with time, the partnership started to focus on K-12 schools too, supporting the development of career pathways maps and dual enrollment options. More recently, the project has also tapped into city and county governments, partnering to place student learners in internships that support civic cyberdefense. “We’re excited about all of the positive outcomes that came directly out of our RAMPS relationships,” says Cassie Barlow, SOCHE’s president.
New York’s Partnership to Advance Cybersecurity Education and Training (PACET), led by the University at Albany (UAlbany), focused on strengthening four-year programs and on making sure that students leaving community colleges were prepared for transfer. Additionally, PACET’s 2016 award also had a graduate education component, adding a risk management specialization to UAlbany’s MBA program. Now, the university offers three one-year master’s programs with specializations in cybersecurity, cyber operations, and digital forensics. “The RAMPS program did what it said,” says UAlbany professor Sanjay Goel, “it ramped up our programs.”
In the nine years since the pilot RAMPS awards began, the regional partnerships they supported have continued to grow through the ingenuity and hard work of project organizers. Each pilot partnership now includes National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity, and all 2016 awardees have taken their collaboration statewide through projects like Virginia’s Commonwealth Cyber Initiative and the Ohio Cyber Range. “I think a lot about how RAMPS helped to connect and catalyze bodies of work that were just getting started,” says Cathleen Barton, a consultant who works with the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce.
With success comes further innovation and the RAMPS initiative, like its constituent communities, has continued to evolve and build on best practices from the pilot. Additional cohorts in 2023 and 2024 brought the total number of RAMPS communities to 33 and a new group of awardees will be announced later this year.
