Grewing up in Elyria, Ohio, near Cleveland, West enlisted after high school. In basic training she faced many of the same tests today’s enlistees see, finding more success in some rather than others.
“I crashed every aircraft for Air Traffic Control, so I knew that wasn’t in my future, but I was a very good puzzle solver,” she said.
The skill and desire to solve problems led to a job as an intelligence analyst and became the cornerstone of her professional career, driving her to earn her commission 11 years later.
As a captain, West served a year in Iraq with the army as the communications officer for Gen. David Petreaus, the Multi-National Forces-Iraq commander, during the last half of the surge.
“I was the only Air Force on his team, and the pressure was very high,” West said. “He solidified in me the critical importance of reflecting on oneself on a daily basis.”
Serving her Airmen in the 88th Comm Squadron means preparing them for their future as cyber-Airmen.
“Our Airmen need to shift their focus, and their experience and their education into a joint cybersecurity defensive cyber operations mindset, and that’s where I’m taking our squadron,” West said.
The foundation of this movement comes in part from West’s previous assignment as 9th Communications Squadron commander at Beale Air Force Base, California, where she built the mission defense team for high altitude Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance platforms.
“Here, while a different strategy needs to occur, we, the Comm Group and Comm Squadron, are creating our plans to evolve this squadron into an active defensive cyber operations unit,” West said. “Before Predator, before Global Hawk, there was acquisitions. There was research and development. The organizations associated with this installation are designing the next generation vehicles, weapons, and capabilities. If we do not pinpoint our focus on protecting that information, then we will not have leverage as an Air Force 10 or 15 years down the line.
“The Comm Squadron focus is protecting the mission, defending the mission. We don’t have the cybersecurity measures to do that, but we have to get them there,” West said.
At the local level, that means turning each Airman, whether active-duty or civilian, into a decisionmaker, capable of critically evaluating a situation or task and choosing the best available course of action.
“I can give an ultimate objective, but I have never been the kind of leader that tells them how to do something,” West said. “It’s up to them, but we’ll walk through it together because they may not be aware of the latitude of creativity they’ve got. We have to teach them how to dare to try.”
That trust in her Airmen, based on a career of experience is what West relies on to see her squadron succeed in the face of tomorrow’s challenge-riddled cyber domain.
Getting there won’t be easy, as a shift in mission focus for the Comm Squadron will require effort and buy-in from other base-partners, including recognizing that some missions may require more support than others.
“While there are many important missions, the most critical are acquisitions, research, development, test and evaluation,” West said. “In order to secure our information, we need the motivation to set a secure foundation and we need the help from the entire installation community.”
Recently, that community help means the upgrade to Windows 10, which defeats many vulnerabilities associated with the Windows 7 platform.
“Now is the time for all of us to invest, get the secure Windows 10 foundation, then our mission defense team can move out and provide and added level of cyber security,” she said.
This early step in the growing security paradigm is an early opportunity to recognize the cyber-operations mindset West brings to the job.
“Everything I’ve done up to this point has led to this, all I have left in my career is to contribute to developing Airmen for the next generation Air Force, so when I leave, I know the Air Force is in good hands, because I know that they’re developed where the need to be,” West said.
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