As atsec information security corporation celebrates its 22nd anniversary today, many of us took a moment to reflect on the journey so far. Our good friend and former colleague, Ken, who managed projects at atsec for many years before his retirement in 2024, shared a particularly thoughtful perspective on both the company’s evolution and his own 18-year journey with us. We’re delighted that he agreed to capture those reflections in a special blog post.
As we begin our 23rd year, Ken’s words inspire us with renewed determination—to honor our roots and continue reaching for new heights.
Written by Ken Hake
Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”.
That may help explain my time with atsec. For my first encounter with atsec, I worked at a large IT firm that was partnering with atsec for the first ever Linux Common Criteria evaluations; luck played a part in my assignment to these projects, as I was prepared for the task and my employer took the opportunity for the evaluation. Not only was this the first ever Linux CC evaluation but also the first CC evaluation I would take part in. I learned so much in that time: about what it takes to comply with the CC specification, about what it takes to work with and meet the requirements of one of the Common Criteria schemes, and about Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).
When I retired from my longtime employer, what followed in my professional journey was a series of other evaluation work: I joined atsec and I took the role of project manager, eventually becoming a lab manager. Working as a lab manager comprised most of my time with atsec and it proved to be a great work experience, which I consider myself lucky to have had. That luck, of course, was born of my preparation tackling evaluations previously and seizing an opportunity to be more involved with that by joining atsec.
At that time, atsec’s US office was fairly new, so we joined our American and German teams into a hybrid team, blurring the lines between the groups in a good way. As we blended the teams, no one bothered to see a distinction between location, and collaboration via conference calls covering customer and team matters allowed us to flourish. Thus, my great fortune continued as I worked with these uber-professionals committed to the mission rather than one-upmanship. Little did I know these methods would come in handy later in the time of Covid.
We quickly found ourselves working with NIAP, the US CC scheme, as well as with BSI. Travel became another opportunity to learn as I travelled to our office in Munich (around Oktoberfest no less) and later to Common Criteria conferences in the US and Paris, as well as trips to other conferences in Ireland, Italy (twice!), and a place I consider pretty close to Paradise – Honolulu, Hawai’i. Again, what good luck to find myself in these faraway places, this luck forged from growing experience in the field and responding to atsec’s desire to broaden our horizons (as a business and as employees).
Team dynamics were – and still are! – one of our strong suits, I believe. Were we ever weighed down by stereotypes of the nationalities on the teams we merged together? Nope, all the teams in the other offices were very welcoming and eager to work together! We eventually had new teams in Stockholm, Sweden and Rome, Italy join us beside our friends in Munich. I also worked alongside our cryptography lab, and they began growing even faster than the CC Lab. As requirements from NIAP and NIST began to intersect, we were in a great position to mesh these requirements for our customers’ benefits.
Looking back, the teams at atsec were like a flock of ducks: seemingly calm but always paddling like heck beneath the water’s surface. Once the pandemic/virus made its appearance we really did not miss a beat: customer projects were handled just as before, as our operations had always been geographically scattered. We were met again with good luck, as our preparations meant we were not logically scattered.
I sometimes ask myself: why were we at atsec so successful? I think that perseverance is one of the keys to success, and one of the key principles at atsec is that we keep our focus zeroed in on CC and cryptography. We were perseverant in those aims. That was one of the reasons success came our way.
Passion for keeping the systems used by our customers and their customers safe and secure combined with the perseverance to stay focused ensured that we and our customers met with success. I believe our teams took pleasure in the work they did, and that is the surest way to perfecting the craft. Our teams enjoy exploring the depths of securing our customers’ systems, be they operating systems, database systems, communications systems and devices, or applications used by government users, banking customers, and users in the hospital/medical environments.
What more can I say to express my thanks to all in atsec for having these experiences in a work environment that I have now left? Thanks! Danke! Tack! Grazie! 谢谢! But certainly not “Good luck”, because atsec has always made its own luck through careful preparation and seizing opportunities, so I know they’ll have plenty of it.
