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Next Meeting:
When:  Friday, March 31,  2017
Where:  The Lansing Center, Second Floor
Speaker:  Wayne Sieloff, President & CEO Capital Region Airport Authority
Topic:  "Going Up From Here and Lansing's AirPorts"
Invocator:  John Shaski
Chair of the Day:  Chris Holman
Chair of the Month:  Michelle Reynaert
Greeters:  Jenn Dubey & Rich Howard
Remembrance:  Irv Nichols
Editarian:  Helen Mickens
March Birthday Chair:  Melissa Nay
 
Biography for Wayne Sieloff
Wayne Sieloff is President and CEO of the Capital Region Airport Authority, operator of Lansing’s Capital Region International Airport, Mason Jewett Field general aviation airport, and the Port Lansing Cargo and Global Logistics Centre.
 
Born and raised in Michigan, Sieloff was a longtime leader with the Wayne County Airport Authority, operator of Detroit Metro and Willow Run airports, before joining the Capital Region Airport Authority in December 2016.
 
A registered architect, Sieloff worked in the private sector architectural industry until 1997, when he joined Wayne County. After serving in several increasingly responsible positions, Sieloff was appointed vice president at the Wayne County Airport Authority in 2012. In that position, he was part of the senior leadership team that identifies and develops strategic plans, business plans, annual operational goals and capital/development initiatives for the two airport campuses.
 
Concurrent to leading key development and strategic initiatives at airports, Wayne has also been dedicated to public service in his community of Trenton, Michigan. In November 2012, he was re-elected to his third term as Board of Education Trustee he has served two terms as President of the Board. From 1997 to 1999, he was elected as Mayor of his city. Prior to leading the city, Sieloff was elected as City Councilman. He has also served in the capacity Planning Commissioner, Downtown Development Authority member, and Brownfield Redevelopment Authority member.
 
Wayne Sieloff has a Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degrees from the Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.  Wayne is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.
 
Sieloff has earned the distinctions of Accredited Airport Executive (AAE) by the American Association of Airport Executives and International Airport Professional (IAP) by the Airport Council International and the International Civil Aviation Organization.  He also currently serves as Second Vice-Chair of the Michigan Association of Airport Executives.
 
Wayne and his wife, Lori, have three children - Madison, Morgan, and Zachary - ages, 17, 14, and 12.
Rotary Club of Lansing Foundation Grant Application
The foundation will accept applications for local projects serving the residents of Ingham, Eaton or Clinton counties.  In general, project funding is for a 12-month period, however multi-year requests will be considered.  Projects that received funding from the foundation during the prior two years are not eligible in this grant cycle.  Grants will be made only to organizations and groups that are qualified under Section 501 (c) (3) of the IRS code, or to churches, schools, governmental units or to another Rotary Club.  DEADLINE IS FRIDAY, MARCH 31st AT NOON.   The link is:
 
Editarian Report for March 24, 2017
 PATRIOTIC SONG
 
Today’s dual meeting with the Lansing Regional Sister Cities Commission was held in the 2nd floor meeting room at the Lansing Center. President Jack called the meeting to order at approximately 12:10, after which the clubs joined together in singing our National Anthem. 
 
REMEMBRANCE REPORT
 
Jack offered a moment of silence in memory of Jack Bates, reminding everybody that next week’s meeting will include a tribute to the long-time Rotarian. John Dale played Abide with Me to accompany the moment of silence. Jack’s funeral will be at 2 pm today at the Peoples Church in East Lansing.
 
INTRODUCTIONS
 
 Chris Holman carried the mike to introduce today’s guests, starting with his own guest, Andrea Reagan, the head of IT Schedule, out of Capital Area Michigan Works. Andrea is a prospective Rotarian.   Then Alejandro Salais and his mom as the Student Guest for today with Justin Sheehan.  Ted Brynn was a guest of Kurt Guter and Helen Mickens introduced Cynthia Ward—a privacy and compliance director with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Angela Applebee was introduced as the guest of Linda Lynch.
 
Chris thanked everybody for coming today and stated, very emphatically (by way of convincing today’s guests to join) that we are, by far, the greatest Rotary club in the world!
 
Jack thanked Chris for his excellent job as usual, then remarked that a new member orientation had taken place just prior to today’s meeting. He asked the new members to stand and be recognized. This caused a hearty round of applause.
 
Due to the mayor being four minutes away, President Jack and Barbara Roberts Mason (President, Sister Cities) each took two minutes to speak prior to the mayor’s arrival.
 
President Jack talked about how Mayor Bernero has brought so much “vigor and vitality to the region”. He is disappointed that the mayor has decided to not run for reelection and noted the many great things he has done for our city. President Jack then talked about a new young Rotarian, employed at the BWL, who chose to return to Lansing after living all over the country. They came back to Lansing specifically because it is a great and growing place to live. For almost 12 years, Mayor Bernero has led that growth.
 
President Jack then introduced President Barbara Roberts Mason of Sister Cities. Since Sister Cities had also booked Dan Lohrmann to speak to THEIR club today, President Barbara explained that a joint meeting of the two clubs made the most sense. She also noted that there are Sister Cities all over the world, including Mexico, Japan, Ghana, Italy, and China.
 
President Barbara talked about how the two clubs have worked closely over the years. In fact, seven years ago, while visiting a water project in Ghana, she was asked by the Lansing Rotary to distribute filters to the Rotary Club in Accra, Ghana. Although Barbara was not a Rotarian, those who met her in Accra never knew this and treated her as one of their own. They sent their greetings to the Rotary Club of Lansing seven years ago, which she hand delivered today.
 
At this point, Mayor Bernero walked in. Giving him a chance to catch his breath, President Barbara continued speaking for another minute, by way of introducing the club’s featured speaker—Dan Lohrmann, who she described as an easy-going, kind guy who was was once the head of all of Michigan’s cybersecurity. In President Barbara’s words, “he knew you whether you knew him or not!” At this point in his career, Dan’s work is more international in scope.
 
Turning her attention back to Mayor Bernero, President Barbara remarked that she is sorry he is ending his tenure as mayor but anticipates he will continue doing lots of good things.
 
REMARKS:
 
 Mayor Bernero began his remarks by saying he will speak for only a minute and does not want to take away from Dan’s talk. He noted that he was late because he was trying to track down his father’s lost cellphone. His father now lives with the mayor’s family and such losses are increasingly commonplace. This aside ties into the speaker’s subject since cybersecurity is a serious issue for all of us and we are spending more money on it than ever before. Colin Boyce is the new Director of Cybersecurity, a cabinet post for the city of Lansing. He is discovering many glitches and telling everyone to be ready to pull their wallets out even more. But we need this level of security and what Dan Lohrmann is about to say is very important! Without further ado, he said it was time for him to get out of the way.
 
SPECIAL MUSIC: NONE TODAY (although we always miss this part of the program when it’s not there!)
 
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dan Lohrmann, Cybersecurity Technologist and Author Spoke on Cybersecurity: Emerging Issues Beyond Theories, Policies and Vulnerabilities “How Can We Secure ‘The Internet of Things’ at Home and Work?”
 
Dan began with a shout out to Justin Sheehan about the Lansing Promise. What a wonderful program this is, he said.
 
He then stated that, largely around the world, there are two views right now on technology. What are our individual perspectives? Do we hold a dark view or a bright view of technology? With a nod to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, do we hold a Hobbiton or Mordor view? The Hobbiton view is light and optimistic. The Mordor view is dark, pessimistic, and fraught with danger.
 
Dan then read from two speeches. The first was an upbeat piece touting the beauty of technological interconnectedness and all its likely benefits: efficiency, disease cures, stopping harmful climate change, ending world hunger etc. In other words, we will all be better off thanks to a better, more connected, smarter future. The second speech was heavy and depressing, citing how danger lurks everywhere because of cyberthreats. The interconnectedness of all our devices means that everything will soon be compromised, just like a Trojan Horse coming into our midst. The ‘bad guys’ will soon control us if we are not careful. The Internet of Things (IOT) is neither smart nor safe for our cities. Only government regulation and controls will protect us and the only hope for tomorrow is for us to be truly cybersmart.
 
When Dan asked our group to vote on which speech better represented their own views, it is interesting to note that more people resonated with the optimistic view although the IT experts in the room sided with the pessimistic view. In reality, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
 
1. Exploring IOT
 
The latest buzzword in technology is IOT, which stands for the Internet of Things and represents the pairing of nontraditional devices (watches, home heating systems, parking meters etc.) with traditional ones (smartphones, computers etc.). Thanks to IOT, smart cities are exploring a wide variety of new ways to operate. For example, it is now possible to pay for a parking meter via the Internet or to pick up curb-side trash based on only bins that are full. Likewise, industrial IOT is making an impact on our world. Rather than waiting for something to break, industrial IOT allows us to detect a problem beforehand, making it easier to fix a problem before it impacts production. This is the Hobbiton side of things.
 
The flip side of these strides in technology development is the deep concern growing over cybersecurity. At this year’s RSA conference (a cryptography and information security-related conference), attended by 45,000 people, IOT pretty much stole the show because of how relatively easy it is to hack into just about any technological device. At this conference, it was possible to attend hacking demonstrations across across all sectors related to our critical infrastructure. These included demonstrations related to roads, transportation, and all seventeen homeland security sectors.
 
As an example of a real-world hacking scenario, just last fall, many home devices (including home routers and baby cameras) were taken over by a botnet. (A botnet is a number of Internet computers that, unbeknownst to their owners, have been taken over by an attacker to cause harm through a set of orchestrated tasks.) Large numbers of these previously ‘good’, innocuous devices were, at that time, used to attack a company.
 
For anyone interested in learning more about cybersecurity or the different ways hacking can be accomplished, just go to Youtube. Experts from all the top schools in the country have videos they showed at the RSA conference that can now be seen there. Most run about 45 minutes.
 
So what should we do about all of this? Dan stated that, according to expert Bruce Schneier, it is worthwhile to establish regulations now rather than wait for a disaster. These regulations, after all, are inevitable.
 
Dan concluded his talk with three lessons he has learned during his long career in cybersecurity.
 
First, we must learn from history if we are going to succeed in combatting cybersecurity threats. Think about the advent of wifi when wardriving was common and people would sit in a car outside someone’s house, accessing their wifi for free. Just because this negative consequence developed does not mean we should have given up on wifi. Rather, we had to find a middle-of-the-road solution that promoted wifi while enabling protections. The same is true of IOT threats in today’s world, when bad guys are getting better at what they do and cybersecurity challenges have not yet peaked. The hacking of medical devices and cars is on the horizon.
 
Second, you don’t really know how what you are doing now is going to impact the future. Several years ago, Dan was involved in over-the-top, scenario-based exercises that enabled communities to problem solve solutions to hypothetical but terrible disasters such as a world-wide power outage. Dan remembers somebody, at the time, complaining about the unrealistic scenario of a company being held ransom through the takeover of its computers and data—that would only be released if a ransom was paid. While this hypothetical exercise took place in 2006, when the development of ransomware was but a wild imagining, ransomware is now a reality. BWL was held hostage to just such a prank in 2016. Another thing to keep in mind is that as you find solutions, keep track of the problems you are creating through that solution.
 
Third, we must always learn to doubt. In 1997, when Dan was working in England, security was tight everywhere. This meant barbed wire and German shepherds and a type of security that would have felt laughable to most Americans. But then 9/11 happened. America stopped laughing and started taking security much more seriously; the mindset changed almost instantly. But now we need to catch up with regard to how seriously we take passwords, changing passwords and taking time to make use of free, 2-factor IDs (one time, four digit text logins) that provide a much more secure environment for our devices. A little more cynicism and doubt can help keep us protected.
 
In closing, Dan said that we don’t know what the future holds. In 2013, Janet Napolitano (the former head of Homeland Security) predicted a Cyber Pearl Harbor within three to five years. Are we ready? At the business level, how are we training our employees for such a day? We all need security mentors to work with us, and we need to present our employees with brief but regular, focused trainings (ten minutes at a time). We need to prioritize security from the start and we should all be conducting penetration tests to see how easy it is for our networks to be broken into. Then we need to figure out how to address the problems we find. It is better to be ahead of the game than behind, keeping in mind that we are only at the beginning of this journey that will continue for the rest of our lives.
 
In the Q & A session that followed, Dan noted two things in particular. First, smart grids are going to be a challenge in the future. A cyber attack has already happened against the Ukraine’s smart grid. Relatedly, the big utility providers are better equipped to withstand an attack than are the small utility providers—partly because they are not as dependent on legacy equipment. Second, Dan noted that small businesses should be buying insurance to protect against cyberattacks although good back-up data is everyone’s first line of defense that must not be neglected.
 
In lieu of a speaker’s gift, we donated money to our Bio Sand Filter project to provide pure water to communities in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
 
NEXT WEEK: We will meet at the Lansing Center on March 31st with Wayne Sieloff, President/CEO of the Capital Region International Airport.
Pam's email is:  pam@thedaviesproject.org
Speakers
Apr 07, 2017
International Project Presentation @ Lansing Center
Apr 14, 2017
Apr 21, 2017
"The Importance of Local News" @ Country Club of Lansing
Apr 28, 2017
"Arts & Culture in the Capital" @ Lansing Center
View entire list
Rotary Club of Lansing
P. O. Box 13156
Lansing, MI   48901-3156
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