By Kelsey Kendall
From the culinary arts to accounting and then to cybersecurity, Gregory Wilson ’24 (M.S. ’25) has been on a winding journey with his career — but he believes it all happened for a reason.
Wilson was a chef for more than two decades, first for the Navy aboard a submarine before he went off to culinary school and traveled the country perfecting his skills, working in restaurants all over from Alaska to Nantucket. When he and his wife were expecting a baby, they decided he needed a career change. He started work on his associate degree in accounting and graduated from Tidewater Community College (TCC) in 2018.
While at TCC, he joined the computer club where he learned about Linux, a computer operating system, and worked with the Computers for Student Success program which provides refurbished donated computers to students in need.
The work he did with the club was “really neat,” he said. The accounting field? Not so much. He was looking for a position that was new and exciting, and he was having a hard time finding it after graduating.
Because he was still interested in computers, Wilson decided to transfer to Old Dominion University to study cybersecurity. By his second year, he was ready to apply for the Cyber LeADERS Scholars program, funded by the National Science Foundation’s CyberCorps Scholarship for Service. The program requires a cybersecurity internship, professional development and leadership training. Students receiving the scholarship must also work for the federal government after graduation for the same number of years the program funded their education. When Wilson applied and was accepted, it was a major win.
“That was one of the best decisions,” Wilson said. “Being with a group of people, all really wanting to learn and all really wanting to serve their country — that was my main goal for going back to school. I wanted to serve the American people in a different capacity than I did in the Navy.”
He was able to participate in internships with the University’s Brooks Crossing Innovation Lab and Valor Cybersecurity, a company based in Norfolk that porvides cybersecurity services to businesses. Wilson developed cybersecurity training camps for children through the lab and worked with clients at Valor to offer cybersecurity training and support for their businesses. It was in these roles he started to see how his diverse work experience could help him.
“There are so many aspects to cybersecurity,” Wilson said. “Every little bit of skill a person can get, it can be applied to cybersecurity. It’s been an evolving process. I’ve tried to remember those things from business and accounting and culinary arts and bring them over to where I’m at now in life.”
He took advantage of the learning opportunities he could find at ODU and was among the first students to earn a graduate certificate in AI in Cybersecurity. Back when he worked in kitchens, he was always trying to find ways to automate some systems and processes to free up his time to do more of what he enjoyed about being a chef. Wilson sees many agencies trying to do more with less, and the experience he got at the University helped lay the groundwork for the job he has today.
Now, Wilson works for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal organization that helps defend the country’s critical infrastructure. He and his team develop new processes and tools to help make work more efficient.
Of course, he still cooks, though now it is mostly for his family and for the master gardeners club he is in.