(Gary) UA South from the 1990s when it was formed,
was primarily an in-person adult learning transfer
college.
In 2016, the University of Arizona
started a cyber operations program,
and so they created the College of Applied
Science and Technology, which took over
what used to be known as University Arizona South.
So this college is less than four years old.
Three students in its first cohort, once it was built.
Latest student
headcount was over 2800 students as of spring of this year.
So it grew like crazy.
The first building that greets you when you get on
campus is Groth Hall.
It was the original building built in 1993.
It's named after Randy Groth,
our founding dean at the University of Arizona South,
and it's our administration building.
Just past the extension office is Patterson Observatory.
It■s a 21 inch telescope that's community run.
On the other side of our campus is our three other buildings.
We have a faculty office building.
Right next to it
is a learning resource center, which is a multipurpose room
with a play area for children because we have mostly
adult learners in our college.
And then at the end of the building
is our cyber operations building or our cyber building.
And that's the building
where all of the magic happens with CyberApolis.
(Jason) So we created this entire
cyber virtual learning environment.
We call it CyberApolis, and it's got a virtual world behind it.
We built our version of Twitter.
It's called Chirpy Hub, and our Facebook is Social Park
and our LinkedIn is Career Hub, and we have a YouTube site
and we've essentially created this live synthetic environment
that's completely unstructured, but not on the open Internet,
but it feels just like the open Internet.
(Gary) We owe a lot of thanks to why
we even have a cyber program and how we got to
where we are, to Jason and Linda Denno.
Linda took on the task of putting this together
and Jason basically built the program.
(Jason) Yeah, 100%.
Get it done and in.
(Linda) I was interim dean
at the time that we changed from UA
South to the College of
Applied Science and Technology and then when Gary Packard came,
he graciously decided to keep me on as associate Dean.
We spent a lot of time at home talking about things
and planning things and doing things.
(Jason) I think the university gets quite a bit of extra
work out of us because of what happens at home too, so.
We were able to build a purpose built, the only
purpose built, cyber intel and information operations
training platform anywhere in the world,
even the government systems right now
that they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on
have not caught up to what the university has.
Essentially what you have here
is the wireless security lab here for our IOT devices.
So all of the devices back here are commercial IOT devices
that we've done security, vulnerability assessments on.
Every one of those toys up there are basically evil.
They bleed data.
And then here,
this is a very sophisticated Bluetooth target set
that feeds back in to our radios that we have here.
This is part of the laboratory that the students
anywhere in the world, 24 seven 365,
they can go from their browser right into this room.
And that's what the students are using to do
real world wireless analysis in the lab.
Intelligence community in general, right
now, is just harvesting their workforce
from the University of Arizona.
(John) Hey, sir, how are you?
It's great to see you again.
Thanks for making your way out here.
(Gary) Absolutely.
We work with the military on a regular basis,
and especially with our partners over here at Fort Huachuca.
Fort Huachuca is home to the Army's intelligence school.
So all the Army intelligence officers
and NCOs and young soldiers go through that program.
And since we have an intelligence and information
operations program, it's a great synergy with us.
(Jaohn) Please have a seat.
The linkages to cyber and intelligence is important
to the garrison, important to me as the garrison commander,
because if it's the future of Fort Huachuca, which it is,
then what we have to do is develop the range complex
concept in order to support that.
And the University of Arizona has been key
in helping us understand those linkages
to the cyber realm,
to the electromagnet spectrum pulse from a signals collection
to signals manipulation and hacking to get in to
what do what it is we need to do.
Sierra Vista was formed because Fort Huachuca
arrived here and Fort Huachuca established first
and then the town of Sierra Vista came many years later.
That commerce, that back and forth
between our two entities has been crucial
to both the success of Fort Huachuca
and the success of the people of Sierra Vista.
And so it becomes a symbiotic community of
we have a need, Sierra Vista has a need,
and CAST is providing that future workforce.
[keyboard clicks]
(Melany) The university has become
more present in our community
with the addition of the College
of Applied Sciences and Technology.
We have worked with the City of Sierra Vista
and their Industrial Development Authority and the University
of Arizona to create a business incubator locally.
Our business
incubator focuses on businesses that are cyber based or I.T.
based, which also supports the businesses.
It supports the jobs, it supports the Fort.
It helps us identify as a smart city.
UA CAST, has just
created an avenue for our students, for
our children to grow up here, stay here and live a great life.
(Gary) So the future of CAST is pretty exciting.
We are launching, we hope, this fall,
a master's of science in cyber
and information operations, and we will start a Ph.D.
the year after.
I can't tell you how many people I work with
who came to Fort Huachuca
because that's usually what brings outsiders
in to Sierra Vista who have stayed here
and have never left
because of the climate, because of the people,
and because of the cost of living.
Quite frankly, it's a great place to live.