'20 under 40' Class of 2018—Joshua Cummings

Joshua Cummings, 38

Director, engineering services, VTI Security

Burnsville, Minn.

As director of engineering services for national commercial integrator VTI Security, Joshua Cummings manages a team of 18 people responsible for all of the presales design support, post-sales documentation and jurisdiction permitting.

He also heads up all of the training programs for VTI, such as training for engineering staff, field staff, and project management staff, for example, as well as bringing in customers and manufacturers for training.

“I am also part of our technology team, so I help to vet all of the new products that we are looking at taking on as a company, looking for any of the technical issues, so cybersecurity is starting to become a part of that as well,” he explained.

Cummings first started at VTI as a sales engineer, helping support the sales staff. “As the company grew, we grew the team and I worked my way up to director,” he said. He has been with VTI for 12 years now.

Prior to VTI, Cummings helped put together a security team at a structured cable company, where he spent three years on a project deploying IP video for 120 sites at a school district in a project management and engineering role.

In terms of new technology, Cummings is “interested in what AI can do for security. I'm also excited about some of the interoperability between platforms that we are starting to see, whether it is an all-in-one solution, or manufacturer's partners coming together, there is a lot of cool tech that we are seeing as a result of these partnerships.”

When it comes to finding new talent, Cummings said VTI has an entry-training program for engineers with no security experience. “So we are looking at starting them off at the ground level and training them up in our industry as opposed to going out there and finding the most experienced people for the job, which can be a challenge.”

He also just earned his CISSP certification and is part of the PSA cybersecurity committee.