Entrepreneurial Brigadier General Leads Cyber Realm

At the Sierra Vista campus, Dean Gary Packard Jr. draws on a career in the U.S. Air Force.

Fall 2022
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Man standing with arm's crossed in front of illustration of the globe

Gary Packard, dean of UArizona’s College of Applied Science and Technology

/ Chris Richards photo

Gary Packard Jr. is as motivated as any dean could be. His goal for the cybersecurity program at the University of Arizona College of Applied Science and Technology in Sierra Vista is lofty: enhancing U.S. cybersecurity and protecting it from trolls and hackers. 
He plans to sign up the very best minds around to do it. 

Recruiting students and new faculty to CAST has become a little easier thanks to recent rankings that position the college’s programs as the best anywhere for an online cybersecurity degree. 

It also helps that Packard can talk to potential students as a retired brigadier general and a veteran pilot with military connections around the world — or as an accomplished academic and, since fall of 2020, the dean of a campus serving over 1,300 students. 

Packard often refers recruits to a Forbes magazine article noting the No. 1 ranking for the college’s online bachelor of applied science in cyber operations. The ranking comes from Academic Influence, a company that compiles rankings using artificial intelligence.

“I’m very much an entrepreneur here,” he says, “going out and finding talent.”

In the Air Force, Packard was a pilot with 3,900 flight hours, including piloting the giant KC-10 Extender, a McDonnell Douglas tanker aircraft that performs refueling operations and transport. As dean of CAST, he draws on his many connections in the Air Force and cyber industry to help place graduates in cyber operations. 

In 2016, the new CAST program in cybersecurity had just three students. In 2018, it was designated as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations by the National Security Agency. The Eller College of Management and the Engineering College also offer degree programming in cybersecurity to UArizona students.

The CAST program now has 900 students. And, Packard adds, “We have zero unemployment among our grads. And many make six figures when they get their first job.” 

The cybersecurity program uses virtual learning to teach “offensive cyber,” which Packard translates as “how to break into things, to hack things, in order to teach you to be the best defender possible. It’s really pretty cool.”

There are now, he says, up to 600,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. Filling those positions is crucial to coping with global cyberthreats to U.S. infrastructure. 

He adds that the U.S. can likely resist daily foreign assaults if we keep investing in cybersecurity. “We’ve got to get people interested in this kind of work.” 

Packard is a Michigan native and was an Air Force Academy vice dean for curriculum before coming to UArizona. He knows cyberwarfare from his years as the top manager at the academy’s Institute for Future Conflict. All that drew the UArizona search to his doorstep in 2020. 

“I looked at the vision of this college, how it was growing. This town, its future, its people — it was a place where I wanted to be part of the team and to help this college meet its potential,” he says.

Central to Sierra Vista is Fort Huachuca, but the community also wanted to invest in education back in the ’90s. UArizona agreed. Now the college fills six buildings on eight acres. Packard is the face of UArizona in the town, at the post, and with business leaders, military organizations and the mayor. “They are invested, and they want it to grow,” he says.

When Packard arrived, several faculty members from traditional disciplines voiced fears that the college would become just a cybersecurity campus. He convinced his faculty that “we are stronger when we bring disciplines together.” It worked, and his team has won funding for data literacy and cybersecurity workforce development research.

His own research — drawing on his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in developmental psychology — looks at how people form an inclusive culture. He plans to draft an inclusivity scale. 

Packard teaches a 16-week senior class in organizational leadership. One airman tunes in from Okinawa, watching on video when his military duties allow. Across the college, 56% of students are out-of-state residents, and many have military connections, including veterans. About 30% are on active duty. 

Packard, who never taught online before his experience in Sierra Vista, says, “I’m having the time of my life.”

Forming bonds with students is an essential ingredient for Packard. One former student he mentored and keeps in touch with has risen to the rank of brigadier general and wing commander. 

“That’s the kind of connection you try to make as a faculty member,” Packard says. “You can touch a student and change their life in a positive way.”

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