National Guard names Kansas native as McConnell Outstanding Airman of the Year

When Kaleigh Bevan was a kid, she didn’t know that cyber-security was a possible career path let alone that she’d be named Outstanding Airman of the Year by the Air National Guard for her work in cyber-security.

When Bevan, 22, originally from Whitewater, first enrolled at Butler Community College she was taking a class to become an Emergency Medical Technician with her sights set on become a paramedic down the line. She found out cyber-security was a major while flipping through the course manual.

“That just kind of fell in my lap,” Bevan said. “It piqued my interest because I’ve always been interested in computers.”

Bevan said she didn’t know she’d end up in the Air National Guard either.

“I knew I wanted to join the military from probably my young teens, but I wasn’t really exposed that much to the military growing up,” Bevan said. “I just knew that the military might benefit what I wanted to do so I essentially went branch shopping.”

After doing some research, she found the Air National Guard and after talking to a recruiter, she was sold. In July of 2016, Bevan joined and earlier this year, she was one of four individuals across the country recognized as Outstanding Airman of the Year. One person from each of the three tiers of the Air National Guard is picked and a fourth person is picked under special criteria.

Currently working at McConnell Air Force Base, Bevan just finished cyber-warfare cross training. Within the 184th Wing, she is assigned to the 177th Information Aggressor Squadron. Basically, Matt McCoy, public affairs officer and media coordinator said, her squadron acts as an adversary to find weaknesses.

“They replicate what the bad people do to try to get to our secured networks and all that kind of stuff,” McCoy said. “The good thing about that is that once the mission is complete, they will go back to the commanders and teach them how to strengthen those networks and those weaknesses.”

Bevan said she thinks her job is pretty unique.

“I would say it’s pretty cool to get paid by the government to hack the government,” she said.

In her spare time, Bevan is attending Friends University to continue her education in cyber-security.

“When I’m not working, school is actually a big hobby of mine. ... I know it’s lame,” Bevan said. “My life is school and work.”

Education, Bevan said, has been an important building block in her career so far.

“To be successful in any job, I’d say there’s two parts of it: one is education and one is experience,” Bevan said. “So right now, I’m getting experience in my job, but without that core education and that background, I wouldn’t be able to do my job as effectively as I think I can now that I have that.”

Bevan was home-schooled until her senior year of high school, something she said helped her become the person she is today.

“I would say it taught me self-motivation and kind of gave me the drive that I have now,” Bevan said.

While the timeline of her future is still a little uncertain, Bevan said she sees herself shifting into the private sector of cyber-security at some point. Maybe, she said, she will start a penetration testing business.

Penetration testing, also called ethical hacking, is the for-profit equivalent of what Bevan does at McConnell. Companies and organizations would ideally hire her business to find vulnerabilities in weaknesses in their networks.

“That’s one of my end goals,” Bevan said.

But that’s all a long way off, she said. For now, she’s planning to make a career of her service in the Air National Guard.

This story was originally published July 29, 2019 at 12:00 AM.